I just got back from my final presentation for the User Centred Design Studio class. As I've mentioned earlier, my concept involved taking photos of Melbourne where I captured certain colours and creating a map from that. With these elemants I created a little booklet that comes in a case, with some complementary postcards. The postcards were supposed to be printed with a slogan in clear vanish, e.g no ink - but a glossy effect. It was an absolute nightmare to discover this morning that the printers, who were supposed to do the job, had messed it up and printed the thing in white. Since I had no time to fix it, I had to simply go with it. My heart felt heavy like a stone as I entered the classroom. I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to final presentations. If it's not perfect and out of my control I feel like shit. Of course there was nothing I could do but to go on with my presentation. And yeah, it went pretty well. Very well actually. I had thought of my work as rather crappy when it wasn't perfect. But when I had finished the presentation I realised that had actually done everything I could do and should have done. And from other people's comments it was actually pretty damn good. So maybe I can sleep well tonight, knowing that I did a good job.
Looki looki! This is my group's final brouchure for Information Design class. This brochure takes you through three kinds of dates in Prahran (the area where Swinburne is located, and a lot of hipsters hang out). You can chose to take the Anniversary Date route, the First Date route, or the Desperate Date route. The last one is the kind of date that someone may have set you up on, and you simply just want to escape it. So, in this little guide, we explain just how you can do that. Aren't we just aweful...
Having dislocated my knee-cap a few weeks ago, I'm off ballet for about 6 weeks to recover. Excuse the language, but it f***ing sucks! I miss it a lot...
Just thought I'd share this little clip with you, folks. I saw it for the first time a few months ago, but I keep coming back and watch it from time to time. Simply because I think it's so genius. Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) is f***ing awesome.
I saw this documentary a little while ago. It's about a Melbourne jazz musician who travels to Korea to learn about rhythm and music, from a completely different view point than what we Westerners usually do. I found it very interesting and inspiring, I definitely recommend it.
These are a couple of illustrations I've done for my Print class assignment. The dude in the pictures is Stephen Baynes, an Australian choreographer, who is the reason for the event that I'm "promoting" in my project. I created this illustration by tracing a photo of Baynes, then tracing the tracing with a fine-liner, then tracing the outlines in the fine-liner tracing. And the rest is Photoshop magic.
Here are some first roughs of how things may look like in my event brochure assignment for Print Technology class. The photos in these collage illustrations were taken by Rasmus Malstroem and the typeface I've used is called Machi (mmm, love it - and it was on sale, how awesome is that!). The whole layout will be based on the lines from this typeface, and is also the guides I've used to cut these images up.
Just came across this video of Mark Ronson's song "Somebody to love me" featuring Boy George. The whole video is shot as a home/on tour-video set in 1982. Diane Kruger portrays Boy George. Pretty well I must say. It's very hipster, but a fun concept nonetheless.
I've been around in Melbourne to capture the colours of this wonderful city for a uni project. Yesterday I went to the Yarra river and Chapel Street. Today I've been to the CBD and St Kilda. Coming up next is Oakleigh, Box Hill, Chinatown, Docklands, Fitzroy, Flinders Lane etc. These photos are just some first roughs of how things may look like, but for now just experiments...
Got a new project today. We're making maps of a chosen train or tram line through Prahran (the suburb where our campus is located). This brief made me think of a video by The Bedroom Philosopher, who's singing about the 86 tram in Northcote (a cool area in here Melbourne). I just thought I'd show you, because I love hipster-related humour, can't get enough of it.
I have a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd just show you what sort of stuff they get me to work on here at Swinburne. These examples are for the Technology for Print class, and this assignment's aim is to create a shelf wobbler for a product. I choose fresh pasta (because I love it so much) and this is what I'm gonna show to class today.
Have been sick with a tummy virus for the last couple of days and spent yesterday entirely in bed. Which meant that I missed class, something that reminded me about being 7 and being upset about being sick from school for the first time. Good thing that uni has Blackboard, an online platform where most things from class and other discussions are available. Apparently, last night, they had been watching this video of Sean Adams. I found it pretty interesting and thought I might share it with you. Enjoy!
Well, just because I'm an Academy Award freak (I sort of have a database of passed winners in my head along with other super geeky facts about the Oscars), I thought it'd be funny to predict the outcome of Sunday night's big event. This is my list of who I THINK is going to win and (in brackets) who I WISH will win.
BEST PICTURE The Social Network (I didn't like this movie, it f*cking sucked, but since the Facebook guy became Man of the Year in Time Magazine, I reckon their useless movie about it will win. The real best movie of the year, and possibly of all time is, of course, Black Swan. No doubt.)
BEST ACTOR, LEADING ROLE Colin Firth, The King's Speech (He really deserves this, he was beyond amazing in The King's Speech.)
BEST ACTOR, SUPPORTING ROLE Christian Bale (I think that Bale will win because he's in a film about boxing, the Academy loves that shit. I really hope that Geoffrey Rush will win for The King's Speech however. The movie would have been nothing without him. He's also from Melbourne, which makes me wanna vote twice for him.)
BEST ACTRESS, LEADING ROLE Natalie Portman (Natalie Portman. No doubt. F*cking best performance I've seen in my life. If she doesn't win it's a scandal.)
BEST ACTRESS, SUPPORTING ROLE Helena Bonham Carter (This is a tough one, because there are two other nominees from a boxing movie in this category. But I think Carter will win because she's portraying an historic person, and of course she does it pretty damn well.)
BEST DIRECTING David Fincher, The Social Network (Bullshit movie, again, but critics seems to love it to bits and its topic is sooooo important, so of course Fincher will win. I hope of course that Darren Aronofsky will win for Black Swan.)
I think it's completely outragous by the way that The Social Network has been nominated in so many categories (Best original score? Are you f*cking kidding me?). If I haven't mentioned it enough, I'm just saying that the plot, idea and movie itself is stupidly pointless. It's a movie about Facebook, for crying out loud! Facebook is not the best invension of all time, people. It's a bloody website! It didn't have enough drama in real life to carry a big movie like this. I saw it at the movies and didn't understand what all the fuzz was about. I then saw it again at home, but then I liked it even less. The Social Network is a hype movie, which is why it will win. It's a motion picture landmark of what was talked about in 2010. But that doesn't make it a good movie. A good movie, in my opinion, is a movie that stays with you, that makes you think. I've seen two movies this year that has left me with this; Black Swan and The King's Speech. They deserve to win, not an unnecessary movie about Facebook.
If you ever wondered how you go about winning an oscar, just watch this trailer. The Social Network has used a lot of these things and actually reminded me a lot about it.
Crazy, life-changing things can happen in a matter of days. Just about two weeks ago I found out that the deadline for the Master of Design course at Swinburne University of Technology was on February 16. This gave me about 5 days to prepare a pdf portfolio. Normally I would have just given up and not even bothered the stress. But this time I had a very motivating boyfriend by my side who told me I was better than good enough, and puched me to apply. So I worked by ass off for the application and handed it in in person a few days later. Then a week passed. My hopes for staying in this country were not very bright. But then, when I was on my way home from the city, I received a phone call. The person on the other end told me I had been eccepted to the course. When I hung up I could feel my face radiate such happiness I could not controll myself. I wanted to kiss and hug every single person on the tram. I called my boyfriend emidiately and then Mikaela, who were equally as ecstatic. Then I jumped off the tram outside Spudbar (where I work) to let everyone, anyone know that I had done the impossible, that I had been accepted to study Master of Design. My work-buddie Rick were just as happy; "So this means you don't have to leave - that's AWESOME, mate!". The next couple of days were filled with stressful paperwork, talking to the right people, filling out the right forms, applying for loans, going through medical examinations and even x-ray scans. And finally, yesterday, I managed to enrol at uni. I have still things to do, but the worst is definitely over. Now I can finally focus on getting my Masters. You have no idea what a relief it is to be able to do that. You have no idea what a luxury it is to be able to study exactly where you want to study, to dedicate 1,5 years to exactly what you want to do. For many people, I reckon, studying is something that you just do because everyone else does it and it's part of how we live our lives. For me it means the world. I can finally take back what I felt I lost in confidence and skills while doing my Bachelor in England. I can finally study with a clear and mature focus on what I want to learn. And this time I will study somewhere where I want to live, at a place where I'm inspired and motivated. So, the professional development of Stingosaurus continues... First class starts on Monday. Let's see what happens from there on.
Just wanted to show some stuff I've done lately. I designed the logo, the gift certificate and the flyers for Mixed Bag Productions. Pretty sweet, huh? Mixed Bag consist basically of my friend Leonie who is an amazing singer, both in various bands and works as a teacher. In case anyone would like to learn to sing, let me know and I'll pass your details along, she would like some more students.
I designed this t-shirt for my brother Gustav quite a long time ago as a Christmas present. You know, it's all about the brother-sisterly love. Now, many years later, it has been picked up by an Australian t-shirt company, based here in Melbourne, and you can buy it as a t-shirt or singlet here.
Last week, on the 26th of January, it was Australia Day. I celebrated this by going to a sweet gig where Crazy 88 were playing, with the supporting act of Jude.
