Aleksander Grødtlien IPP blog: april 2011

Companies that inspire me #4

This time it is not a Norwegian company. This time it is London's Studio8.
Their great work for The New York Times Magazine amongst others are utterly amazing.

Here is some of their work:

The New York Times Magazine

View more on their website!

Inspiring blogs and sites to follow / check out

Web Design Ledger - Resources and inspiration for web designers and web developers

Behance.net - Creative network for pretty much all creative businesses

Free Typography - As the link implies, free typography (fonts)

Designinspiration - Again, as the link implies, inspiration for designers

Lovely Package - Packaging design inspiration etc

Hello Typo - Typography blog

The Dieline - Packaging design blog

Justin Maller's tumblr - Great inspiration blog by a great designer

Visual Journal - Another inspiration blog with amazing content

Convoy - Another inspiration blog

SolidWorks training

We had SolidWorks software training with Jon Fidler the other day. I really like the sessions with Jon. He is a great guy and a great tutor. He is amazing at what he does and he is really good at teaching others as well.

This is what I made during his session:

Do you recognise it? It is the smoking area thing where they also do ads outside the o2 Arena (I'm sorry, I couldn't find a good picture of it).

Rebranding The Body Shop

When I first got this project I was really happy, but then the same thing happened as it has done with more or less every project I have had this year. I do loads of research just to find out that I am right. I want to be proven wrong. Surprise me! I had great plans for this project and it started out really well, but when I had to do even more research just to be able to prove my thoughts I lost all interest again. I still think this was a good project though, because I got some nice challenges in SolidWorks and I really like working in SolidWorks.

London markets research and project

The amount of research I have pulled into this project is really not inspiring me. I spent more than a week going to markets, taking photos and talking to people only to find out what I thought by myself in the first place. And I ended up doing exactly what I thought I would do. I was hoping to prove to myself in this project that the amount of research we do is actually somewhat realistic and changes my mind and views on things, but it has not at all. And it is really annoying me. I get a new brief and usually I think that this is going to be great, but after two weeks of unnecessary research I have two more weeks to do design, prototyping, research if the designs and prototyping is good enough and then probably do it again. I lose all interest and motivation on our projects before the fun part starts so I always end up doing way worse than I imagine my ideas to be.

Music of choice

Almost everything I do, I do better with music, because then I am able to block out everything else around me and it puts me in a state where I can concentrate on exactly what I need to be concentrating at. It gives me the edge I need to thrive.

But listening to music can be a bit of a twin edged sword. If you are not listening to the right music you might start concentrating on the music and not the task at hand.
My rule is that I always listen to music I know very well and enjoy listening to. Something that calms me down. My favourite band to listen to whilst doing work is The Mars Volta and their album "De-Loused In The Comatorium". Especially "Cicatriz E.S.P." gives me the push I need to do my best. I listen to music I know well because if I listen to music I have not heard before I am always concentrating on the lyrics and the sounds.

Companies that inspire me #3

I am also a big fan of the design company Anti, both their Anti Oslo and Anti Bergen.
One of the main reasons I am a big fan of Anti is because they started their own jeans company. Swedish jeans are big in Norway, and as Anti got tired of this they made the jeans company Anti Sweden. Anti Sweden embraces the Norwegian black metal culture. And if you hand in a pair of old Swedish jeans you get a pair of Anti Sweden jeans for 666 NOK. As Anti Sweden, Anti has also worked with the Norwegian skateboard company Shit skateboards and made some beautiful illustrations for a limited edition skateboard.
Anti also won lots of awards for their Anti Sweden designs.

Some of Anti's work:

Shit / Anti skateboard

Anti Sweden

Pepsi RAW

WiMP

TINAGENT

Companies that inspire me #2

Another really good company in Norway is Grandpeople.
The Bergen based company specialise in graphic design, photography, illustration and creative direction.
I really love their use of colours and the perfection of their typography and illustrations.

You should really check out their website to get the full experience of their beautiful web design and products, as they use full screen images.

Here is some of their beautiful works:

The New Wine - "Waves" album cover

Norwegian Rain visual identity

Companies that inspire me #1

My favourite company is the Norwegian, Oslo based, Heydays.
Heydays is a multi-disciplinary design studio who specialises in printed media, creative direction and graphic design. The range they offer is corporate identities, interactive websites, magazines, books and packaging design.

"We strive to find a balance between idea, function and aesthetics in each of our projects."
- Heydays

The reason why they are my favourite company is not only because of their work, but just as much who they are and what they have done. They have done exactly what I want to do with my future. Five friends starting a company. A small group that always works together. They know each other well and they fill out each others gaps.

Here is some of their amazing work:

Anton B Nilsen