Jan Kruse, Malte Kaune and Wiebke Schultz have been running the graphic design studio »human empire« in Hamburg since 2003. One of their main areas of activity is music, and here in particular cover design. A year ago, they moved their offices to an old shop in the Schanzenviertel area in Hamburg, where they are now using the back rooms as their design studio whilst selling CDs, records, T-shirts, sweatshirts, posters and other popular culture merchandise using their own designs in the »human empire shop« at the front. Most of their motifs derive from a friendly, peaceful and colourful fantasy world – the human empire.