Rainer Otto

Creative Director | Managing Director | Diplom Designer
Head of the TV, exhibitions, and events units
Born in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1963

Rainer Otto studied Industrial Design at the Berlin University of the Arts. After graduating, he freelanced for various advertising film and photo productions as production manager and location scout. After working as a set designer for a well-known design studio that creates sets for TV shows, in 2000, he and his partner Barbara Mangelsen decided to go into business for themselves and established OM Design. The Berlin firm designs sets for TV shows, trade show booths, and costumes and provides event outfitting.

Rainer Otto has put together a team of freelancers from very diverse fields that has already realized about 400 productions of all sizes. The team has a special passion for big music productions.

For more than 10 years, the popular German TV music show “The Dome” that is shown on RTL2 four times every year has been under Rainer Otto’s care. For the last several years, he has also created sets for the German TV channel ZDF, for example, for the renowned open air summer concerts with Anna Netrebko, Placido Domingo, and Rolando Villazon (The Opera Summit). Rainer Otto was also responsible for the set design of the "Echo" music award shows in 2010 and 2011, presented by German TV channel ARD.

In the exhibition sector, Rainer Otto has, for example, designed trade show booths for the Samsung Group (CeBIT, Photokina); he and his team were responsible for creating a coporate identity-focused design solution for more than 1,000 square meters of exhibition space.

Since 2001, Rainer Otto has been a regular guest lecturer at the ARD and ZDF Media Academy.