Joakim Andersons Portfolio
Our class released the traditional yearly Hyper Island class-site yesterday.
It was a HUGE project with 50-something peope working on it.
As Chief Copywriter I was in charge of text and all that stuff. I aslo sat in on some meetings the concept people had.
I ran a Blog named This Is Not A Blog during the spring and summer of 2007. There concept was strange, every post was an excerpt of a book, film, play or any other form of pop culture, twisted to fit what I wanted to say in the post. It also told the tale of Johan working as a carpenter over the summer and his strange relationship with Sally, the girl int the apartment below. If a reader guessed the source correctly they would receive a small price or something similar.
When I got into Hyper Island it died an undeserving death.
That’s life.
A Link to the blog – only in Swedish, sorry.
The time has just flown by on Deasign. We got to attend a lot of internal meetings including (but not limited to) a top-secret preparation for a pitch. We also spoke to a graphic designer and had lunch with my old friend Anders at a Japanese place named Nagano that I have passed by at least once a week before I left Stockholm but never eaten at.
In the ever ongoing facebook to be or not to be discussion a few conclusions where reached yesterday. Elias had removed his account and felt free like a bird. I met up with Isak, an old friend from my childhood that I haven’t met for a bunch of years, and if that’s what i get for giving my reading habits and the right to publish pictures of me when drunk then it’s a price I can afford.
Simon helped me out with my portfolio; New Laser Idea, yesterday and now you can almost visit it. I still have a few hours work to do on the layout and some more time to spend on the content but we’re clearly moving forward.
And OH: don’t miss www.creativesunlimited.com, to be released shortly!
Project description: Create a portfolio to market yourself for the internship in the fall of 2008.
How it was done: I started by thinking about what I had done during this semester and how to present it in a way that showed both the project and my part in them, since I’m not a designer I found one who would help me with the design; Simon Mårtelius, a graphic designer at Farfar agreed to help me.
My part: Creating content and creating a good way of presenting it, I also researched different portfolios to find sources of inspiration for Simon.
How it came out: This is it. The hardest part was to exlude categories from the frontpage, I ended up using a plugin named Advanced Category Excluder. I learned a lot about how php works, not quite enugh to code but I get how it works and what it does.
Project description: Create a visual profile from another group’s concept and development business idea according to their demands. We were to create a graphical profile web platform and a logotype for the company-community Lingua.
How it was done: We got our clear roles in the project and worked against a lot of internal deadlines. The logo was created by the ad and the other people in the graphic department, the webpage was designed to be easy to use with focus on clear icons and a lot of interaction design.
My part: I was the Interaction designer and the copywriter, I read up on interaction design and built a map of the page on my wall to ensure easy navigation, I also made the decision to put the navigation bar in the left side of the screen for faster navigation.
How it came out: we worked a lot with the graphical profile and the client was satisfied.
Project description: Create 50 business ideas, choose the best one and a working business plan, and present this to a board of venture capitalist, business angles and bankers
How it was done: To develop the different ideas we tried a verity of brainstorming ideas and after the fifty different ones where all done we resented the best ones to outside people for feedback. Eventually we voted and a Content delivery system for media archives and independent media was the winning idea. As we researched the idea went more streamlined and we decided to just focus as a sore for independent media and in the end only independent music. This task was a whole lot different from our competences since it involved no coding and minimal design, the group had to learn new competences and still keeping the goal focused.
My part: I vas the Project Manager and begun with a very democratic leadership, this proved way to time-consuming and my leadership became stronger and stronger for every week, I realized that people feel comfortable when they know what they are supposed to accomplish during the next few days and that changing the venue really get people thinking in new directions. In afterthought we should have had more internal deadlines to improve efficiency.
How it came out: The work was finished in time and we presented to the board. The board liked our idea and business model but thought our initial costs were too high.
Project description: Create something new with an existing technology, we had Lego Mindstorms, block shaped device that uses sensors to trigger engines and can communicate with computers via Bluetooth.
How it was done: We built a marble track that combined analog and digital components. we used the marble, user input and digital input to trigger the engines.
My part: I was the chief engineer on this project and created several of the physical solutions, the hardest part was the elevator that took the marble from the bottom of the track to the top and a gate that kept the marble in place while the user played a flash game on a computer screen. I had to think creative with the equipment we were handed and learned a lot about building a model. I also realized that I had to appear a lot more designated and sure about my ideas when i had people working under me.
How it came out: The model worked perfectly until the light in the expo hall changed. A core element was the light sensor and it was too hard to re-configure.
Watch the Experience Technology expo on Youtube we where the first group.
So, I’m at Deasign with Filip Redelius for a few days. People call it Sweden’s best agency and give them awards for it so I guess they’re good. After two weeks of short interviews we finally got to stay at Deasign for two whole days, a great opportunity to se what its like, not what they say it’s like, compared to Ottoboni or Svensson where w just had interviews and then had to look at what they said and our few impressions of the actual work.
There seem to be a lot of old hyperkids (some so old they would call themselves hypernauts) around Deasign, including a girl from crew 12 internshiping (sorry I can’t remember her name but I was just introduced to 25-something persons and all the names are a big mess right now), If that’s not a good sign for upcoming internship possibilities then what is?
A short reflection: after visiting a few agencies: Is there possible to do a career in this biz without being named Anna or if you’re male having a mother, sibling or girlfriend named Anna? It seems to be impossible
The project was to make a 60 second film with both recorded and digitally created material.
We chose to make an instructional film about something ordinary, mocking airplane security videos; a guide to teenagers about how to make out with their dates.
My part was writing the script, we discussed and came up with concept for a few scenes, and then I wrote a script. I have prior experience in this field and have written a shot play and a few comic book scripts in the past. I was also the director.
The dialogue turned out too detailed and a lot of it had to go in the end, it was much easier than I thought it would be to delete dialogue and just keep the core of the lines.
A few years ago me and a student from the comicbook-education in Sweden sat down to make a eight issue comic book, It was meant to be a great portfolio work for both of us, still young and dreaming about being hot-shot comic people with our own monthly releases on Vertigo.
We decided to make a comic about a guy who used to work for as a hit man for the mob and paid his way trough collage with the blood money, several years later he’s happily married to an FBI agent when an old acquaintance gives him a call for a new hit. Not even thinking twice about it he takes the job.
I wrote a story outline for the series, scripted the first 24-page issue while Björn, the artist, started sketching on characters in both pencil and ink, eventually we met up and made a storyboard, figuring out where all the panels should be on every page and then summer came. He decided to quit drawing and started a career as a car painter, both regular and custom paintjobs (I think he’s an artist again now)and I went back to whatever I did at the time.