{"id":97733,"date":"2026-09-04T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/?p=97733"},"modified":"2026-09-07T15:30:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:30:38","slug":"wenn-eine-farbe-zum-code-wird-warum-dieses-blau-nicht-mehr-tragbar-ist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/when-a-color-becomes-a-code-why-this-blue-is-no-longer-acceptable\/","title":{"rendered":"When a color becomes a code: Why this blue is no longer acceptable"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe are giving up our corporate color. Not because we no longer like it, but because it has come to stand for something we don\u2019t stand for. A piece about saying goodbye, taking a stand and the Germany we want to live in.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Heartbreak in blue<\/h3>

Berlin, late summer. I\u2019m sitting in front of our logo and I realize: I\u2019m attached to it. This blue was our color: trustworthy, vivid, present at every pitch and every trade show booth. Like a favorite sweater. Then the relationship started to crack. Gradually. I thought it would sort itself out. It didn\u2019t. If you constantly preach courage about the future to your clients, you can\u2019t dodge it yourself. Even if it\u2019s just a color.<\/p>

Colors are never just colors. From the very beginning, our Schaltzeit blue was Pantone Process Blue, HEX #009EE0 on the web. But in Germany, this blue has long since taken on a different meaning. Taken over by a party that hands out blue hearts, gathers votes with \u201cremigration\u201d and whose image of the future is a homeland in which many are meant to feel like strangers. The light blue in the AfD\u2019s corporate design manuals is #00A2DF, sometimes 0099ff, and the website shows #009EE0 \u2013 the usual disunity apparently prevails here. Still, it\u2019s always a similar shade. Not always the same, often as a gradient: but too close for a layperson to tell the difference.<\/p>

Blue is no longer a color. Blue is a code.<\/h3>

We don\u2019t want to be confused with that. We are a company that sees itself as part of this democracy. Open to everyone. Our mission statement is unequivocal on this: the Basic Law is our foundation, and we take a stand against any hostility to democracy.<\/p>

So we are shedding this blue. No more. No less.<\/p>

Understanding the frustration. Not the recipes.<\/h3>

We understand the frustration. When almost one in three votes in current state elections goes to a party that sees itself as an alternative to everything established, this society has lost something. Anyone who ignores that is producing the next wave of frustration along with it. But the answer is not the simple recipes that this \u201calternative\u201d proclaims. Simple solutions are tempting \u2013 and almost always wrong. Lawnmower methods \u2013 blanket cuts, blanket deportations, blanket suspicion \u2013 hit first those who are least able to resist. Punching down is not politics. It\u2019s cowardice.<\/p>

Our mission statement contains a sentence I like: We don\u2019t start fires. We make things possible. That\u2019s why: no proximity to parties that have social hardship, exclusion or \u201cGermans first\u201d in their platform. The world is diverse, and Berlin all the more so. Sorting people into good and bad? Prescribing what families should look like? Please, no.<\/p>

What we stand for<\/h3>

For strong public broadcasting.<\/strong> Not because it\u2019s perfect \u2013 it isn\u2019t \u2013 but because a democracy needs places where facts belong neither to the algorithm nor to the highest bidder. Those who want to abolish public broadcasting don\u2019t want to save money. They want the stage all to themselves.<\/p>

For participation.<\/strong> That\u2019s our craft: asking questions before we sell answers. Listening before we judge. And listening to everyone \u2013 not just the loudest. It\u2019s okay to say: we don\u2019t have the answers yet. What\u2019s not okay is replacing them with exclusion. Responsibility instead of future theater.<\/p>

For a sense of togetherness in which support is not a weakness but a strength.<\/strong> Cooperation before competition. For us, that means: anyone starting out with us doesn\u2019t have to earn trust first. A country could use more of that \u2013 especially one in which a color is becoming a camp symbol.<\/p>

One color we\u2019re happy to wear<\/h3>

And since we\u2019re talking about colors, there\u2019s one we\u2019re happy to wear: rainbow. Berlin is multicultural and tolerant, not as a slogan but as everyday life between Kiez, Kotti and the Chancellery. People with different backgrounds, different languages and self-chosen ways of life work with us. That\u2019s not a diversity tile. That\u2019s Tuesday.<\/p>

And this applies: I don\u2019t expect anyone to bare their soul. Who you are is our business only as far as you want to share it. What is our business: that you are safe here. And that you feel at home. Integration isn\u2019t a problem for us. It\u2019s everyday life. And it works \u2013 not without friction, but always when we meet people as people.<\/p>

The Germany we mean<\/h3>

A lot of things in our country aren\u2019t running perfectly. By the very nature of our profession, we are concerned with the question of what in our present deserves criticism and how things could work better in the future. Anyone who knows only one future has no choice. That\u2019s why we mean a democratic country that thinks of the future in the plural \u2013 as a space of possibility, not a threatening backdrop. By democracy, we mean shaping the future together as a society, discussing different images of the future and conceivable paths to get there. We mean a state that prepares for scenarios before it becomes necessary or even too late. A Germany that shapes developments instead of reacting. And that doesn\u2019t just allow futures thinking but leads by example.<\/p>

The blue hearts tell of a future that is a romanticized past. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD\u2019s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, wants, for the future, \u201can old, safe Germany back, the way it was in the 1990s\u201d<\/a><\/strong>. Was everything really better back then \u2013 or at least safer? We don\u2019t think so. (see facts and figures below<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>

We don\u2019t want a future built on a sugarcoated picture of the 1990s, but a way of shaping the future that has the courage to face a complex world and to work at a structural level on a society that respects the human dignity of every person, that thinks of freedom and peace together and does not work with hatred and incitement against certain social groups. And such futures don\u2019t stop at our national border. We have long been living in a dense web of global interdependencies \u2013 supply chains, climate, crises. Spaceship Earth, as Buckminster Fuller called it long before the 1990s: on our planet, we are a crew, not passengers. We want human dignity for all people, not just for the part of the crew with the right passport. We wrote down how we want to argue about such things in the Debating Spaceship<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 and at re:publica 26<\/a> <\/strong>we tried it out.<\/p>

Will this cost us contracts?<\/h3>

The question came up internally. My answer: I don\u2019t think so. And even if it does \u2013 we don\u2019t work for just anyone anyway. Yes, economic downturn. Yes, we feel it. If you take a position, you also have to live with the consequences, not just the applause.<\/p>

What matters more is that we start talking. I want all of us at Schaltzeit to get involved \u2013 not just in our mission statement, but in our calendars. Anyone who wants to get involved gets educational leave or time off from us. Whether in a club, in the neighborhood or in local politics: no one can do it alone. Neither can we. Together, maybe.<\/p>

And now?<\/h3>

We\u2019re changing our color. To #090C9B \u2013 Navy Electric \u2013 a deep midnight blue, almost ultramarine. To be honest, it hasn\u2019t warmed my heart yet. Yes, it\u2019s still blue. We won\u2019t let them take the color away from us entirely, just the shade. They can have the light blue, our trusty cyan.<\/p>

A new color is like a readjustment. And that is exactly what\u2019s in our name: Schaltzeit \u2013 the time in between, when something resets. We\u2019re in one of those moments ourselves right now. We don\u2019t want to go back.<\/p>

A small sign, I know \u2013 a color value won\u2019t save a democracy. But taking a stand starts with what you have in your own hands. Even in the smallest things. Complaining doesn\u2019t help; doing does.<\/p>

Light blue now belongs to others. What belongs to us is the question of how we want to live together. We\u2019re happy to talk about that \u2013 with you, with our clients, and also with those who voted for the blue hearts. Just not with those who have no interest in a respectful, decent exchange.<\/p>

What do you think? Write to me!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>

Yours, Andr\u00e9<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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FACTS & FIGURES <\/h6>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Fact check: how safe were the 1990s \u2013 and for whom?<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Since, as mentioned, images of the future interest us professionally, we took a closer look at what is highlighted and what is left out when politicians cite the 1990s as inspiration for shaping the future. What is there to this \u201cold, safe Germany\u201d?<\/p>

In 1993, the police registered a good 6.75 million criminal offenses<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 with around 81 million inhabitants, the highest figure the crime statistics have ever recorded. In 2024, there were 5.83 million, with a population that has since grown to around 83.5 million<\/a>.<\/strong> Fewer offenses, more inhabitants: statistically speaking, Germany is therefore safer today than in the 1990s. In the area of murder and manslaughter, too, the police crime statistics (PKS) recorded 4,230 cases in 1993 and 2,303 cases in 2024 (see the same PKS sources). What has increased in the statistics since then is aggravated assault, although part of this rise is also due to a greater willingness to report crimes. This is exactly where the blue hearts like to argue with knife attacks. However, the statistics have only recorded knife attacks separately since 2020; before that, they were invisibly absorbed into the respective offenses \u2013 mostly aggravated assault, but also robbery<\/a><\/strong> or manslaughter<\/a><\/strong>. Siegmund is right in the interview mentioned above when he says: the statistics only capture what is reported. But that applies to then as much as to now. It\u2019s not an argument for the 1990s.<\/p>

And beyond the numbers? Hoyerswerda 1991, Rostock-Lichtenhagen 1992, Solingen 1993. Marital rape: until 1997 not rape, only \u201ccoercion,\u201d sometimes \u201cbodily harm.\u201d The BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office) has only systematically analyzed intimate partner violence since 2015. Marriage equality: this freedom did not exist in our society in the 1990s, only since 2017. Instead, in the West, Section 175 remained in the penal code until 1994. The 1990s were free and safe above all for those who already belonged and conformed to certain role models. Siegmund was born in 1990. When he talks about his view of the 1990s, it is a narrative that relies on nostalgic images \u2013 not on the (political) conditions that applied at the time or on statistically recorded data on safety.<\/p>

But fear and narratives that stoke fear are faster than any statistic. The media researcher Thomas Hestermann<\/a><\/strong> counted for 2023: never before had there been so many reports on violent crime in Germany\u2019s leading media. According to police statistics, 33.3 percent of suspects in violent crimes that year were non-Germans \u2013 in the media, where origin was mentioned, the figure was 2.5 times as high. German suspects, two-thirds in the statistics, accounted for only 16 to 18 percent of the coverage. This creates a perceived reality that makes people long for the 1990s: a present that seems more dangerous than it is, and a past that seems safer than it was.<\/p>

Yet by now we have pretty good recipes for where we can take preventive action against violence in shaping the future, if we are striving for a free and safe future. Violence rarely has a single cause, but many: addiction, poverty, homelessness, social isolation, experiences of violence in childhood, flight and migration, young age, male gender \u2013 this is how the German Association for Psychiatry (DGPPN<\/a><\/strong>) summarizes it in its position paper on violence prevention. In our view, the last point also reflects outdated male role models \u2013 which are not necessarily tied to a religion or origin.<\/p>

The list is uncomfortable because it allows no simple answer. Anyone who takes a lack of prospects, isolation, poverty and untreated crises seriously as causes doesn\u2019t end up at \u201cremigration\u201d or \u201cclosing the borders,\u201d but at labor market, social and health care policy. For the first 36 months, asylum seekers are only entitled to limited medical care \u2013 psychotherapy is usually not included. This complexity sounds overwhelming. But it can also be an opportunity: many factors, many levers.<\/p>

Prevention is unspectacular, slow, structural. It hardly produces emotional headlines. Nevertheless \u2013 this is the kind of future-shaping we want to champion.<\/p>

Because that is the difference between the two images of the future: one gives the past a fresh coat of paint so that it passes as a desirable future. The other scratches off the paint and looks at what\u2019s underneath. We have clearly chosen the latter.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are giving up our corporate color. Not because we no longer like it, but because it has come to stand for something we don\u2019t stand for. A piece about saying goodbye, taking a stand and the Germany we want to live in.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":97734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[613,601,481,576,597,606,592,603,608,611,622,593,264,623,615,607,604,595,599,612,614,620,594,619,624,600,616,609,598,288,625,596,602,617,621,265,605,610,618,441,279],"ppma_author":[307],"class_list":["post-97733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gesellschaft","tag-90er-jahre","tag-afd","tag-andre-winzer","tag-berlin","tag-blau","tag-corporate-activism","tag-corporate-design","tag-demokratie","tag-demokratiefeindlichkeit","tag-diversity","tag-ehe-fuer-alle","tag-farbwechsel","tag-foresight","tag-frauenrechte","tag-gewaltpraevention","tag-grundgesetz","tag-haltung-zeigen","tag-hausfarbe","tag-hex-009ee0","tag-integration","tag-kriminalstatistik","tag-landtagswahlen","tag-markenfarbe","tag-markenidentitaet","tag-migration","tag-navy-electric","tag-nostalgie","tag-oeffentlich-rechtlicher-rundfunk","tag-pantone-process-blue","tag-partizipation","tag-rassismus","tag-rebranding","tag-rechtsextremismus","tag-rechtspopulismus","tag-remigration","tag-schaltzeit","tag-unternehmenshaltung","tag-vielfalt","tag-wertekommunikation","tag-zukunftsbilder","tag-zukunftsforschung"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":307,"user_id":17,"is_guest":0,"slug":"andrewinzersz","display_name":"Andr\u00e9 Winzer","avatar_url":"http:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-Andre-w_1920px-96x96.jpg","author_category":"","first_name":"Andr\u00e9","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":"The formal head of the company, but generally happier to dive headfirst into new challenges. His switch is set to \u201cmain\u201d, his range of action preferably to \u201csimultaneous\u201d. He passionately analyzes & interprets business models. His workshops and talks revolve around the theme of \u201cPreparing for Tomorrow\u201d. He likes to show that business models can easily be transferred to other industries."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97733"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97788,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97733\/revisions\/97788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97733"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schaltzeit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=97733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}