who would have thought it?

Just finished shooting the printed versions of my Who Would Have Thought It? book illustrations. I made them while I was interning with Paul.

stop motion love.

This is a little stop motion I did to celibrate the feeling of walking on clouds. Hope it will inspire you as much as it inspired me.

i love you, diana.

Got the photos from my Diana camera back from the store today. 5 rolls of charming ugly! I'm a huge pile of love right now. Feel super-exhited about my project. My project's gonna kick ass! Better go eat something now. This is the kind of exhitement that makes me forget to eat.

color is the new b&w.

Ah, there we go. Thought this blog looked a little grey. Now it feels better. I wish this suite was mine by the way. I'm gonna miss it when I leave it back tomorrow. This picture was shot about an hour ago, on the Stanwix side of the Carlisle bridge. The air smelled like summer and the town felt very dead. Wish I had money so that I could take my enthusiasm elsewhere. Please give me a job, someone! I'll be the nicest Stingosaur you'll ever meet.

accepted.

Yesterday I found a way to be treated nicely in Carlisle; dress up in a dinosaur suite. People stopped by to talk, kids waved at me and all of a sudden it was accepted to climb a tree. About a year ago I blogged about a forest I had discovered a few minutes from my house. In the forest I found huge climbable trees and defied the rules of appropriate behavior for my age, and climbed one. Back then people shouted "freak!" at me. Wearing a dinosaur suite this time, I came across as more sane?

happy easter.

Wanted to pick up my photos from the photo store today. Was looking forward to it a lot. Only to find that most shops are closed, because a guy named Jesus died on a cross. I don't even believe in him, so why can I not have my a freakin' photos now? Stupid Jesus. As you can tell, I'm back in Carlisle, when I don't have anything cool to write about anymore. For the few couple of upcoming months I will probably complain my ass off in this blog or write stupid comments such as "I totally looooove my pyjamas". So, please bare with me. This phase will not last forever. Here is where I tell you all good night. I have to get up EARLY tomorrow (cough-cough) to shoot some dinosaurs. Have a few of them waiting in the fridge already...

i'm not done with you, nyc!

Yesterday morning I was the one to make pancakes (and by doing that also set off the fire alarm). Had breakfast in the backyard with Eva. Then we went to Central Park. I was meaning to go the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was where we said goodbye. But when I got there the sunny and warm weather screamed for me, and so I just couldn't waste a day indoors, and went to the park instead. The place was full of people enjoying the sun. It was such a perfect day. I talked to strangers, photographed old couples, random people and a girl named April with yellow flowers in her hair. I went for a Ben&Jerry ice cream and am 90% sure I saw Peter Jöback (famous Swedish musical artist). I never wanted the day to end.
But sadly it did. So I hugged everyone goodbye and packed my stuff into the homestay car. As we went through the Bronx and over the bridges to Newark Airport, New Jersey, I saw the sun set and day-dreamed about doing a real roadtrip in the States one day. Made me want to screw uni and just go roadtripping asap. I couldn't help but falling in love with this place, with New York and its surroundings, with the atmosphere. Five weeks and so many adventures; I've lived through a snowstorm without a winter jacket, I've visited a hobo's shed, I've delivered mail all over the city, I've joined Greenpeace, I've learnt how to play foosball and how to smoke a cigar. And I've met so many people; design geniuses, people who wish they were design geniuses, new friends, a hundred students, great teachers, hippies, human rotweilers, weirdos, stalkers, world record complainers, unexpected sweethearts, papparazis and Jennifer Aniston (I never actually met her, but saw her from a distance).
As I got back to Carlisle and unpacked my luggage, I realised I had forgot a few things at the homestay. Kind of like a subconscious way of saying I have to go back. As if cheesy bits of me are still in that city. I'm not done with New York. Far from it. And I'll do my best to be back as an ever better designer, kicking even more ass in a soon future. I can't wait.

to my undiscovered friends.

Today I went from the Bronx to Brooklyn, then Manhattan (where I met Pauline from my camp by coinsidence), then Staten Island, then back to Mahattan, over to Queens and back to the Bronx. 5 boroughs in one day. My favourite was Staten Island. But that's not really part of the story. The story is that I went to all of these places to deliver old-fashion mail to random mail boxes. Phonebooks doesn't exist anymore and the online version of them comes without the option of randomness, you know when you can flipp through the pages and put your finger on somebody's name. So I figured there's only one way to do it then (and the cheapest), and that is to deliver everything personally, by foot.
So, what's the deal? What did I deliver? Well, I delivered a letter with the title "To my undiscovered friend". Inside the envelope I put a bunch of creative questions, along with a hand-written letter that explained what my purpose is. I also included an envelope with a stamp and my addess on it, so that it would be easier for people to actually reply. I encouraged them to send a picture of themselves as well. Or if they don't want to do that, they can send a picture of someone they admire. The whole thing will get its own website within a week or so. It will also be material for the book I'm writing about New York at the moment. What my project is all about, is reaching out to strangers and encourage people to not be afraid of making new friends. So if you're reading this and you just discovered a letter in your mail box, congratulations - you have the chance to tell your story about New York, your life or whatever you want - and I'll make it into a great-looking book of awesomeness!

think i just became a designer.

Let me tell you about a dream I had a while ago. I dreamt that I was waiting in the lobby of Pentagram. A bunch of designers came out from a big conference room and people were applauding, they were looking slightly taller than ordinary people, and dressed nicer. The receptionist was quite stuck up and told me to stay put where I was and wait for Paula Sher. I was super nervous. Feeling like I just wanted to turn around and walk back home. Then Paula showed up, not even looking at me, saying "I don't except people coming here in pyjamas". Then I realised I was still in my pj's and just wanted to shrink into a little mouse and crawl away. Then, still in the same dream, I was by my computer updating my blog. The topic was Pentagram, but I confused it with Pentagon, which it then turned out to be. I had discovered their secret. Pentagram was a secret head quarter, like the graphic design Pentagon. And I had just been banned for life from there, for wearing pyjamas.
Anyway, I never met Paula or anyone Pentagramian this week. I did meet a whole lot of other people though. Like Dress Code who gave me this book. At some point I caught myself thinking I'm not a kid anymore. I'm not depending on grades or what teachers think about my concepts. I'm actually not a student. Because I don't call myself a student anymore. I present myself as a designer/ illustrator. So I guess I just became one, gladly prostituting my creative skills to anyone who has a job-offer.

crazy nyc.

Being in New York is like being 6 years old and buying a huge bag of candy on a Saturday (for those of you who doesn't know, Saturdays are often referred to as Candy-days in Sweden, which is a stupid rule invented by parents). Today I met Hoon Kim, a Korean graphic designer who recently started his own company called Why Not Smile. He's a very clever guy, doing a lot of architectural stuff and experiments with sound. I loved his megaphone graphics, letting "Somewhere over the rainbow" change color or shape depending on the notes the person was singing. Then I met Jennifer and Mario at Hugo&Marie. They are very young and very professional. They had a cute cat and referred me to a lot of cool places. My calender is so clottered with meetings right now, I wish I had another week here. Or like, another month, year, lifetime. It's crazy, but I love it.

tiny inventions.

So, today I went to Tiny Inventions in Brooklyn. Tiny Inventions are Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter. They are a small independant production company who do animations, short films, some illstrations and toys. They both worked at bigger firms before they decided to go indie and start something of their own, and now they have been busy working since August 2007. Ru told me that going indie is all cool and fun, but it means being busy with all kinds of things all the time, and also the government doesn't encourage animators and free-minded artist like they do in Europe. When I told her I wanted to come back here after my graduation and hopefully find some sort of job or internship, she must have thought I was coocoo. She suggested we should switch passports. The kind of stuff they're making is awesome, by the way. Most of it is for kids, but it's made in a very organic way, to look very natural and hand-made and fun. Perhaps 80% of the tiny sets they had built was made from cardboard. It started with food home delivery, which comes in cardboard boxes. Ru said that they had so many of them laying around, so why not use them and make something out of them. From what I could see in the studio, there were buildings, trees, airports, luggage pick-ups, roads, cars and offices, among other things, made out of cardboard. The characters are then made out of fabric, with mouths and eyes and various body parts photographed in millions of angles to create a 3D model out of a 2D original. Apparently it can all be done in AfterEffects. So, damn, I got really inspired by what these two are doing. Have a look at their website and check out the Davy Crockett animation, in particular. They actually made all those charkboard sequences for real in stop-motion.
And by the way, they were very nice people too.