Teaching
As course director:
CAS UI/UX Design, ZHdK
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- Markup basics, accessibility & SEO
- Creating responsive layouts with HTML/CSS
- Programming animations
CAS Coding for the Arts, ZHdK
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- Frontend development
- Creative Coding (plain JS, p5, three.js, Python/DrawBot)
- Generative SVG
- Hacking tools, such as Git, Regular Expressions, and the Command Line Interface.
As a guest lecturer:
- SVG Animation CAS Motion Design, ZHdK
- An Exercise in Design Systems, Motion, and AI Slop, with Raphaela Häfliger, CAS Type and Brand, ZHdK
- Basics of digital typography, CAS Fundamentals of Typography, ZHdK
- Experimental Concepts in digital typography, CAS Editorial Advanced, ZHdK
- Creative Coding with JavaScript and p5, Winter School, ZHdK.
- Creative Coding with Python and DrawBot, Summer School, ZHdK.
- Introduction into programming with Python, BA CAST, ZHdK.
- A summer course in Frontend development at Hinderling Volkhart (now Dept.)
During the pandemic I have begun recording lectures and tutorials for my students and putting them on YouTube, though most of them are not listed.
Recent Projects
- agencedevoyages.org – a website for an art gallery in paris, Kirby CMS.
- zurich.swissgo.org, a website for the Zürich Go Club.
- graphic.rodeo – a website for an NGO, raw HTML, hand-written CSS, and plain JavaScript.
- stapferhaus.ch – a website for a museum, Nuxt.js on top of a headless Craft CMS, for Stillhart Konzept.
- uiux-curriculum.c4ta.ch – an Express.js web app including a JSON-APIk for the course schedule of the CAS UI/UX Design, ZHdK.
- c4ta.ch – an Express.js web app including a JSON API for the course schedule of the CAS Coding for the Arts, ZHdK.
- Stupibot – a Discord bot that posts the number of the classroom and the day’s topic to our students’ Discord chat on school days. It also sends birthday greetings to teachers.
Earlier Work Experience
- Full-Stack developer at Stillhart Konzept
- Full-Stack developer at Beling Thoenen
- In-house designer at the NGO ’Sexual Health Zürich’ (SeGZ)
- Teaching assistant at the BA program Visual Communication, ZHdK.
- Art handler and exhibition technician at Haus Konstruktiv Zürich (Exhibitions include ’Max Bill 100’ and ’Beat Zoderer, New Tools for Old Attitudes’.
- System Administrator at Zürich University
- Dishwasher at a izakaya in Hakodate, Japan
- Waiter at a catering service for rich people
Go
- Since fall of 2025 I have returned to the European Yunguseng League.
- shikatsu.josefrenner.ch During the summer break in 2024, I translated an introductory text about standard live and death patterns from Japanese to German. However, the text quickly grew beyond its original scope because I then started to engage more deeply with the topic. An additional challenge in translation was the comparatively poor German Go vocabulary, which still lacks adequate equivalents for many fundamental terms found in Japanese. The project is on hold for the time being but might grow again in the future.
- Note to myself: Check this ladder before playing the AI-reduction of the large knight enclosure.
- Bad shapes, ranked – ‘bad shape’ is a concept often referred to and the patterns are easy to learn. But in my experience, a lot of people don’t even know half of them.
- A couple of tesuji problems for my own reading training.
- A list of japanese words I had to translate in order to read Masubuchi Tatsuko’s book 筋がよくなる18のヒント(‘18 Hints for Improving Your Suji’)
- After a slump due to being unable to take part in tournaments after becoming a father of two, I am in the process of clawing my way back to the top. Currently I am rated 2 Dan.
- You can find me most Wednesday evenings at the Zürich Go Club.
- I play online on OGS as ‘renner’ and on Fox Weiqi as ‘vasistas’.
Stuff
Education
- Night classes in letterpress printing and typography with Rudolf Barmettler at SFGZ
- Instructional training (in-house, ZHdK)
- Digital Media Art, ZHdK (including a student exchange at Future University Hakodate, Japan)
- Japanology at Zürich University, discontinued after two years but persued independently.
- Drumming and Solfège at the Luzern Jazz School.
While I teach at an educational institution, I have more often than not preferred to learn new skills on my own. Most of my hacking knowledge comes from blogs, YouTube, and man-pages.