Tadaa!

On the rooftop

Monday wasn't a very good day, therefore I didn't have any inspirations to write anything. I had slept way to little. We had our presentation which went pretty well.

In the evening I way to late went to the printer with my information demographics. We had to re-print 5 times. It took about 2,5 hours and it was really one of those situations you feel that you don't want to be in when working as a graphic designer. I tried to look above this day with hawk eyes and realized that I have to go through some printing problems in my life, why not start this day? So I did, and I finally got happy with it.

I went home to Malin, packed my bags and took a cab to the hostel – totally worth it. It was extremely sad to know that I will not live with Malin – we got along so well. Of course we will se each other, but anyway. It was nice to find the dorm I was about to stay in was a very un-party-room with sleeping quiet girls. 'Cause this will be my study – home for three weeks. I felt like a ”bratpacker” with a lot of stuff, my own pillow and blanket, and especially the evening after this day when Niclas and I drank some wine with cheese to go with it. Not very backpacky at all. Anyway, I slept enormously good that night and back in school the next day I was ready for new briefs. When I got home to the hostel again I was curious about running in Hyde park and so I did. Beautiful place!

This is our new briefs briefly:

Studio practice: 

* Continue in our groups and work with same concept (we made a love hotel) but focus on marketing it with for example an event or something that goes well together with your brand. After that we will sketch and make mock-ups for packaging etc.

Symbols and distribution:

* In class we got an assignment. We got a document with fictional road sign names (not allowed change) where our task was to make up a “world” where this road signs would fit it's context. Since I'm really into feet for the moment, I named my world “Feetland roadsigns”.

* Also in this course, we are getting a task every week, to take 5 photos of different symbols that the teachers have talked about. For example religious symbols, clothing symbols, symbols that have changed their meaning etc. This is published on our own symbols blog. 

* What's more, we have a really tough group assignment to work on for couple of weeks. We get to chose to do an environmental course or a course for the refugee problem in Australia. We are actually going out with our campaigns, and our missions is not to make people change their minds, but to inform. I haven't really chosen subject yet but I'm leaning towards the refugees thing, since I don't know much about it and since the rest of the world is trying to do different environmental things. 

* For this we will come up with a symbol, both to represent each of our groups, but also the two winners to represent the two different subjects. 

* In the end of the whole course we will make a symbols folio with all our assignments = book

Frameworks of design (my favorite course):

* Continue on branding our selves in the design business but now head more to the visual applications of our own brand. We will design our own logo, brand repeat pattern (wallpaper), business card to be printed for real, website mock-up, example of pdf based presentation that matches our brand, portfolio briefcase. This is going to be so much fun!

Typography and context:

* Continue creating a logo for a made up publishing company. 

* In the end we are going to produce a 50 pages book about our course, our assignments and our experiences. We will need to print it and bind the book by our selves. Fun!!

Next week is called production week. We don't have any lessons and the week is not for holidays but to continue working at our projects.

Right now I am in a really good mood. I have been training the whole morning, eating and I just found a spot on the roof of the hostel where I can combine being in he sun (beautiful day) and working on my computer!! I will work until late this night, and tomorrow we have one class in Typography were the logos need to be made.

Bookbinding - Tutorial: A5 lanscape

There is a lot of ways of binding a book, and I guess that the first thing that comes up in your mind may be sewing it with needle and thread. That's a really good way I haven't learned yet. The way I'm going to show you is pretty quick and relatively cheap than letting some other company bind it. What you need o know before hand is that this make take some tries before you are happy with it, and also that you need to be really careful and picky! So, let's make a book!

You need your printed paper, included your cover. Make sure the numbering of your book is correct BEFORE you print. It is trickier than you may think. Ask your printer or google it! You also need a cutting pad, a knife, metal ruler (long one) double sided tape and card board (bendable). You also need something to make the paper fold where you can't fit with your finger (I'll show you later on). if you have hot glue, that's just a plus, but normally it's enough with double sided tape. Cut all your  spreads carefully with knife and ruler. Everything needs to be exact. Then measure and cut the hard paper according to the measurements I have posted below. 

 

Above is the tape you need to have for this. Glue the hard papers onto the cover/back (that must be one total spread and not cut). Make sure you're gluing on the right side! After this, you may want to have a nicer paper on top of everything, before you glue the spreads. Use something to make "folds" between the gaps of the "cardboard-stripes. Fold the book the way it is going to be folded, before you glue your spreads.

After cutting your spreads and made sure they're in the right order, make them even and put them between something that keeps them together. Then, start putting stripes of double sided tape to make the spreads stick together. Make sure you do this on the right side so that you are not gluing the side that is supposed to be opened i the book. When everything is done, glue it quickly! 

Finished!

If you have any questions or I forgot something, just send me a comment and I will try to explain.

Almost finished!

Tomorrow I will print it out on a really nice paper to give it the right feeling. Until then I’ll upload some illustrations I’ve made and used in the project.

From tomorrow I will live at a hostel called City resort Hostel (terrible website though), in Woolloomooloo for almost three weeks. It is so cheap that I will be able to SAVE money! I will live here until the 14th, when I move in to the new collective.

Thoughts

I am sitting in my bed thinking about this day and my new Sydney life i general. I feel free. The weather gives me the opportunity not to go home when you actually should. It invites you to dance longer, stay up longer and experience more. I have never really had the chance before to share the creativeness with other people and I have actually waited for it my whole life. It makes me so happy and even more creative being surrounded by people like me. Therefore I feel like I have found my home. Don't get scared, my lovely Swedes, but instead you don't need to be worried about me thinking about if I am happy or not. I am. I really am. The city is beautiful. Small cafes everywhere, combined with streets covered by sky scrapers. Everywhere you hear spontaneous conversations around you that just started, shared by two people who don't really even know each other. Once you walk a bit further your thoughts is suddenly interrupted by the wanna-be-song from a parrot, or a possum hanging down a tree looking into your eyes where you're sitting at Starbuck's.

I am also thinking about my Goddess party yesterday which turned out to be a totally wonderful night. Think we danced through the whole Sydney.

Friday we picked up the printout book! We were so proud of all three of us and I have just been at Eckersleys store (art supplies) buying some things to start binding our own book! I'll do that tomorrow combined with a lot of other projects.


Tonight I just slept for 4 hours and rose up like a flower or maybe not this morning to help my friend moving. Actually that became a pretty fun day combined with good company and a pizza.

Birthday

Yesterday Malin and I went to a chocolate store with everything you can imagine. After that we went to see this:

Amazing intro the first 30 minutes, then it started to get slow. Today I've been running in the park and now I'll start working. I will put my towel in the sun for a while. After that I'll meet up with my Istanbul group and we will pick up our printed stuff before we start to practice for the presentation Monday!

Assignments

Yesterday I allowed myself to do nothing and it all ended up with me and Malin laughing for hours. Between our laughs we got stuck at this website. I bet every graphic designer do that once in a while.

Today we spent the hours before lunch in the class Frameworks of Design. This weekend I started to collect all info i got from my focus group, and started to come up with some creative demographics, with my favorite theme; from the perspective of my feet. Here is a rough sketch. Right now I understand it makes no sense to you, but I want to show my process in two steps.

Draft

Small kalas for a couple of guys here in Sydney

Rest of the day I spent with my "Istanbul Love Hotel" group. We try to start wrapping up, and tomorrow our goal is to look up and send it all to print! It'll become a A5 book. Tomorrow the day is all dedicated to the Istanbul project but one hour will be with the Santa in school, having the course Finishing skills, with no pressure at all. To this class we bring our assignments and he help us finish them up. For example in a couple of weeks he told us that he will show us how to bind a book by hand!! That would be perfect to have tomorrow actually. Anyway, tomorrow, "Santa" will have tutorials with how to draw with copic markers.

I have found it!

I found a place after the worst day ever. Through a friend I got to know first week I will live in a blue house that we will make creative, inspiring and ours! I'll move in the 12th so there is a gap between the 28th of March and that date, but now I'm so happy I can't believe it! I feel so released. It's just 5 min by bike down the hill of north sydney! I AM SO HAPPY FOR THIS.

Today after school I needed a break. Just a simple break. I have worked so hard that I just sat there in front of the movie I watched smiling because I was so pleased with my blanket and the rain outside and Malin working on her assignments and I doing nothing. SO NICE.

Now I've got somewhere to live, watched a good movie and feel strong again. Nice start of the end of the evenings beginning night.

The poetry is flowing.

/ Freja, the Vampire

Process!

Symbols and Distribution - course

Hi guys!

Today it's Friday and that means I have no lessons.

Me, Niklas and Malin are invited to a huge party Saturday night, with the theme True Blood, so the first thing we did when we woke up at 12 in the middle of the day (think we needed that), Malin and I went to a really cheap second hand and bought some stuff, while Niklas's mission was our teeth.

The rest of the day I'm now spending with all my different projects, as you can see above in the movie. I really love the assignments we're getting, so don't feel sorry for me who can not go out dancing tonight. So, this Firday I'll probably spend with Malin, who's got as much work as I do, a bottle of wine, candle lights (it's started to rain), our beloved computers and some laugh.

I have spent so much time looking for a place to live so I have been a bit stressed with all the assignments, but I hope I will find an apartment to apply for tomorrow, when I'm going around town. Saturdays is the Day if you want to get an apartment.

Apartment - applying - papers, around 200

By the way, it's pretty interesting to look for an apartment too. I have met a lot of people and have probably talked in phone with half of the population in Sydney, haha. The other day I went to look at one in central, and it was a pretty nice room. I had almost decided to take it when she said; "Is it ok if three other Japaneses live here too?". The room was like 3x3 m. I got a chock and when I said that I would have wanted my own room and started backing out from the apartment, she said that she got somewhere I could sleep and study! She pointed in to a closet. No windows and maybe a meter deep, 2 meter broad and plexi glass doors in front of it all. For 260/w which is like 7300 kr per month!!!! Hahahaha I died, and went home. Said, kind as I am, that maybe this was not what I had in mind.

Ok, break is over. Now over to create a color palette for my logo idea to our Istanbul Love Hotel!

Inspiration 'n Love

This was an inspiring presentation-film that was shown to us first day at school!

My father portrayed our Love, -09

Run, run, run!

Wonderful to run in the park even though I felt like a stone.

Following projects is what I spend the whole of my days working on, from like 9.00-23.00 (to make you understand how my days look like. This is totally a lifestyle)

SYMBOLS & DISTRIBUTION
In school we are right now talking about symbols, which could be politics, warriors, clothes, well everything you could think of. One of our missions is to reflect upon these and photograph five different symbols for next week. I have already posted some things at my "Symbols-blog"

TYPOGRAPHY & CONTEXT
We are also designing three different logos for a made up publishing company called FACE Publishing. Also in this course, we are making our own typographic self portrait which I will soon post here.

FRAMEWORKS OF DESIGN
Another project, which is my favorite, is the creative demographic charts about our self. If it turn out really well I can actually use it when applying for a job = as a presentation of our selves.

STUDIO PRACTICE
Project Istanbul will be a Love Hotel for Locals :P This week we need to decide which printing agencies to use and yesterday evening I sketched at some logo ideas combined with research about their religion, culture, women, men, family life and so on. Really interesting!


Soon I'll look at an apartment before heading off to school. Still haven't found any and it's so expensive! If you pay around 6500 kr per month you barely get your own little room to sleep in! That's just too much. And living outside town will take to much time. Also, at almost every apartment you decide you want to rent, you'll have to pay a bond to secure your place, and that can be as much as a several months would be =a lot, and you don't get them back until you move out. If I can just spill out some more words about this, most re viewings of the apartments take place around the same hours of mid day only Saturdays, which means you have to have all your papers about you (everything you can think of) ready and printed in like 20 ex, and you barely have time to go from one place to another 'cause they're all spread out so that means you'll have to take a sweaty expensive cab everywhere that aligns with your plan and schedule. So, now you know what my plan is for Saturday.

This is what occupies my head these days. Hope I'll find something soon, 'cause the 28th I have to move out. Exciting days!

Time management!

Hi guys, I'm so happy to see that people are reading my blog, that makes me so motivated to continue.

When I think about it I see myself as a really good planner of my own time, but I never thought I would end up in a situation where the time management is this hard! At the same time I like that the school is trying to similate the real working life afterwards and that it will be crowded in your calender. I love the assignments and as I said before I already know that I will be learning so much from this school. I haven't reallt decided what to aim for in my future career and I hope this education will open new doors. What I pretty much know for sure is that I would love to work as a photographer, illustrator or graphic designer. Maybe I could combine the three? Well, that will show.

Today we continued with our "branding an Istanbul brand" - assignment. It all ended up with my group feeling so pressed to come up with ideas that we just sat there blank in our heads. I guess this is normal for the process of a group 'cause this made us realize that we were not happy/ didn't feel motivated with the subject we had chosen to go for = airline. It all ended up with us, a little bit late but aniway a important decission, changing subject to .....you'll see. So I better get home from school soon to start some research!

Next lesson today - Symbols and Distribution - we got an in-class assignment that will soon be posted on our so called "symbols blog" I mentioned earlier (for the teachers to check out). The assignment was to build a face, an animal, a thing from inside a house, a human movement (like a person dancing), a tree/flower and a vehicle of some kind just using following symbols (can't put in any symbols as I'n not by my own computer, but the whole thing is called a tangram: triangles in different shapes, a rectangle sort of thing with cut edges and one square shape. I'll show you later.

Need to get goin'

Sydney patterns

Lovely day

Today it was the first day of the course Typography & Context, and we got our fourth brief for this week! The course seems interesting, and I've heard that the more you know about typography, the more nerd (sry) you get. First mission; create your own self portrait only using one font and as few letters as possible. In the end of the semester we will publish our own real book with our work!

After school I went to Niclas's where we were at the gym and swam in the pool. The day ended with me meeting up with Malin at the most lovely cafe', like Amelie de Montmartre, for fish and ships and wine and laughter. On our way home we found a treasure! Some card board boxes full of someone's books! I "fyndade" 2 novels and one VERY old red book with a cutout inside that someone had probably made to hide something! With our treasures in our protective arms we went home along Glebe's road. I am exhausted and happy and sleepy. Good night, everyone!

Croatia

Pics from my life

Just bought a LOT of required expensive stuff!

Student - planning

A lot to recharge

Ongoing projects

In two days a LOT have happened, and I'll try to update it all. The sun is Autumn-shining through the open window with light Sydney-sounds at the street outside. I'm sitting at Malin's bed where I've sat since I entered the yellow door a couple of minutes ago.


STUDIO PRACTICE 
Yesterday we started with the course Studio Practice. We'll behave like we are working in a real studio and that the teacher Daniel(!) is our Creative Director, CD. We work for him but the relationship is loyal. Our first mission/brief got everyone to open their mouths and at the same time forget about it. It's too long to be submitted here, but we were more or less divided into groups of 3. All groups got a city to market with a brand. To market a whole city demands a LOT of investigations and research, especially since my group got Istanbul which we don't know a lot about. So fun! Our mission is to chose and develop a brand, could be the Airline, Bookstore, Pub etc. We haven't chosen yet, since we want to do the research first to find out what kind of areas Istanbul would need. We need to present a style guide containing Logo, Tag line & brand essence, Color palette, Primary & Secondary typeface, Applications (like t-shirt, postcards). We have to make up a time line, book meetings for printing. We will present it all in front of a couple of designers. Wow, a HUGE assignment, but so much fun. We're a group consisting of a swede, a Brazilian and a Tazmania. Today I sat four hours doing research about Istanbul and tonight we'll have a Skype meeting together.

SYMBOLS AND DISTRIBUTION

The second subject will more or less be about symbols and the manipulating power it can give. Daniel, it's like social experiments (film #2) and the well known guy Henrik Fexeus (sorry, film #1 in Swedish), extremely good at manipulating others. I went to one oh his shows a couple of weeks ago in Sweden, and it all ended up with me at stage in front of 600 people calling a friend up using my speaker. Haha, don't ask. At the lesson we got an assessment. We got to choose from an amount of symbols and put them together to depict the story told below the empty boxes. We could not use anything else or change the story, just build upon it using elements of storytelling with help from these signs.

We also got an assessment to take home with us. We need to create a blog, a simple one, for the teachers to read, where we post symbols and signs we find in our everyday life and add a little comment about it, evaluating it. We need to think as creative as possible and never use pictures from the internet. I'll start the symbols-blog tonight I think.


Today we had
FRAMEWORK OF DESIGN
where in this course it will build upon us promoting our own brand, designing our own business cards and website, everything that builds a brand. Our values, influences, personality, what we want our personal brands to stand for and express. We got two exercises in class to get in the right mood and you see them here. This course will be amazing, where one of our missions is to set up a focus group for our selves to find out about our selves from people who knows me. We need to document the focus group where I ask the questions, and after that we'll collect info and fun stuff about our selves to gather in  different demographic charts creatively planned and easily understood.We need to look for role models and market our selves. It all ends with a great presentation!

Hard to chose your business values...

Exercise

Select 8 things that have most influenced your life. These could be anything, like experiences, a book, a person, an object and so on. Place your items on the circle diagram to represent how important the item is to shaping your life. The closer the item is to the core of the circle, the more influential it is. You can represent them as words, drawings, symbols. Be creative!

This above is my demographic chart. We got 15 minutes, so I decided to provide the circle as a cut tree, symbolizing my growth in life. What the symbols symbolize I won’t tell you here at my public blog, but each insect also represents the influence I mean.

We also got a book tip: "How to be a graphic designer without loosing your soul" and I'll start reading it on my way to school when I'm not looking for signs to document.

Hope you're all all right!

Tough start!

Hi guys! I'm glad I seem to be able to learn a LOT from this school. Already got tons of paper with information and three briefs!! :D Too tired to explain more about them and the first day now so I'll do it tomorrow after day two when I'll have my first lesson in Frameworks of Design! So, catch up with you tomorrow!

Surf!

A surf teacher at a surf camp in Portugal i attended to lives at Bondi. Erik told me to call him when I get down here and I did. So, today I've got professional help, nice company, a wet suit and a board the whole day. I'm so happy and all my muscles in my body feel extremely heavy right now. I'm glad I will be here for a while to be able to almost learn this incredibly tough sport. It's amazing, when you manage to stand up. It's in fact indescribable.

Tomorrow, my school starts for real!

Lapoint surf camp, Portugal 2010, Photo: Amanda Collage: Freja

Lapoint surf camp, Portugal 2010, Photo: Amanda Collage: Freja

You

Esbjörn Hazelius - Malåberg

Om natten när jag slumrade uti min tysta säng
Jag drömde om ett ljummet hav och om en sommaräng
Om att lämna detta kalla land och vännen jag har kär
Jag ser allt uti stora världar som jag ej finner här.

Den kvällen när jag for iväg jag gick på Malåberg
Där mötte jag min älskade som snön var hennes färg
Hon sa "min käre stanna kvar mitt hjärta står I brand
Vem ska få din kärlek när du är I fjärran land?"

Hör nu mina ord min vän jag höll dig varmt och ömt
Min älskade jag måste se det landet som jag drömt
Men var mig trogen jag står fast, vid löftet jag dig gav
Min kärlek den är lika stark, uppå ett öppet hav

(Harmonica solo)

Jag längtar till min älskade och att få komma hem igen
På andra sidan oceanen väntar mig min vän
För I ditt hjärta ryms ett hav - världen I din famn
Jag drömmer om den dagen jag seglar in I Malå hamn

Så om du går på Malåberg så stanna till en stund
Där inne har den en bäck så klar där växter det en Lund
Och lärkan sjunger högt I skyn om underbara ting
Han sjunger om min älskade - jag ska alltid vara din

Today I looked at a new apartment. 

It hurt when I realized I will need to buy a new washing basket that I will not share with you. 

Bubbles

Dream. Work from Berghs

Brief: Make a typeface and present it with a film. I made a typeface with help from a coin - the shape of bubbles. Here you follow a stone falling down in a glass of water. Whilst surrounded by the bubbles you start to see hidden letters and follow them up to the surface. And then...

Lycka i FÄRG

Gay Carneval tomorrow

You are never alone in Sydney

Yesterday, the last Orientation day, we got showed around in school, and all the class rooms was named after color. That goes well with my blog name!

Yesterday I won my first prize!! There was mingle and pizza slices on the staff in the room where everybody had put up their drawings / photos covering every wall. Suddenly one of my program directors stood up on a chair and announced 5 winners that would be picked out by him walking around in the class room. The winner's prizes was a book with different design work, made by students at Billy Blue, really just full of inspiration. Suddenly he asked "who i Freja, here?", I turned around and won the price! He looked me into the eyes and said, "Freja, your photographs are really, really good". I celebratd with a huge pizza slice after that.

around 14, I and Niklas sat down starting looking for apartments. We sat in 4,5 hours with finally one "date" each the same evening, 20. He found a great one and will now stay there until the end of march while mine was dark and not very clean. Didn't take it. Not inspiring för fem öre.

After that I went with Niklas to an AMAZINGLY cozy bar and met up with another swede we met in the class room before. We had a really great time but Niklas had to go starting moving in already. There was a huge group of swedes there where one was named Freja! Suddenly I just stood there realizing I didn't know any one of the people around me, and I felt so calm in my self, so relaxed and happy. That just hit me.

Today, Friday, we have the day off. I could borrow my room mate's surf board, so I'm heading off right now to Manly beach (need to take ferry), meeting up with Niklas and Martin.

On my way home, after having different conversations with different people everywhere, like the bus driver, at the train, in food store, with a guard and in a line to the bus, I realized it will be hard to find moments of loneliness in the city of Sydney.

I'm ALIVE

I feel so much alive and Billy Blue is so RIGHT. I feel free, happy and strong and I'm creating my own paths and getting to know different people.

Thursday is last orientation week, then it really starts Monday. I'm so up for it. I'm really motivated.

Here are some of my steps to school. Will show you more later.

This is my work from Wendy's garden at the Billy Blue wall, where I chose the drawing in the top (bad mobile - picture of it though) motive for it's similarities with Pettson , the rest just goes under the theme Pattern. Unfortunately I couldn't make the color printer work, so they're B&W, but the patterns is still there.

Steel room

After school I bought an essential graphic design student towel for getting clean, and then I headed to Jackson Ainsworth and his sister Lucy’s Art Gallery opening, where they let designers and artists put their work out in public for free. I’m very proud of both of them, and for meeting up with Jackson’s family. Jackson attended the same class as I in the Berghs semester, before continuing on Billy Blue.

Then I said bye to My, or no, See you later. You are a true sunlight in my life, girl <3

What an intro!

 

My Billy Blue day started in a blue room full of excited new students. When you entered the door you were given a plastic pipe in a certain colour. Suddenly a guy entered the stage wearing sweat pants. He was joined by a guy really good at bongo drums and this all ended up with all students hitting our different coloured and different thickness/length - pipes against our hands to make a sound. It was AMAZING and it sounded like an orchestra of beautiful tones accompanied with the drums! We played for almost 20 minutes and everybody was totally sweaty and happy and laughing and whistling. The guy lifted for example the pipe in yellow and all people with a yellow pipe were told to hit in a certain rhythm and all the time different combinations. He was amazing at leading this drum concert. Daniel, you should have loved this rhythms!

After that we got this;

The assignment of today, you didn't need to follow these "rules", you should just be creative, they said

I have recently bought a painting pad, Quill,"Visual art diary" A4, some Moleskine books thanks to Daniel, and 6 pencils

We watched a short very beautiful documentary about Wendy before heading towards "her" garden. It was like a hidden spot in a hill situated beautifully before Harbour Bridge. I started talking to a nice guy in our group I thought was Australian and he thought I was Brazilian until we realised we were both Swedes. Ha. It ended up with us staying and taking photos in the garden, talking and drawing a long time after everybody left. WE MET WENDY IN THE GARDEN. What a garden!! And what a day. Tomorrow we'll meet 10 for info about everything you can inform about and after lunch we will show everybody our drawings and photos.

Student card - art stores

My pale student card with expiry date forever

 

Strange animal (possum?) that was saved by the garden man. It was shaking and scared and just a sorry animal. But very cute.

Tomorrow's mission is to create an Australian bank (this one's good for students) account and meet My before she go home! 'Night!