Concept, 2026. Website, interaction, art direction, motion
RIMOWA
The grooves were not drawn for luggage. They were pressed into an aeroplane.
- Client
- RIMOWA (unsolicited)
- Year
- 2026
- Type
- Concept
- Scope
- Website, interaction, art direction, motion
- Live
- rimowa-concept.vercel.app
Brief
In 1919 the Junkers F 13 became the first airliner built entirely of metal, its skin pressed into ridges so that a thin sheet would keep its shape. In 1950 RIMOWA pressed the same ridges into an aluminium suitcase, and its slogan came to name the case by its surface alone: die Koffer mit den Rillen. RIMOWA’s own heritage page gives the story one paragraph.
Idea
Follow one surface through seven chapters and never label what is old and what is new. Every archive photograph comes from a public collection and is graded to one silver; everything RIMOWA makes today appears in colour. The interactions come from facts RIMOWA states: every lock leaves the factory at 000, the guarantee keeps the dents, and old labels go on the case.
Made
It opens on a photograph of mail being loaded into a corrugated Junkers in 1920, which develops like a print, then closes in on the fuselage until its corrugation becomes the grooves of a case. One HTML file without a framework, Lighthouse 98 for performance on a phone and 100 for accessibility. Live since 2 November 2026.
The aircraft
It opens on mail being loaded into a corrugated Junkers and follows the ridges from the wing to the case.
The groove
One surface through seven chapters. The principle is drawn, then pressed into the first grooved case, then into the monogram.
A lifetime
The last chapter is about wear: a new Original has no marks; every journey adds one.
On a phone
The same surface, upright.
The whole site
Recorded in one pass from the live page, at the pace it is meant to be read.