I love product design. Lately I’ve even developed a taste for the design of lamps. I want the light surrounding me to also be aesthetically pleasing.

While surfing the internet I found a guy who designs light. Constantin Wortmann, Büro für Form.

He designed Liquid Light. And it looks simply amazing:

It’s a family of lamps, so take a look at the whole series.

I was going to write a post about the new posten identity, but I’ve changed my mind so incredibly many times since I started writing it, I’m not sure what to say anymore. I quite like the identity, but the logo and website are boring. Find someone else to feed you with meanings for now.

I’m more for pushing music. And by music I mean stuff that goes “beep, pop, boing, boom, tchak, blirriririrup!” etc.. A band that has made me happy plenty of times in the past with songs like “smile” and “destroy the popollution”.

Binärpilot. Go. Listen. Love.

Nadia out.

Ok, I admit it, I’m a lister. And in these hectic days of moving to Oslo, starting a new job and stuff, there’s definitely things to do to make life in a new place a bit easier. At least for me.

• Make a wishlist for stuff you need/want for your apartment (mine mostly consists of furniture and gollywogs now).
• Go to a concert with a band you’ve hardly heard of before (White Lord Jesus turned out to be an amazing surprise AND I got a free CD).
• Bring extra shoes everywhere, especially if your primary pair is slightly uncomfortable after a couple hours on your feet. Chances are you’ll walk a lot.
• Invite people over for food, even if you have to sit on the floor. Floor just adds to the charm.
• Eat something new, try new places, explore your culinary taste. You’ll probably find out about food you didn’t know you liked.
• Bring a book in your bag. You never know if you’ll be sitting down for ages, or if you’ll need a break. Books tend to shorten down on the boredom scale.
• Learn the shortest route home from as many places as possible, and know where the nearest bus/tram stops and where it goes.
• Dress in new ways. No one knows you, they might not recognise you again and you just might find a new style to wear. Experiment!
• Work out. You’ll feel better and you might actually get to know someone while you’re at it.
• If all else fails: Turn your stereo on full blast and dance around your apartment. Who cares if you feel silly? Pull your curtains shut and dance naked if you feel like it!

So, lately I have discovered this graphic novel called Cable & Deadpool. What can I say? It’s Marvel, and I used to be more the one for DC Comics. Cable & Deadpool reigns in pretty much the same world as the X-Men, with some appearances by the X-Men themselves. It’s silly, hillarious, crazy, full of action and has a great deal of good fun. Saying more about the comic will be giving away too much for someone who wants people to read more comics.

So why am I mentioning the comic if I don’t want to talk about it? Well, see, it’s the X-men thing. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is on its way.

Someone showed me this blog post earlier, “Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine“, it said. And guess what: IMDB confirms! Ryan Reynolds did play the part as Deadpool, and the film is due to be released in 2009. I haven’t been this psyched about hearing someone doing a part in a film since I heard Heath Ledger was going to play the Joker in The Dark Knight.

These last three years I’ve been living in Bournemouth, UK while doing a BA(hons) in Graphic Design. As I am originally a Norwegian, this was a big move. And from such moves (and that thing about actually going to uni) you learn stuff. Here’s a quick bulletpointed summary of my learnings:

About design:

• Keep it simple. No one enjoys a bunch of waffle. If it doesn’t add anything, take it away.
• Understand your typography. (mmmmm, typography)
• Your solution is usually right there in front of your nose mocking you.
• Keep things relevant. (What? I can’t have flying cars in an ad about ancient history? OH MY GOD!)
• There are always a bunch of people who claim to know your job better than you. Obviously that’s why you’ve got that super-fancy and expensive education and they don’t. Show some modesty and don’t laugh until they’re gone. Really, they might be valuable clients. Just…correct them gently.
• There’s no better way of coming up with new swearwords than to try a new software and/or technique. You’ll also get way more creative by doing this in a place where obscenities are a strict “no”.
• Stay true, man! Clever design is just that - clever. It’s easily recognisable, and people will appreciate you more if you’re just honest (and what’s more clever than being honest?)
• Get help when you need it. There’s no reason for you to drag out the length of a project just because you need to read up on html. Get an expert to do that thing you kinda don’t know how to do for you.
• Work, work, work, research, work, research, work, work. Don’t burn yourself totally out, but be prepared that your best designs won’t come until the last minute, and especially not until two days later than you really should get it.
• Deliver on time.
• Your client may be an ignorant arse with no eyes for anything but comic sans with a huge clip-art, but he’s your ignorant arse with no eyes for anything but comic sans with a huge clip-art. First you make exactly what they’re asking for, then you make a new version with your improvements. That way they can do the selective thinking for themselves, and you’re giving them a chance without sounding like a total dickwad.
• …wich brings me to this point: DON’T BE A PRICK! You don’t know everything. You’re not the best designer in the world. Your own taste should not dictate your clients choices.
• Consider colourways. Black and white may be exciting for that low-profile cheap thing you’re doing for that organisation, but it’s not for everyone. Learn your colours.

About life:

• Like it or not: It goes on.

web10.nu, my webhost, has had some problems with their mySQL-servers Sunday and Monday 6th and 7th July. Because of this, they managed to lose all info from me on their servers. Luckily, I had backup of most of it, so most of the content here has been revived. There are a couple posts I forgot doing backups of, however, but they are not that important anyway. The layout and wordpress files had a local copy on my harddrive, so they managed to get back online quite painlessly.

I was going to do an update today (Monday 7th July), but because of the server being down and me having to find the old posts, the new post can wait until tomorrow or something.

Hope you’re all enjoying your summer.

And in case I’m lucky: If anyone knows about anyone needing a typographer/publishing designer in or around Oslo, please let me know.

For today I could have written about the upcoming Diablo 3 and how “we all thought that would be the big announcement from Blizzard this weekend”, but I won’t. It’s a cheap shot and everyone knows that anyone slightly into games (and specially the slightly older ones to the ancient ones) are really looking forward to it. Let’s just hope for the best on that one, shall we?

Now, what I want to show you today is still related to the gaming industry. More specifically the console gaming industry. I’m talking about this snazzy little piece of advertising:

Bigger resolution found here.

There are a lot of things to say about this one. It’s simple, have a clear message and it has a fun view on the subject matter. What more could you need?

Everyone should know the reference, it is very clear that it is about gaming, and it advertises the product in a well manner without actually showing it. In the bigger version you can see the logo, but it is still not big and demanding and it doesn’t shout “HEY! LOOK AT US!”

In case you didn’t know, the advertisement is for the Playstation 3.

The ad is done by TBWA Chiat Day.

this article.

It’s about this school in Rhode Island who has microchipped their student schoolbags using RFID. These are kid on some kind of lower-stage education. Don’t really know the age, but I guess it’s regular schoolkids-age in the US. They get lunch in school and their parents are allowed to check their attendance records and what they eat for lunch, so not too old, I guess.

Anyway. This pilot programme is about tracking the kids in and around campus and on the school bus using these chips. Why? So that the parents can have better control of where their lovelies are. And then there’s the school knowing where a kids backpack is, so they might be able to find the sweetie who skips class (unless mentioned sweetie “forgot” or hid his or her backpack somewhere).

The whole thing was funded by some company, so for some reason, the ethical people didn’t look at the case.

So, why am I telling you about this? I’m not an American. I’m not a parent. I don’t have any close relatives in primary schools in the US and especially not in Rhode Island. It ever so often happen that I realise I couldn’t care less about kids and what’s going on around then when you think politics-wise. However, cases like this might in some part of the future wander over to Europe and grow in a bigger scale so more scary people than parents can track the individual. But that isn’t really my main thought either.

Some of you guys know about my *uhm* past in certain christian circles. In these circles, as in all other parts of society, there are stories. These stories are mainly a symbol of something usually relating to God. This case reminded me of one of them. Not because of the God-aspect, but because of the actual story.

The story always comes from a parent. And it’s really about why humans have a free will and are able to sin (because a perfect God wouldn’t really be stupid enough to make imperfect people? So surely, God can’t exist, because there’s so many sins and bad stuff happening in the world?).

Well, put it this way: You can have a kid who’s programmed just right. He wakes up a while before school and eats breakfast and does his stuff before going on the bus. When he gets to school, he will attend all classes perfectly and only speak when spoken to and do his tasks and chores. When school is over, he gets on the bus and goes straight home and tells you he loves you, as you programmed him to.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Or: You could have a kid who’s not programmed in any way. He may be a bit grumpy in the morning, but you’ll get him on the bus. In school he might not be absolutely perfect, but he’s generally a good kid and goes to the classes he’s supposed to. He might speak out of turn at times, or not do his tasks and chores properly all the time, but he’s among the best kid in his class. When school is done, he gets on the bus, and then he might get distracted by some pretty flowers in the ditch on the way home and decide to pick them because they are so pretty he wants to give them to his mum/dad. And then he gets home a tiny bit too late, but he tells you he’r really sorry and he picked these nice flowers for you because you’re the best mum/dad ever.

The chip is kinda like this. By allowing someone to put a tracking device on your child, you’re enabling a possible threat. “I will know when you get off the bus or if you skip school or if you even get on the bus, so don’t you dare lying to me”. Isn’t childhood about learning how to make people trust you and how to trust people? Sure, you’ll have a better idea of where your kids are, but wouldn’t it be nicer to have a kid doing what they’re supposed to do and what you want them to do because they want to and not because they know you’ll know the moment they screw up?

In the christian story, God would rather have a human being who is capable of making their own choices rather than robots who do what they are supposed to do. Most parents I know would agree most of the time (by most of the time, I of course mean whenever their kid’s not being a brat/breaking things/something really negative).

Sure, if I had a kid, it would be nice always knowing where said kid is. And while I’m thinking about tracking technology it would also be nice always knowing where my boyfriend is, where my mates are (you know, in case I want to hang out), where my family is (especially certain family members) etc… When I get a job it might also be good always knowing where my clients and coworkers are. Because, you know, phone and e-mail simply isn’t enough.

My point is: I do not believe a tracking system such as these chips are the best way of letting the parents monitor the kids school experience. Hell, in my days, my parents would get an occasional letter from the teacher, a letter asking them if I wanted milk for my lunch and invitations to parents meetings, where all the other parents would come talk to my teachers and small meetings including my class teacher, my parents and me. That’s quite a lot just there, don’t you think? If I did tests, they would also get my results.

Now, this was in Norway and not the US, but I can find no reasons for this to be continent-specific. I mean, we’ve got coke, McDonalds and a bunch of US products and brands over here. And, besides, 1984 seems to come closer and closer every time I decide to actually read an article. Stop it, world, it’s not good for my brain.

So, everything’s a bit centered around me today. Why? Well, during this weekend I have not only redesigned my website, I have also redesigned my portfolio boards and CV. Now I just need to recreate a box I made a few weeks ago (gah, trip to the printers, that is) and everything’s good for our exhibition.

If you want to have a look:
website
portfolio boards
CV

The image above in this post, by the way, is a photography of me and Gard Helset, the creator of Wyyrd, at the beach after building sand castles. The cards I’m holding can be found on my website and in my portfolio. The photographer in this shoot is Eva Feldmann.