a very tiny book.

Just made this tiny little mock-up of my upcoming book. So far it's rough experiments put together. But hopefully, by working with the crazy speed that I've had for the last couple of weeks, it will be shiny gold making-evil-people-cry beautiful when it's completely finished.

cre-active.

Time's 00.30 and I'm cre-active (actively creative). Picked up new photos today. Had to have fun with them. Can't go to sleep otherwise!

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.

damn google maps.

Tried to get out to Montauk yesterday. Got the directions from Google Maps, but didn't pay attention to what I was writing down. I was not supposed to get off at Stillwell Ave, just go in that direction and get off at 59th steet, to transfer to the E line. Typical me. Stillwell Ave is Coney Island. But I wanted to go to a beach, and Coney Island has a huge beach, so it was okay. It rained a little and there was a melancholic mist hanging over the place though. Felt pretty shitty. A shitty waste of a weekend. Got some semi-cool pictures though.
Today I didn't do much. The peak of the day was dropping by the studio to pick up my portfolio, hang out with Paul and Sebastian and see Jan Wilker beat Paul in foosball. Tomorrow I'm gonna go meet Tiny Inventions. More info about them will be the subject of tomorrow...

last day at the office of paul sahre.

Had a dream about dinosaurs. Took the train as always and recognised a fat woman with crocked eyes, the only person I've been able to recognise in the subway during my 4 week stay. Then went to the office for my last day of the internship. Kicked Sebastian's ass in foosball, then he kicked my ass. We photographed post-its for a New York Times piece about silent riots. Singing "We're not gonna take it" all day. Saw a really funny youtube clip. Then photographed a typewriter. Met a huge group of visiting Yale students who were awesome. Then went for 2 dollar pizza. Realised I had worked on about 10 projects in total during my internship. Then I showed my shitty portfolio. Felt like a Stingosaur about not spending more than a month at the office and other bad choices I've made. Then we all went to a Korean place for some Bibimbop and Kimshi. It was great. Korean stuff is just the best. Then we went to a cigar place around the corner. Went super macho, feeling very manly (even though I smoked a citrus girly cigar). Can you imagine - smoking a cigar and watching a basketball game on tv, in a place full of men. I was so not cool and I didn't even try to. I'm probably never gonna be cool. Saying goodbye sucks and probably makes me even more uncool, so I decided I would come by the studio next week to bug the guys and the new intern. I just hate leaving. Like, real freakin' hate it to death. I want to kill leaving.

whatsoever things are true.

Went to a student exhibition at Cooper Union tonight, called Whatsoever Things Are True. I was impressed. Thought student my age, at my level, only did one book, perhaps a cd cover, or an identity and some posters for their final major project - tops (at least that's the world I come from). But no. These Cooper kids are insane. Four students managed to fill an entire room full of clever, amazing pieces of art. Books, zines, t-shirts, posters, photographs, sketches, drawings, random charts of things. And all of it had been produced pretty much since September. It wasn't lame, lazy and meaningless graphic design bullshit, as you would have expected if you put ordinary design students in a room and forced them to create a large amount of awesomeness in a short time. A lot of the stuff that they showed had freakin' awesome content. I loved the book about angry notes that people leave behind to co-workers, flat-mates and general people doing generally pain-in-the-ass things. I also loved the chart showing the romantic relations of the O.C. And of course I loved the dinosaur influence, made by Rachel Matts, an ex intern of Paul's. It just made me beat myself up a bit more for not knowing about Cooper Union before I wasted 3 effing years in the a-hole of Britain. Getting accepted to Cooper is dificult however, since it's for free and all, it's like getting the Nobel Price for Graphic Design.

things are not what it seems.

I woke up with pancakes for breakfast. Then took the green line downtown, which goes above ground until it reaches Manhattan. I took some pictures of my hood The Bronx, yo yo! Got off the train at a random place, where I saw a smaller version of Statue of Liberty. Turned out to be the Yankee Stadium. Saw some baseball players and walked around the area. Met a lady named Anna, who was Puerto Rican and very catholic. But she was very nice and normal and a super-good antidote to my fear for hispanics. If you strip away that she was catholic and this and that, she could have been anything, Chineese, Swedish, African, whatever. And that is true with a lot of people here. Prejudement is something I battle with everyday, and am mostly proven wrong. The people with dirty cloths might be millionairs, the black young guy might listen to country music, and far from all hispanics are conmen. That's why I love to speak with people here, because they are always much nicer than what I expect when I start talking to them. It's my favourite thing about New York.
I also like Central Park a lot, so I went there again, to take hundreds of photos. Went to Strawberry Feilds, listened to a band play Beatles songs, and was once again let down by how small everything is in reality compared to what you think it is, just because it's famous. The John Lennon "Imagine" mosaic was not big at all. But the place had a good atmosphere and all kinds of people showed their respect to their hero by leaving flowers and posing with signs saying "salut, brother".
I was very tired today. Have been walking and walking and walking, staying up late, and working 24/7 for quite some time now, but I wanted to go to the UN building, so I took a lazy train down there. It was full of crap of course, nothing special at all. You can see the reflection in the picture. The famous statue of the tied gun was outside, and I almost laughed when I saw it. Damn, I thought the thing was going to be huge, but it was not bigger than 1 meter. So lame!
After that I just wanted to go home, home, home to the house. Stood waiting for the V train for about 15 minutes. The street performer at that platform, an American Idol-wannabe who sounded like a 12 year old Michael Jackson, saw that I was waiting for a long time and called out in the microphone that "V trains don't run on weekends". Embarrassing. That was my day. Now I'm gonna sleep. Good night!

bob, carl, ralph & jody.

Today has been one of those crazy weird days, like you just don't know what will happen. I woke up quite late and the house was empty. I went out and it looked warm and sunny, but it was actually quite cold. I took the train with Bob Dylan down to 59th street and started walking towards uptown in Central Park, listening to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in particular. The jogging people in the park seemed to move in pace with this song, and in harmony with everything Dylan. Perhaps it takes an experiences overseas to appreciate this man. He grows on me. He's perfect with the New York backdrop. After walking by a lake and a tower, I felt hungry, and had a free Granola bar from two guys in cowboy hats. Shortly after that I was offered an escort around the park, from a slurred helmet guy, who warned me about evil squirrels. "Sometimes they bite, sometimes they don't. You never know, so you should stay away from them and be careful. It's dangerous here". I decided I probably could handle squirrels on my own.
As I continued my walk through the park, I met a black man named Carl who didn't like Obama. Said he preferred Bush. Carl liked to sing but didn't have any favourite song. About two minutes later I sat down next to a man reading important papers on a bench. Turned out he was Ralph Charell, author of "How I turn ordinary complaints into thousands of dollars", among other books (he's in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the man who complaints the most in the world). He started off by saying he was pretty much the inventor of rollerblades and was now re-inventing the wheel. He also said he had an IQ of 140. Talking with Ralph must have been the most random conversation I've ever had. We talked for about an hour about everything between WW2 heroes, actor-friends getting their heads chopped off by a helicopter, Doris Days (who sang "Que Sera, Sera") to how to be banned from match.com for life and how to be a pain-in-the-ass intern. He gave me some awesome advice for my book, sort of like a really great, unexpected, bonus tutorial. Kind of perfect. Kind of what I needed. Kind of wow. Way cool.
As I made my way back home, my amazement for this city didn't seem to stop. Going down the subway I saw a woman, dressed like Minnie Mouse, without wearing the head, emptying a garbage-bin. Minnie Mouse is hispanish. That was an unexpected chock, a little freaky I must say. That sight might give me nightmares.
Then I had a craving for sugar and decided to buy a Snickers bar. The woman in the news stand was really sweet. Her name was Jody and she had a very non-big city charisma, kind of like a sweet little flower in a junkyard. When I asked if I could take her picture she looked around as if I had asked somebody else. But since there was nobody else there, it must have been her. So she said yes, adding quickly that she was from India.

everything needs a skeleton.

When I think about it, I realise that everything in my life is depending on structure, some sort of skeleton. In the morning I'd do portraits of strangers in secret, and I'd start off by doing the rough anatomic lines of the person's body-shape and posture, with a graphite pen, before I add the permanent lines. That's one structure. The other is knowing how to do my work. I need to know how to research, then brainstorm, then be able to tell another person about my ideas, then do them quickly. And by doing, I need a whole other set of structures. I need to know how programs work, I need to know about typography and how things sit well together. Even though the life of a creative person is influenced by loving what you do and have fun and all that, I would be pretty lost if I didn't have some sort of spine at least. I hate when people say that graphic design is their passion. For me it's like having a needy boyfriend. You love him extremely much only sometimes, but a lot of the time he's just asking for things from you and don't give much back. I'm not saying that graphic design should be fossil boring, only that it can be what holds together things in your life. I don't always love it, but it is my skeleton.

observing, listening, doing, learning, no sleep.

Time certainly flies here in New York. But at the same time it feels like I've been living here forever. It's a strange world that fits somehow. I catch myself by trying to absorb as much as my eyes, ears and brain can handle, without actually feeling it. It's like I don't have time to. I write, photograph, draw, record all the freakin' time. It's a little bit like living in a constant creative bubble. I wish I could be more human and a little less robotic. It's just that I worry about a million things. Will I gather enough things for my final major project? Will I do a good job at the office? When I get the chance to actually talk to people, is the only time when I can really relax and stop worrying.
Meeting people here is at first a little bit like a competition. The one who says "nice to meet you" or "how are you" or "have a good day" wins. I'm always confused about the "how are you" part. Being Swedish, I've been brought up to answer such a question. Because to me it is a question. And I will probably be honest and say that I have a fucking back-pain and probably stayed up a little too late last night. I know you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to say "good thanks, how about you" even though you feel like shit. But I don't care, I'm Swedish and act in the polite manner that I've been brought up with. Talking to people is probably the best thing about being here.
This is corny, but New York is not only the bricks and concrete and tourist attractions, it's the people who live here. Each morning, when I'm on the subway train, I wonder what would happen if the train suddenly stopped, got lost in the middle of nowhere, got stuck underground. Would people start to get to know each other? Are there potential best friends riding the same train as me right now? Or will we start eating each other when the food runs out?
I never thought about things like these in Carlisle. Being in Carlisle for 2,5 years is like being braindead. The air and the water sort of soaks your skin and hair with undefined messiness. The sounds from the city are constantly on your nerves just by being there. And the guilt for not doing your school work is the peak of all horrible emotions, that when baked together you have an aweful cake of "I hate myself for letting me be here". I didn't quite understand how stupid that city made me feel until I came to New York. Here I can't switch my brain off.
I'm probably naive and young and full of "I'm gonna save the world"-crap, but I've been an adventurer for quite some time now, and I must say that I've never been so productive as I am now. Being naive or not, New York is like a free night at a 5 star hotel for a hobo, like speed to a sloth, like extra lifeboats on Titanic. It's a huge freakin' bonus every day to actually learn something. To wake up and look for a pen and piece of paper, just to write down some ideas. Even such a thing to want to wake up, that is huge. I wish I could press a record button in my head that could catch my thoughts on tape, edit everything I see into a collage of inspiration, that I could watch when I get back to England. I'm trying my hardest to be close to that, but part of me just wants to have a life, experience this city and love everything about it. Maybe I should put that into my calendar; love New York City today.

weird weird weird.

I took this picture across the street from the studio one morning. I think it's hilarious. I've never seen this kind of candy. The fish is not freakin' Swedish, dammit! That's weird.
Also, I think it's hilarious that "Important Artifacts and Personal Property" by Leanne Shapton is going to be made into film, starring Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. Paul, if you're reading this, I'll tell you again that you should put it on your website. For those of you who have no idea of what I'm talking about, go to this page. The fictitious man in the book is played by Paul in the photos in the book. Now, the novel has been bought by Paramount Pictures to be made into a movie, and Paul's character is going to be played by Brad Pitt. In other words; Paul will be played by Brad Pitt. That was the laugh of the day. When will Angelina Jolie play me in "Att Lida eller Elida", I wonder?
Other weird stuff that happened in New York was St Patrick's Day yersterday. I saw a bunch of Scottish-looking men, playing pipes, who probably thought they were Irish somehow, and wore very green cloths. There was some kind of parade somewhere near Central Park, but I missed it. Down at 14th street, you could only see the green, drunk students.

As I took a detour from the office on my way home, I accidentally walked to the Flat Iron building. I was standing there, looking up at it, drawing visual parallells, but didn't quite get the wow-factor and therefor felt a little puzzled. But when I asked, it turned out I was right. The Flat Iron building was the first skyscraper in New York, and at the time also the highest building in the world. And I just walked right past it. That's weird.

miss you.

Mickis and Rush-Brush, I miss you!