Last entry - leaving for reality

Sadly my time as an project management intern at MRM Starky is coming to an end. The internship has exceeded all my expectations and I already know that I’m going to miss this place tremendously. -Not only the fabulous breakfast buffet or the ever so nice wine and beer trolley strolling around the office in the afternoons, but also all my talented colleagues. They are the ones that during the past seven months have filled my head with knowledge and my heart with enthusiasm.


My internship started out as most internships probably do, confusing and a bit scary, but now at the end I almost feel as an legit employee, and a part of the MRM Starsky success.
As a part of my responsibilities as an intern I’ve been writing proposals, composing debriefs, taking notes at meetings, working in projects with both Swedish and English speaking costumers, managing parts of larger projects and of course bringing creativity and great ideas to the table.

One of the last projects a had the privilege to be part of was a rich media project for one of MRM Starsky’s customers and their upcoming summer campaign. -My first time on a large scale “green screen” set. – Interesting to observe an actor act without any surrounding stage prop

Anyway’s, my 5000h as an intern is up.


Be hold future employers ! Here I Come.

/David Götmalm -Portfolio

David Götmalm

Aspiering Project/ Production manager -MRM Starsky.
 
Things I’ve been doing since last entry.

• Gained some weight, lost some weight, and gained some weight again.
  
• Cut my hair shorter, didn’t help.
  
• Had lunch with most of the Stockholm Interns.
  
• Waiting for a visit be the Hyper Island Staff.
  
• Learned a lot more flash, html and CSS.
  
• Worked in projects with three new clients.
  
• Took evening classes in project planning and project economics.
  
• Made three new portfolios, finally settling on the plainest one.
  
• Started a twitter account.
  
• Watched 4 seasons of Battlestar galactica.
  
• Dreamt about starting a digital agency.
  
• Dreamt about getting yelled at, at work.
  
• Left the 20ths´s. Finally turned 30.
  
• Found more gray hairs in my beard.
  
• Exchanged my horrible work-PC to a Mac.
  
• Taught my dog that human hands aren’t food.
  
• Bought a treadmill (for my dog).
  
• Watched my dog poop while running on it.
  
• Went snowboarding.
  
• Tried skiing for the first time since 1989.
  
• Fell on my face, broke a tooth.
  
• Went back to snowboarding.

All in all, life’s treated me fair.

Sometimes I’ve been lucky but most of the time I’ve got what I deserve.

I’ve recently passed half quarter that marks the tipping point of my internship period. 

As a sign of this I’ve seen a change in work tasks that I get and I’m now preparing to run along side, one of the agency’s gifted account directors. 

-“Life is like a box of chocolates”, you never know witch ones will leave stains.

Anyway, today is my birthday so please send one of the following gifts:

(Address included in portfolio)

 

-A job as a junior project manager / producer

-A RIB boat “Bombard C3” with at least a 25 horsepower engine

-A Rhodesian ridgeback puppy

-A Black Range Rover sport

-A pair of Apple sneakers

-A discount at the dentist

 

If not, bugger off and leave my thirty-year-old (axx) alone!

One had better do this, 

I'm Martin, I'm in London at R/GA and that's cool.

Coming to London, of course, a messy experience. Coming to R/GA, of course, difficult.

I spent my first one or two months feeling like a stupid, overgrown, fat kid, with greasy hands and a running nose, trying to understand what the grown-ups were talking about. They would talk to me, calmly, sincerely explaining the issues of a brief, where I could find assets for the task, how to deal with certain issues, trying to help me along; so that I could produce something for them, show them that I was good and could be trusted. They explained, so patiently, looking into my eyes, in search for that spark of understanding. And I would look back at them, blankly, quite unable to comprehend the purpose, ignorant of the techniques needed and, worst of all -completely void of the refreshing ideas, vigor and young talent I knew they expected.

They were calling my bluff, and I was panicking.

They haven’t thrown me out yet, so I must be doing something right.

I can see St: Paul’s from my window.

I hate my fried-chicken-man

I work with two clients, one of them is big in telecommunication and the other is big sportswear. One is tricky, and the other is challenging. I enjoy both of them.

I’ll stop now, and I’ll write soon again, now I know how to log into this stupid thing.  

New York, New York

Here I am sitting in the big light filled kingdom of Freedom + Partners drinking my Starbucks coffee whilst taking in the invigorating taste of a Göteborgs Rapé.
The cars passing over Brooklyn bridge in an eternal flow gives away sound like a distant thunderstorm and I'm thinking:

"Life is wonderful"

Ok what I'm really are trying to say is that,
I'm very happy I ended up at F+P where I feel I've grown immensly already.
The guys here are truly todays McGuyvers of the web. There is I guess almost nothing
they couldn't make happen on the Internet!
And furthermore Freedom+Partners has the coolest CEO ever, Mark Ferdman who plays the role as a mentor equally as good as Clint Eastwood played a whiskey drinking cowboy in Sergio Leone's western movies during the sixties.
Exept here we don't do the Ennio Morricone background music..

I´m not much of a blogger as some may have noticed but I had to tell you this little story.

Cheers from Nicolas Antoniades and NYC!

7/4 2009

Hallå ja!

I have had a cold so i have not been feeling very well. Well now I'm currently doing a lot of things simultaneously and it's kind of tingle my belly a little bit. That or the fact that i found out what the best song I ever heard is called. I have heard it at some clubs before, like a funny song in between, with the reactions from the people at the dance floor; kind of similar to the reactions of "känn igen sorg för mig göteborg", or maybe more like "Michelangelo" by Björn Skifs. (the happyness of "känn ingen sorg för mig göteborg and the authority and nostalgia of "Michelangelo") Or well, I'm not really sure exactly wich this song its exactly like and I cannot relly figure it out now. All i know is that this song is fabulous. Everybody will love it! Impossible to not love it. Love it!

So there, I'm spreading the culture of Spain and everybody should embrace this piece. I want it to be the soundtrack to every party worth the name party. I want it to be played at Linda Rosings wedding! Will she marry Hugo? Hope not. Hugo is giving me creeps. I wish that she will marry the Gothenburger.

Also i want to recommend the SVT documentary "Jag vill inte leva det här livet". It's about a crew of GHB addicts. Really good. It gives you a fresh point of view of life, if you tired of photoshop, stupid vectors or puking gradients.

Farewell

Hi there bolg, nice to meet you

Cereal for breakfast, Sandwiches for lunch and a couple of pints for dinner. I am really starting to get the hang of the London lifestyle. I really like this city, but right now I don't like the weather because it made me sick. Although I'm happy I'm not in cold Sweden right now.

I live in the previously trashy part of town called Hackney in east London, that now has become the cool part of town where all the artsy people hang out. I share flat with 'Crazy' Rasmus of IAD08 and 'Navy SEAL' Levin. Also I'm within walking distance from everything important:

London Fields (my local pub): 3 min
Tad (quality falafel and kebab): 5 min
Broadway market: 6 min
Stringray globe (the best pizza, almost like Swedish): 15 min
Glue London: 28 min
Shoreditch (where the party is): 30 min
Tate modern: 1h
Big Ben: 1h 30 min
Apple Store: 1h 36 min

My internship has had it's ups and downs. I started out at a small flash studio, but I realised that I wanted to be at a larger scale agency instead. I went to a couple of interviews at some agencies (the good thing with being on location), and decided to go for Glue London, a complete digital ad agency that has done some really cool stuff for Bacardi, Toyota and the Sun to name a few.

So now I've been at Glue for about a month now and I love the place so far. Still everything feels a bit new, but I get to work with a talented team that does some impressive productions.

I promise to write again soon... if I remember the password this time.

Cheers

/Sam

Walk the walk, talk the talk

This is Martin Brolin writing.

 

First of all, thank for sharing your fascinating stories: Max, I don’t know what to say but your post was the best! David Lundmark, great to hear that you are doing fine in the Northpole! Thanks for the sneak peak by the way;). Hannes - funny as usual. How do you do it? Maritn S, you better bring me some notion of clarity, please explain what you mean with “I love having breakfast inside Charlie the beast, pitching and breaking down a storyboard”. It is pleasurable to know where you all are up to these days.

Lets move on. Important notice:

Before continuing, please observe the continuity; respect the order of the hyperlinks. Do not carry on read unless you have the hyperlinked searched out for the specific meaning of the sentence. (Speaking of continuity, I visited MOMA last weekend with Nico, and he made a very observant notice of the building: “The lines are breaked apart to show how the connotation of one room is forwarded to the next room, the building is revealed in an interesting discontinuity, its forskjutet”. I didn’t know he had that feeling for architecture, after that I have been very curious to hear his point of view concerning spaces and time. This is something we now discuss during the evenings in Brooklyn.)

Anyway.
Im starting to become a New Yorker. I got my very good self a black coat and a couple of checkered shirts. I even have a moleskin that I use on the subway to look important, writing reflections and fragmented poetry of peoples fed-up faces. Of course it’s a great source of inspiration to.

I live with two of my very good friends, Daniel and Nicolas. We are a happy family in Brooklyn, on Bedford avenue - that’s where all the cool guys live in New York, so we had to move there.

We fight a lot. A couple of weeks ago Nico threatened me with a nife. He was drunk of course. I really wanted to kill him. But I stayed calmed and we didn’t speak for 2 weeks. But now everything is fine. We are very good friends again.

Daniel is very “into it”. He is speaking in terms of object oriented theory (for example when he is stretching his very good self, he says: “it is so nice to implement Icat”) . He is staring into his functions all day, and when he is home he stares a bit more. Me and Nico tries to get him out of there, creating new surroundings with our imaginations, but it’s hard.

Nico and I sleeps in the same room. He eats in the bed In the middle of the night. Last night he served himself a very good corn meal, 3 00 in the morning, and I told him to shut up and fuck himself. He watches Gordon Ramsey every night for inspiration so that he can tell me to fuck myself. Gordon have been assimilated into the house to become one of our house gods. He is arrogant, highly emotional, heartfelt and very good at what he does. I highly recommend icons. It’s nice with a reference.

Working with almost every project that Firstborn have produced since I arrived: Puma, Publix, Lincoln Mks, Ford Taurus, Mustang, Sportscharlet. I’m happy for my very good self that customers are happy. But most of all I’m happy that I have a lot of new fantastic, impracticable plans figured out.

Martin Brolin

Hejsan

Life at Locomotiv is good despite the fact that Gustaf left me. So what have I been up to? I’ve worked with Sony Eriksson’s Eurovision Song Contest campaign, as some of you may have seen (Aftonbladet). Gustaf and I was Motion Graphics supervisors on a project with Sony Ericsson and Robyn but right now I’m working non stop with Farsor & Morsor på stan, their site should be online in the next few weeks.

Now that a few people here are on vacation I have the pleasure of sitting together with the cool crew, something I should have done from day one, put the seat switching has been delayed.

Andreas P: I have now idea what person you rented your apartment to, but I believe there is blood on your door.

Johan E: Svensson and Ishizaki will be fit for the kick off of Allsvenskan. Teddy might miss it tough. Cant wait for you to arrive at Tempel Bar.

Marcus S: Arsenal had four straight 0-0 games before the Dane last night scored twice and helped them to a 1-3 victory on the road. Marcus, you say you are a fan...

Nico and Johannes: When will you come get your stuff?

Now I have to get back. I wish I had lill-Martin here. I need serious CSS help.

/Henke

Happy :)

Hellooo,

So I’m back in Sweden after being at G2 in Barcelona, I quitted my internship there because I was only the little intern there doing the things they didn’t want to do and I didn’t learn that much...

Now I’m at a much better place called Happy Place in Gamla stan, it’s a very little, only 7 people working and a big boxer dog. They have some really interesting projects going on here, and it’s a lot of fun! I’ve got my own little project and I’m also helping the other here with some bigger projects so I’m learning a lot and its fun.

They also have "the drink bears in the office Fridays" and they also have Xbox tournaments, playing everything from guitar hero to hocky so it’s not always working...

Well It was nice being in Barcelona and I really miss living there, it was always something to do, watching out for the ghetto kids or just hanging around, well its gonna be nice here in Stockholm to when it stop snowing and the spring will come...

Well that’s all for now, ciaoo /Fannieee

Insert catchy headline here

Hey everyone.

Yesterday on my way home it struck me how fast time goes, i know it sounds cliché. Then i started reflecting on how much i actually learned on my time at Blackboard thus far.
I came to the conclusion that i have learned a lot actually, not so much of the stuff i had hoped to learn like 3d and animation but other very usefull skills like typography, colour composition and how to come up with good ideas. All this new knowledge can then be applied in my personal work.

These last months i have been working with different graphic profiles for some exciting clients, i find it very refreshing to work with logotypes and print for a change. Also i am finally doing some work in 3d.
I also find it very useful to have contact with clients, setting up meetings and presenting my work. At first i felt like a fish out of water but with some practise i now feel pretty comfortable with the idea.
And i love the obligatory "Let´s drink beer in the office" fridays.

In other news, spotify is my new best friend and the highlight of every morning is when i check my and Raoul´s collaborative playlist for new tunes.

Thats all for now, hope everyone is having a blast.

/Jamil

Finnish cellphones vol 2

Time to write in this blog again.

Got two new projects now, that i will see from the beginning to the end. Will be really fun. One of the projects is for Nokia, its very interesting to work with Nokia because its such a large company with operations all over the world. Wich sometimes makes it a struggle to get the materials you need for a certain campaign.

Here is a very small site i built for Nokia, you can get five free tunes from the Nokia Music Store. http://microsites.nokia.se/musicstore/freetracks/

Two weeks ago we had the second volume of Daytona Sessions. The event was very successful and there were very good speakers. You can check out both Daytona Sessions Vol1 and Vol2 over at vimeo.


Pictures from daytona sessions Vol2.

And by the way, Daytona have opend up their very good library so that everyone can lend books from it! You will find it here.

Since last time the, heres one of the projects i have been working on.

Alectas Vasaloppsblogg

Alecta is one of the main sponsors of the skiing event Vasaloppet that takes place between sälen and mora.
We built a blog for them to record their warmup and progress throughout the race. I worked with wireframes and some other minor tasks regarding the campaign.

http://blogg.alecta.se/

This is another headline...

It's been quite a ride since the last time I posted.
First of all, I'm not going to continue my internship at Holler in Sydney to the end of June.
It's been fun, I've met great people and learned new things along the way.
I'm now on the market and open for business. :) (Currently on the lookout for a new agency)

I just wanted to take you through some cool stuff that's been happening in the Holler office lately...

One day during the morning routine of browsing through various "so-hot-right-now-sites" on the internets, we noticed that we had gotten awarded with an FWA - Site of the Day for the work on the 6 Beers of Separation campaign site!
http://6beersofseparation.com.au/

Holler and FHM have launched a sweet little competition site where you can design your own magazine cover, in the browser or download a PSD to mess around with.
Take home $5000 and spend one week each at both Holler and FHM. Easy money! (If you know what you're doing :)
http://fhmrecovered.com.au/

And just after I left, this guy moved into the office...


http://between0and1.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/chill-bot/

Back in Stockholm soon!
That's all for now.

Cheers,
John

A period of uneven workload

Björn reporting from North Kingdom, Stockholm, Sweden.

So what have happen since my last report?

• I still got my desk with my lovely MacBook Pro and all other cool stuff
  
• The beta testing is done, the client was Toyota and the result is here
  
• My own project does not feel scary anymore
  
• I'm tired of reading all my papers and reports about project management, even tho they do come in handy once in a while
  
• The Creative Director did buy the gym card in time, so he escaped from the lunch buying deal, however, he has only been there like twice since he bought it
  
• We don't play that much Mario Cart anymore, reason is that the room is almost always occupied with meetings
  

That was an update from my last report. So what has happen since then on all other fronts?

• As posted a couple of weeks ago, we launched plugintothesmartgrid.com which was "from-start-to-finish" project as a Project Manager / Procucer intern
• I've been doing some work for the release of Tele2 Norway so I'm pretty tired of Frank the sheep now
• I've been working on a big pitch, and got my idea presented to the client, unfortunately we did not get the job, but it was a great process

• I've moved to a first-hand apartment now, so no more worrying about having to move again in 6 months.
• I passed my training in Bodycombat so I'm now a Bodycombat instructor aswell. Just for

My master caught me in a golden moment the last day of my education (means that I was hardly able to kick at all due to cramps and tired muscles)




Early stage of the Augmented Reality project for plugintothesmartgrid.com.




Anyhow, I still enjoy my time at North Kingdom and it feels like it's gonna be a great spring. (:


So for now, over and out from the North Kingdom in the middle of Sweden

//Björn

Its always sunny in Stockholm

There was no struggle for me to find an intership, the biggest problem was do decide where to go. The week before the LIA started I was on my way to Palladium but something happened.

The thing I didnt do was to ask exactly what they tought of my internship, and since I was looking for a project management intership there was a lot of problems. They could offer me a great time at their agency but it wasnt right and since I'm a backstabber I direcly went to Ottoboni Group, they offerd me an intership as a production manager right away and just a day later I signed the contract. It felt really good.

So today, friday the 20th of february I sit infront of my computer(PC) and write a blogpost about the place were I probably end up working at.

During my time here at Ottoboni I've learned a lot of things but the most importent thing is to be kind and humble, those two words can take you all the way to the top. I also learned that the work isnt all, the biggest thing is to participate and be a part of the gang so that you will be importent to them, I basically do this with money.
If you offer someone money they want to be your friend. That's how the world works. Thank god for my salary. (Cigarettes also work but since I try to quit I dont have many left of them).

What have I been working with then?
My biggest clients is Cylinda and Svenska Institutet, two big projects where we are buildning new websolutions and develope more featuers. I was also involved in a project for grammisgalan 2009, awesome.
I've also been involved in a pitch, my part was to hold parts of a presentation for the client and to write the offer. It was a success since we won it. Great. So now Im 100%, 1 of 1 pitch won. Perfect with great stats, almost as good as HEADSHOT!

I think this turned out pretty good for me, now for some other stuff.

• The release of Vargpaktens debut album is the 24th of April so buy buy buy. Its amazing.

• We nowdays refer to Jamil as a Blemo.
  

• The best conversationstarter is still the subject about when one of your friends wee-wee on a floor infront of a sleeping guy. People love it.
  
  
• I have actually talked to Svante at Studentmedia about hooking up with them and join them for Hultsfredsfestivalen. Awesomeness!
  

for you guys out in the world, remember us back in Stockholm.
Stay tuned for more info.



PEACE OUT!
/ patric

Super dingue à Paris!

Hello darlings! 

It would seem I missed my mark for posting another update here, but better late than never. 

Good news everyone! My first solo project as a developer at Soleil Noir just launched!

The site promoting the indian electric car REVA in France has dropped and, along with it, the jaws of environmentalists everywhere! We hope!

So thanks Team REVA, Sophie, Sylvain, Romain and my main man Tonio. We Rox!

Here's a picture of me with the little toddler

So other than saving the planet, keeping kittens cute and crapping confetti, I've been keeping myself busy. Plenty of stuff has been going on chez Soleil Noir! We've moved to a fancy new address, 1 Rue Du Mail just off of Place des victoires. YES the office isn't just number one in mail, it's also just by THE PLACE OF VICTORIES. 4 teh win doesn't even begin to describe the shear win-ness of the address. Won the Adobe MAX award, of course! And what else... Oh yes, we'll continue to be awesome this whole year as well so stay tuned! 

Laters!

/

Andreas Palmerén

http://www.revafrance.com

Revision!

Right! I forgot about how the post needs to be a certain length, so here's an essay about my favourite blog:

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com

Cake wrecks is amazing because it combines my love for pastries, with my love of miserable failures. The harsh reality that often times an overwhelming enthusiasm for a subject isn't paired with a stellar talent in depicting said subject in cake form is just lovely to behold. With the soccer cakes and the pokémon cakes and oh the lengths some people go to, it makes my heart beat faster!

I love seeing the "doll-cakes" some poor sap of a mother has mad for a ,let's face it , probably morbidly obese and most likely ungrateful child and think of how they both find each other in a moment of unbridled disappointment for a short moment before gorging themselves on, what in an uncreative cake would be rather pleasant tasting but has been replaced with something of a more rigid and moldable nature.

You would think that I'd appreciate the fact that all this work has come from good intentions and will be treated as such by both onlooker and recipient of said cake, but nothing could be further from the truth. Cake wrecks, in it's essence is the human experience, right there in it's sloppy misshapen form! 

this is probably long enough.

Andreas out.  

Help!!!!

I really don’t know what I’ going to write about. Change or not change internship place?? Of course I’ve been learning how to deal with comunication’s problem but the thing is that I’m not learning the things I want and need to. I don’t think I’ll be preparead to be a good project manager after this intership. So frustrating... I've talked about it at my internship place many times. It doesn't help! To change internship place??? I’ve thougt about this many times but it’s hard to change now in the midle of it. There’s no internship place available anywhere in Stockholm. And this time I'll try not to leave, I'm going to to fix this and turn the misstakes into a good thing. Sorry guys if my report to this blogg is so confusing… so am I right now.

Thank you Roger, for all your support!!!!

Wine and dine, read and weep or whatever...

Heyheyhey a bit late but it doesn't mean it's fake. At least I'm writing unlike a coule of others, hrm.. hrm... This text will problably be quite short, had a busy day and need some sleep. Since misshappenings seems to be what amuses people the most I will start with those.

The newly renovated flat I was going to move in to wasn't really newly renovated, it was more of a construction site that now, finally, is more or less completed. Lucky enough my roomies (one from Cyprus actually, Nico the Greek represent yao!) are supernice and we can all complain and wine about the situation together.

It's been a lot of work since after Christmas so the last month I've been really tired. And the winter has (so I've been told) have been the coldest in Madrid in like 40 years, lucky me. I was so tired at one time I really didn't know what to do, I couldn't understand why my brain wouldn't work when the alarm was beeping in the morning. Somehow, one night, I forgot to close my window before I went to sleep. When I woke up the morning after I felt as healthy as a nötkärna. That's how I discovered the reason for my problem; since my room is quite small I've problably been more or less smothered since it hasn't been enough fresh air when sleeping. Leave the window bit open = problem solved.

I also went to IKEA for the first time, last Sunday actually. The time to get there i aproximately one and a half hour, included a 20 minute walk from the metro. When I got there it was closed. One and a half hour to get back. That's a pretty dumb way to spend three hours...

I've experienced and learned so much since my arrival that my tired little hands can't possibly write it down for y'all. Been visiting and meeting up with people as well, thank you all for a great time and more to come. Life at Serial Cut is more than satisfying with a wide range of different projects and methods of achieving the final results.

Last words: hip hop is your friend, sorry for not posting something more interesting (check out YouTube for something cooler), be nice to people, beer is good and religion is just stupid.

Tada, that's all folks!

Your truly, Grand Master J.

SKATEBOARDING, GRAPHICS AND CERVEZA

I went off to Barcelona to do my internship at Great Works. I borrowed a apartment from a friends friend that was away to shanghai for a couple of weeks. The flat was really nice and close to my favorite skatespot called Universitat. So at night time after work I went of skating and just chilled with my friends. The wheater was wonderfull even in december when it sucked in Sweden. The sun is always shining and when it was the coldest you had a hoody. Later on I had another big apartment with two cats. And the girl that owned it was out traveling so i didnt pay much at all for my own fresh 90sqm apartment.

The weeks was mostly the same: Skateboarding, working, cerveza, clubbing and hanging at the beach on weekends.

-

At the agency I got to do alot of fun projects and had alot of responsibilty. I was trown into it almost the same day as I arrived to Great Works, and I liked it alot.

Kristian that is the boss over there treat you like you are one of them and that is very nice to feel that you are playing in the same game. They push you alot and makes you to do things that you never done before, It was very clear from the beginning that they want you to learn and not to be a coffe maker.

It was a fun time over there but just after Christmas people decided to quit so I thougt it was a good time to leave also. I told them that I needed more designers above me so I could learn more and they understood that.
I think it was a good decission and I want to work in Stockholm after my internship, even if its cold and grey here.

I can always go back on weekends now to meet up with my friends. The spanish friends said the same, "its better to come to barcelona for vacation and not to work since the sallery is awfully low". Some people earn 800 euro the most and apartments are more expensive then in Stockholm. But you can always do frilancing with clients from other countries, Then it would be great to live there.

Maybe I got them a new client from japan also. We will se later on how it turned out.

-

If you are going to Barcelona you have to come by the best pub ever called Betty Ford " like the clinic". It is placed in the upper Raval, hard to find but you will not get dissapointed if you find it.
They are just like one big happy family over there and if you get to know one of them you know everybody quite fast.

-

So now I am back in Stockholm again and are going to do the rest of the time at Farfar on Kungsholmen. So on monday it's back to game again and it will be alot of fun & hardwork. So I am exited to see how they are working, heard alot of good things about them!

-

Ciao
Niklas

David Letterman, Benny Andersson and me.

From pastures of Balkans where goats go free straight to the capital of the world, Rome of today’s roman Empire, Mothership of all ships, city that never sleeps, New York, New York. And Broadway!

Being given a chance to fight for the greater good in the name of Barbarity and actually sit in the same room as whole bunch of other Barbarians for 7 months, came up as a dream come true ever since I saw Thundarr as a kid, which followed with hero of my childhood, Conan. And conquering the world in barbaric way by doing awesome work has been inspiring to follow and hopefully take part.

THE FIRST DAY- everything as planned until I was informed about “Happy Mondays” where Barbarians go out and drink like adolescents after work on Mondays without any particular reason so they thought it would be appropriate to make new intern so drunk on their cost so he can do embarrassing things that this blog or any other blogs will never write about. Everything ended with a collective call-in-sick Tuesday. Not an exemplary start for Nemo, Hyper-man with ambitions.

I love being in NYC ! But there are some things that do match with my expectations (listed as ACH JA!) and some things that have made me dissapointed (NICH-NICH) here it comes:

ACH JA!
cops DO eat doughnuts and drink coffee in beside their cars, drinking games at fraternity parties do kick ass (WASAAAA!), people are generally nice to tourists except when you ask them directions to twin-towers and show picture of it in a guide-book -rule number one: don’t mention the war on terror, also, don’t make jokes about Obama, America is just not ready for that in this historical moment. African-Americans do say “nigga” to each other but it doesn’t give right to the others to do same.

NICH-NICH:
Taxi driver laugh at you when you point on a car and tell him to follow it, restaurant personnel in China town can not kung fu (at least they don't use it on regular basis), Italians in Little Italy are actually Little Mexicans with no Rocky Balboa accent. Cops don't read you your rights when they catch you going on subway without a valid ticket (but they do tell to take out hands from pockets so they can see them) and there is NO coffee place called "Central Perk".



A Formal Friday salute from roofs of Broadway to you all!
Nemo

Learn and Live

I make errors all the time. The reason is because I am fortunate to learn from talented people.

I have been working at AKQA on the Fiat account since joining the team as a Designer. Experience and knowledge is my surrounding. I work directly with an Account Manager, a Wireframe Architect, a Copywriter, a Project Manager, a Creative Director and my fictional Assistant.

Chris Williams, Creative Director – “It will take you years before you become an Art Director.”

I love what he says. I am already producing for Fiat as a Designer and I make progress, this is my start, here you have to earn your title.

Looking outside my office window, I can see the snowy rooftops of Farringdon and close to the south clearly stands St Paul's cathedral. Living outside the office is completely different to living inside. Little snowfall means no work, closed banks, closed schools, shops and most certainly no transport.

London is a challenge,
Friends, I might stay here.

Andreas Levin

North Kingdom reports about Augmented Reality

I'm extremely curious about what you guys are working on. So I thought that it would be really fun to post some links/screens of completed work so we all can take part of it (:

Yesterday (February 1:st) was site launch for http://www.plugintothesmartgrid.com/. This has been my first "from-start-to-finish" project as a Project Manager / Producer Intern at North Kingdom Stockholm.

The really cool part about this project, and also the part that I've been involved in is the Augmented Reality part. A rather new technique witch basically is an application that trough your webcam trace a pattern and apply 2D or 3D graphics/animations on it.

The direct link to that part that I've been working on is http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality. Please try it out, print the marker, hook up your webcam and play with the different 3D environments (and reveal the secret with the wind turbine... blow the microphone to find out!!)

Below are also some youtube clip with our application.








I hope everyone is doing great and is having a great time out there in the world!

//Björn

Observations from the other side of the table.

It's hard for me to make justice for my great achievements. So I asked my fellow worker from Karlskrona, Sebastian, to describe my succes; here is what he wrote.

Observations of Johan sorted by time.

1- First second, Johan almost trips on the stairs entering the door, making a big ass out of himself. I remember thinking, this little fuck won't survive one day.

2- First hour, Johan takes the snus! *high five*.

3- First hour, Johan uses the mac! *high five*

4- First day, Johan has settled in, unpacked his mac when he realizes he haven't been given any work. I remember him shaking his leg like crazy, I couldn't concentrate so I told him 

"Johan why don't we make a game together! You like drawing stuff ye?"

"YE AWSUUUM THIS IZ GONNA B SO GOOD" Johan replied.

I said some random things and he started painting on his wacom like a boy masturbating for the first time.

I thought he can't possibly have bought that?! Johan reviled himself to be more stupid than he looks(And thats saying a lot when looking at you guys....pissing on the floors of your very own classmates!).

5- Second day, Johan gets his shit together, calms down.

6- End of first week - Johan rolls like a Sombrero hombre. Talking it easy,  maxin relaxin with the amigos. Still making an idiot out of himself but everybody just accepted it after the 10th time

7- Johan start to get busy with the wacom, drawing a lot of stuff for IKEA and BMW.

1-7 Johan sleeps in a shitty corner somewhere in a barcelona getto.....with 4 blankets to keep himself warm.

8 - Johan gets his place in the herd.

9 - Johan meets a nice spanish girl in a club one saturday.

10-20 - Johan is totally depressed because the girl untagged herself from his pictures and doesn not answers his mail he spent 4 hours preparing.

21 - Johan chokes on his wacom pen, still don't know if this was suicidal behavior or not.

22- Johan just does retarded things, likes goes for walks... on the spanish mountains... by himself..... on a saturday...

23 - Johan and me now roll together, we are good friends.

24 - Me and Johan uses the beer, sharing our broken heart stories. Johan I wanted to cry, but you did not allow me to.

25 - Johan works A LOT with BMW. He loves it. 

26 - Johan still on BMW, not so much love anymore.

...

35 - Johan still on BMW, he lost perspective of love and hate.

36 - Don't mess with the Johan.

Testing testing 1, 2, 3

Well prepared with teamwork, research, concept, mockups, production and a forest of postits later, I left Hyper, Stockholm for the never ending winter in Colorado.

After one week in Boulder with no snow but winds so cold and harsh, just getting to the grocery store felt like an arctic concrete expedition, It was time for my first day at Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
As I was getting ready to leave the house I realized there was 2 dm of snow covering the streets and fields fo the great boulder city area, creating a peanut butter jelly time session of the traffic. Friday same week I had lunch in the warm sun breathing in SUV air and since then the weather has been kind of spring, early summer.

This is my second week at the office, working as an IAD. My impression so far can be compared with the weather, a bit confusing. It's like six friends who has a ad-agency together, exept that 1 person equals one department, or 100 persons in one body.

I guess I'm still a little bit surprised over how simple things can be.

for instance my first assignment and failure, I suppose, was to do a design suggestions for Burger King. I worked 48/14 doing research, concept and mock-ups. Now I know better. A mock-up is a mock-up and a design suggestion is a design suggestion.

As another example I had my first brief meatig today. I mentally prepared my self for a one to two hours session. 20 minutes later I was already working on the assignment.

I'm lovin' it, he he he

Överlämnar här med mic samt tillhörande bandare.

//Robin Pettersson

This is a headline

Hi,

My name is Petter Säfwenberg and when I was a little boy I used to dream that an american hockey speaker would shout out my name - "Peeeter Sevenbuuuuurg" - when I would enter the ice on my first NHL game for the New York Rangers. I'm quite sure that this will never come true now, mainly because when I was about 18 years old I chose a life without fortune, fame and sweathy hockey gears. Instead I decided to spend the rest of my life in front of computer screen...
This turned out quite well, it has taken me to NYC and the sweet place of Domani Studios. Domani has so far taught me a lot of good things like "it's time to touch base now", "more negative space" and "Only RF stock imagery". I have no idea what it means but I have discovered that it's very useful to say this phrases to your co-workers or nod very seriously if someone says it to you. You can find the Domani office in an area called DUMBO, just like that movie about an elephant. Dumbo means "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" and was named like this because the original inhabitants wanted to come up with a name so weird that no one wanted to move there. Of course it became the opposite. To fit in Dumbo you must buy a colorful pair of sneakers, a navy coat (like Matt Damon have occasionally in the Bourne trilogy), jeans (not regular blue though, preferably black or grey) and a nice scarf that fits with the sneakers. I'm almost there. There is also a romour that Busta Rhymes lives in the area, but it's not confirmed yet.



My fellow co-workers at Domani are very nice and they have tried really heard to figure out how to say my name. The first day I tried to just say it with my Swedish accent. The result was like "Pppe... what?" or "Peeee-Trrrrr". So the next day I decided to call myself "Peter" with an american accent but then another guy at Domani called Peter became confused and posted THIS on the Domani blog. But on the third day, one of the producers (project manager) came up to me and said "Pedder, we need some RF stock imagery with a lot of negative space, is it ok that we touch base around fourish?" and my new american "Pedder" name was born. On the fourth day I could make some classic swedish "daddy" jokes with my co-workers (think of the song with Gloria Gaynor): "First I was afraid, I was Pedderfied!".



Roger (Sjoegren) and out!

Best,

Petter, Peter and Pedder.

Six degrees of separation

As some of us sought out to conquer the world some of us stayed behind to make sure the beacon of Hyper Island kept shining. As for me I had the privilege of starting off my Internship period by hunting for a suitable agency were I could stir up things. No matter where I went somebody always knew someone from Hyper Island!


Finding an internship as a project manager isn't all that easy.
Almost thirty years old and a background as an army Lieutenant probably isn't your average intern. Adding to this the fact that I am completely without any formal training in finances or budgeting, a key element in the profession. Adding to this the global recession tightening its grip on Sweden's economy. During the months of november and december alone over 40.000 Swedes lost their jobs.
After several interviews trying to explain what use I could bee to them even without economic experience and reassuring that I wouldn't be more of an headache to them than an 21 year old intern. I found myself getting quiet the expert on self promotion.
Anyway, I held my head up as high as I could and stuck to my original plan witch constituted of two criteria:

-Getting an internship be myself and not taking the short cut through friends or relatives and finally, sticking to project management.

Eventually I was contacted by Saatch&Saatch and they offered me an internship placement as assisting planner. Of course I was flattered that they wanted me but it wasn't really what I had in mind so after two weeks of intensive planning assistance I left for a new offer as an management Intern at MRMStarky´s management department.


MRMStarsky is the result of a merger between the digital agency Starsky and the ad agency MRM worldwide. The agency focuses on two main areas, interactive advertising and dialog marketing. Today we are about 60 souls in the office.
Up until now I have been doing all sorts of things such as helping out with pitch preparations, creating motion previews in aftereffect and planning. My next assignment is to be in charge of and leading a week long analysis with a group of coworkers. The aim of the assignment is to find areas of improvement on the site of one of Sweden's largest passenger transport companies. Not something you do in an blink of an eye.

Anyway, as I returned home from the first day at Starsky my sister called and curiously asked me how my internship hunting was coming along. I told here about Starsky and a long silence followed in the other end.

“My best friends works there, you should have talked to me and I would have helped you and talked to my friend”.


Thanks god I didn't!


Love/ David Götmalm
I really miss you all!!

Oh yea.. One more thing.

Happy new year! A bit late, I know,
but I have hundreds of rich and sexy friends.
So I end with the ugly ones...

MOTION @ THELMA/LOUISE

Hi everyone! Marcus Szabo here. Man, time goes fast. It's been like three whole months soon.
I'm doing my internship at THELMA/LOUISE in Stockholm. A small motion production company at Karlaplan (Oestehr-mahlm). At the moment we're just five people working here, since one of the owners just went on paternity leave (föräldrar-ledighet).

As alot of you guys, I got to start working from day one. They had a pretty cool project going on when I got there so I basically just jumped into it. The project I got to work on was a documentary about Ebbe Carlsson. You might not find that so exciting but the material we got to work with was awesome, old black and white photos, kind of grainy but with high resolution and professional look made it really fun to work with. I worked about 4 weeks animating the photos so they would look "alive". The movie will be opening at the Gothenburg Filmfestival in the spring. Thereafter it'll be aired on SVT, I think.

Since that first project I have been working on different things, graphic-design-pitch for a new talk-show (wich we unfortunetly lost:'(.) Some storyboarding and alot of experimenting. I Recently started working in Maya 3D, wich is more easy than I thought. Sat down, watched like 5 hours of maya-basics toturials. Now I know everything :P

In all I feel pretty pleased with my intership so far. Altough I have had some doubts. The past three weeks we haven't had so many new projects coming in, as a result of the recession(lågkonjunkturen).

Hopefully we'll start pitching again and get some fun, new projects.


THELMA/LOUISE is well-known of being the productioncompany that has edited every single show with Fredrik and Filip. For you guys doing your internship in NEW YORK, Fredrik and Filip is coming over, where they will shoot their new talkshow. Maybe get a seat in the audience?

The Gang

One Love

/Marcus Szabo l www.artisdesign.se

City of Fairy Tales

I’ve come to the country of opportunities, where everything is possible. It’s the city where dreams come true and a place with no barriers other than your own imagination. There is a “jantelag” but not in Stockholm - here are people just as dry as you expect them to be. You can do whatever you pleases and no one will stop you. Even if you kill someone!

The first two hours in Stockholm City I was wondering what the fuck was I doing here. Sat in a taxi with a taxi driver that barely spoke understandable Swedish. My place wasn't too hard to find, 'cause its next to the castle. My place is located in one of Stockholm's oldest houses. If you look deep into the catacombs, under the house. You may find the remains of the blood from the Stockholm Bloodbath. That's what I call history! Tourists point at me, if I'm too close to the window. Probably because they think the old town (where I live) was built up especially for them, and that I'm one of the actors in the show.

Late one night a few days ago I went to ”the million programme” suburbs with a scottish friend. Back to Fittja, to a party in the apartment where Fittja Paradiso was recorded. (Do you remember it?). People smoked and it was free beer and food. This gave me a new perspective on Stockholm. Different from the city centre life with suits, SUVs and medieval tournaments. You can experience new things – if your mind still are opened and flexible. You don't have to travel. The key is within yourself! Just as Madonna and I wrote in our intros! NYC, Buenos Aires or Stockholm doesn't really make a difference...

Many of you gave advice and observations on what's special in the cities of the world. Two of them work just fine in the case of Stockholm, amazing!

• Advice nr 1 (Johannes): Don't think you're the only Scandinavian around
  
• Advice no 2 (Annie): Wine is really cheap! If you’re lucky you can make a real bargain and find wine for just 12 euro.

Sorry we all get carried away at times - so easy when my english personality kicks in you know.

My life has been spelled W-O-R-K more or less since the internship started. Work 24-7. Work work work. Graphic design, graphs (what did you expect?!), project management, heavy e-commerce solutions and business strategy. The company Designstationen that I work with are on the rise and we delivered an E-commerce thing to the swedish gigant Vattenfall some weeks ago. On the evenings when I get home from work and on the weekends I have been working with my little baby: The Photobook about Sweden. 44 young photographers (age 14-30) shows their Sweden with 64 images in a book printed mostly with EU funding. Fully translated into six languages... English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, German and French. It will be sent to the print house tomorrow. The release will be on Berns 2.35:1 the 26^th of February. The club is perfect for the release. The pictures will be shown on the four 120” screens. Just like it should be! You will be able to buy the book on the site later on!

Hope you all had a nice christmas and a good new year!

Sorry for hi-jacking a day at the blogger schedule but I feel like the workload already are stacking up here. The 15th I will be working again and you know how it is. When you work, YOU WORK. I don't have time to write silly blog post about life on a working day... Why live life according to your own values when you can have a company to slave you around!

Over and out
Ola
Stockholm, Sweden

Classmates, CO workers, Friends and Foes

This is Martin Brolin exposure thoughts and attitude from 9th Avenue, Firstborn, New York.

The office reveals with tender white walls, surrendered with desks and private spaces, dividing the area of people and responsibilities. The atmosphere here is warm and helping, the people are top talented and the workflow is high-speed ever going.

Hyper Island, have provided me with the toolbar that I need, to be able to start to work immediately from the first day at my internship. Or more correct; providing me with the determination to get that toolbar and further develop it to my own neurotic mix.

I have been quite busy. Starting from day two with three different projects have kept my mind full and my weekends now and then occupied in the diffuse glow of street signs, appealing from the office view. I have mostly worked with the synthesis of animation and programming, one foot in after effects, the other one in flash, just the way my schizophrenic, alienated mind wants it.

The first week in New York I was curious of my forthcoming stay. I decided to go to a psychic reader to help figure out my matter of insecurity. A homeless man stopped me outside the psychic and shouted: “I can help you predict your future, if you screw up once you are fucked.”

The American people are very proficient, working as much as they have to in order get the job done with the right finish. It is an absolute amazing feeling to be embraced by the topdogs in the fields of digital production. To receive feedback on the work I am doing by the ones I respect, makes my learning grow and wane in the notion of excitement and pressure.

Having that said, lots of love and wishes

Yours Truly

/Brolin