Tuesday 21 June 2011
Friday 17 June 2011
Goodbye!
Goodbye to Semla buns
Goodbye to boat trips to the islands
Goodbye to moon watching in the cemetary
Goodbye to watching as many romcoms as humanly possible*
Goodbye to eating enough meatballs to sink a ship
Goodbye to excellent ice skating toddlers
Goodbye to saronkyrkan flea market
Goodbye to trams breaking down because the doors wont lock
Goodbye to getting your limbs trapped in said self closing doors
Goodbye to all my lovely visitors
Goodbye to spotify ads in Swedish
Goodbye to my 2 pans, 3 plates and 3 mugs
Goodbye to so many good doilies!
Goodbye to Sandarna tram stop
Goodbye to lovely friendly strangers who buy you tram tickets when you're lost and confused
Goodbye to Haga and your lovely cobbled streets
Goodbye to the hateful tin opener
Goodbye to block of cheese as big as my torso
Goodbye to salty liquorice ( and frankly good riddance!)
Goodbye to gritty pavements
Goodbye to freezing my *** off in moccassins
Goodbye to my excellent mittens you have surved me well
Goodbye to Hagabion cinema
Goodbye to sooo many magpies
Goodbye to de matteo's sourdough pizza
Goodbye to not needing to lock your bike
Goodbye to most epic pick n mix from 4-Gott
Goodbye to not having a ketlle, a garden or a cat!
Goodbye to the pigeons in love outside my bedroom window
Goodbye to it being ok to be drinking beers and having a party at gone 12pm at school
Goodbye to the best painted mailboxes ever
Goodbye to two days straight non stop talking with Caz
Goodbye to most excellent veggie dinners at Hagabion
Goodbye to WINTER
Goodbye to bright white eggs
Goodbye to my little desk
Goodbye to the wonderful tiles at HDK
Goodbye to the loooms, oh the looms
Goodbye to having to wear your aftershave so I don't forget how you smell
Goodbye to wearing black and not being covered in cat hair!
Goodbye to the most Trust ever!
Goodbye to Monki
Goodbye to hands so dry you look 40 years older!
Goodbye to Sill how I will miss thee
Goodbye to eating Cape gooseberries like they're going out of fashion
Goodbye to epic breakfasts (although I plan to take you with me)
Goodbye to writing postcards
Goodbye to some of the longest skype dates in history
Goodbye to the two Jonas' my wonderful tutors
Goodbye to being an erasmus help desk!
Goodbye to my neighbour playing guitar
Goodbye to the elephant who lives above me
Goodbye to Holmans market
Goodbye to this little blog!
& of course goodbye to all of the wonderful friends I've made, hopefully it's more farewel and see you soon than goodbye!
& so a new chapter...
hopefully I'll see you there
* I'm not normally one for romcoms but sometimes feel the need so figured if I get my quota now I won't have to bore my boy with them when I return!
Goodbye to boat trips to the islands
Goodbye to moon watching in the cemetary
Goodbye to watching as many romcoms as humanly possible*
Goodbye to eating enough meatballs to sink a ship
Goodbye to excellent ice skating toddlers
Goodbye to saronkyrkan flea market
Goodbye to trams breaking down because the doors wont lock
Goodbye to getting your limbs trapped in said self closing doors
Goodbye to all my lovely visitors
Goodbye to spotify ads in Swedish
Goodbye to my 2 pans, 3 plates and 3 mugs
Goodbye to so many good doilies!
Goodbye to Sandarna tram stop
Goodbye to lovely friendly strangers who buy you tram tickets when you're lost and confused
Goodbye to Haga and your lovely cobbled streets
Goodbye to the hateful tin opener
Goodbye to block of cheese as big as my torso
Goodbye to salty liquorice ( and frankly good riddance!)
Goodbye to gritty pavements
Goodbye to freezing my *** off in moccassins
Goodbye to my excellent mittens you have surved me well
Goodbye to Hagabion cinema
Goodbye to sooo many magpies
Goodbye to de matteo's sourdough pizza
Goodbye to not needing to lock your bike
Goodbye to most epic pick n mix from 4-Gott
Goodbye to not having a ketlle, a garden or a cat!
Goodbye to the pigeons in love outside my bedroom window
Goodbye to it being ok to be drinking beers and having a party at gone 12pm at school
Goodbye to the best painted mailboxes ever
Goodbye to two days straight non stop talking with Caz
Goodbye to most excellent veggie dinners at Hagabion
Goodbye to WINTER
Goodbye to bright white eggs
Goodbye to my little desk
Goodbye to the wonderful tiles at HDK
Goodbye to the loooms, oh the looms
Goodbye to having to wear your aftershave so I don't forget how you smell
Goodbye to wearing black and not being covered in cat hair!
Goodbye to the most Trust ever!
Goodbye to Monki
Goodbye to hands so dry you look 40 years older!
Goodbye to Sill how I will miss thee
Goodbye to eating Cape gooseberries like they're going out of fashion
Goodbye to epic breakfasts (although I plan to take you with me)
Goodbye to writing postcards
Goodbye to some of the longest skype dates in history
Goodbye to the two Jonas' my wonderful tutors
Goodbye to being an erasmus help desk!
Goodbye to my neighbour playing guitar
Goodbye to the elephant who lives above me
Goodbye to Holmans market
Goodbye to this little blog!
& of course goodbye to all of the wonderful friends I've made, hopefully it's more farewel and see you soon than goodbye!
& so a new chapter...
hopefully I'll see you there
* I'm not normally one for romcoms but sometimes feel the need so figured if I get my quota now I won't have to bore my boy with them when I return!
Sunday 12 June 2011
HAY
Housed in the most beautiful building overlooking a charming square in the center of Copenhagen is the wonderful Hay. I could have stayed all day slumped atop a mountain of Donna Hay creatures and cushions, or hours admiring the amazing staircase, the beautiful views. The wonderful utilitarian objects laid out with such care, the bird cages, the incredible wicker, oh me oh my I was so in love with everything about this place!
But enough gushing, see for yourself
I'd really love to visit the buyers and design team, so perhaps I can plan a little something to give me a legitimate excuse to go back!
I keep saying I really need a holiday which generally results in a look of total disbelief! Guess I should keep reminding myself I just spent almost one quarter of 2011 in a wonderfully beautiful and inspiring country!
But really, I really do feel like I need a holiday!
But enough gushing, see for yourself
I'd really love to visit the buyers and design team, so perhaps I can plan a little something to give me a legitimate excuse to go back!
I keep saying I really need a holiday which generally results in a look of total disbelief! Guess I should keep reminding myself I just spent almost one quarter of 2011 in a wonderfully beautiful and inspiring country!
But really, I really do feel like I need a holiday!
Saturday 11 June 2011
Copenhagen!
On my way back from Switzerland to Gothenburg I stopped off for a day in lovely Copenhagen, the weather was miserable, especially after 27 degree heat in Switzerland and I was a little sad to be leaving my lovely friend Virginie and her wonderfully welcoming family so in all honesty wasn't massively looking forward to hanging out on my own again! OH WOE IS ME, right!? Anyway as soon as I arrived I quickly forgot about it. The city despite a whole bunch of construction work was wonderful, so so wonderful. I'm pretty desperate to go back and explore some more.
Also had a rather pleasant suprise down a quiet side street when I ran in to Andrea from my class at HDK. After spending about ten minutes laughing about the coincidence we decided to go and grab a coffee and catch up. The Danish crowns don't go as far as the Swedish ones, which as I've spoken (see moaned and whinged) about before and the Swedish ones don't go as far as my pounds in London. But today for once I didn't think about it. I ate a byootiful cupcake and admired the brilliant coins with a hole in the centre! so cool.
Andrea showed me some great places including Hay which I'll speak about another time but for now here's a few of the small amount of pics i shot on the blustery day.
Also had a rather pleasant suprise down a quiet side street when I ran in to Andrea from my class at HDK. After spending about ten minutes laughing about the coincidence we decided to go and grab a coffee and catch up. The Danish crowns don't go as far as the Swedish ones, which as I've spoken (see moaned and whinged) about before and the Swedish ones don't go as far as my pounds in London. But today for once I didn't think about it. I ate a byootiful cupcake and admired the brilliant coins with a hole in the centre! so cool.
Andrea showed me some great places including Hay which I'll speak about another time but for now here's a few of the small amount of pics i shot on the blustery day.
In the details
It's probably much more a story of blue skies and barbeques by no win Gothenburg but as I was packing up my room and preparing to leave spring was just peeping around the corners. It was crisp and sunny and beautiful, well and still grey somteimes but hey!
I snapped these on one of my last little walks.
WHISKY PARTY! ha
I snapped these on one of my last little walks.
WHISKY PARTY! ha
From Above (well almost)
Swedes love to be outside and often spend their Sundays on a söndagspromenad basically a Sunday walk. Heidi and I decided it was high time we took one. Although ours was more of a Fredag promenad! but still you get the point.
Ahh I miss those little red rooftops!
all shot from the top of Skansen Kronan
Ahh I miss those little red rooftops!
all shot from the top of Skansen Kronan
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Roadtrip - Ikea Design Department
As well as getting to check out the first Ikea store and to have a tour of the wonderful museum and archive we also got the chance to meet with one of the designers and pick their brain on the design process.
Ikea employs around 80 Freelance designers and has 12 in house designers, a little mad when you consider that they have 286 Stores and over 9000 designed objects.
We got to meet with Marcus Arvonen who is actually alumni of the course I'm studying at HDK, he picked out two pieces and talked us through the process he went through from concept to final product.
The first piece was the Ikea PS Maskros the brief he was given Spring and Sweden, inspired by the dandilion clocks that are for him synonymous with the beginnings of spring in Sweden he created the idea of the Maskros. He wanted to change the way people view them seeing as most people consider them weeds and would dig them up.
Originally it was due to be a limited run like most of the PS collection and originally came up against criticism because in order for it to be econmically packed and shipped it needed to fit into a small package that would mean the buyer would have to assemble 160 pieces themselves. Each of the individual stems also has to comply with regulations that stipulated they have to be able to support 10kilos otherwise they would be considered hazardous, so getting the delicate fragile nature of the dandilion clock into the design but at the same time making sure it was very strong was a challenge he has to work through with the materials experts on site.Production went ahead regardless of some of the doubts about assembly and much to everyones suprise it became one of their best sellers, and has since been made in a smaller size.
The second piece he spoke about was a series of plastic bins that can be bought in many conbinations and stacked and assembled with ease. This project of course was much less about aesthetics and more about materials, he spoke in great depth about the considerations they have to make about plastic production, plastic is relatively cheap to produce but in order to keep these costs economical it is very important to work with manufacturers close to the stores otherwise the low value is lost during the highly expensive shipping process. Something that I had not thought about until that point.
Marcus also spoke about the many considerations he has to make when designing, it is not simply a case of designing something with a good concept and visual impact or highly functional, the designers at ikea all have to consider the entire life of the product. The design, manufacture, packaging, it's life on the shelf, in the home and of course the all important question of whether or not it can be recycled afterwards.
A really great insight into Ikea!
Ikea employs around 80 Freelance designers and has 12 in house designers, a little mad when you consider that they have 286 Stores and over 9000 designed objects.
We got to meet with Marcus Arvonen who is actually alumni of the course I'm studying at HDK, he picked out two pieces and talked us through the process he went through from concept to final product.
The first piece was the Ikea PS Maskros the brief he was given Spring and Sweden, inspired by the dandilion clocks that are for him synonymous with the beginnings of spring in Sweden he created the idea of the Maskros. He wanted to change the way people view them seeing as most people consider them weeds and would dig them up.
Originally it was due to be a limited run like most of the PS collection and originally came up against criticism because in order for it to be econmically packed and shipped it needed to fit into a small package that would mean the buyer would have to assemble 160 pieces themselves. Each of the individual stems also has to comply with regulations that stipulated they have to be able to support 10kilos otherwise they would be considered hazardous, so getting the delicate fragile nature of the dandilion clock into the design but at the same time making sure it was very strong was a challenge he has to work through with the materials experts on site.Production went ahead regardless of some of the doubts about assembly and much to everyones suprise it became one of their best sellers, and has since been made in a smaller size.
The second piece he spoke about was a series of plastic bins that can be bought in many conbinations and stacked and assembled with ease. This project of course was much less about aesthetics and more about materials, he spoke in great depth about the considerations they have to make about plastic production, plastic is relatively cheap to produce but in order to keep these costs economical it is very important to work with manufacturers close to the stores otherwise the low value is lost during the highly expensive shipping process. Something that I had not thought about until that point.
Marcus also spoke about the many considerations he has to make when designing, it is not simply a case of designing something with a good concept and visual impact or highly functional, the designers at ikea all have to consider the entire life of the product. The design, manufacture, packaging, it's life on the shelf, in the home and of course the all important question of whether or not it can be recycled afterwards.
A really great insight into Ikea!
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