Blog of Emelie Ivansson

USA BY DESIGNERS - ONLINE EXHIBIT

Finally updated my portfolio today.

Launched Nikewomen.com last week, through AKQA, my role: Design.

I’m completetly in love with Isabells sketches, and the result from Saturdays shoot.
http://archaicfierce.blogspot.com/

Jacob left his shoes here when he himself left for South Africa, and although, I did enjoy pretending I had a man waiting for me at home, I also had to come to my sense and realize that our bookshelf, did not have room for another mans shoes, it barely got room for our own heels. So sori Jacob, but I made some accessories out of them, hope you don’t mind.

Figured I should document the workflow of my latest project. Mostly because it was an interesting and pretty intense journey, with a very tight deadline where I really got to know my own strengths and weaknesses, and how I react in the situation of not being able to find the inspiration when I really do need it. Unfortunately I cant display any of the actual design or the name of the client.

Brief: Design of Logotype and Website
Client: Newly founded Marketing company
Timeline: 48h

1. KNOWLEDGE - Started off with some research, to get to know the client, its values and its competitors.

2. INSPIRATION - Gone looking for inspiration, online, in the local vintage-store and in the surrounding back and forth from the gym.

3. SKETCHY - Got all the ideas onto the Muji notepad, for some reason, the first idea is always the best one, although you don’t know it until you spent 20 h coming up with a bunch of less better ideas^^.

3. REVIEW & REST - After a not very smart attempted to calm myself down over my lack of ideas and the pressuring timeline with too much wine, I finally sent out the first round to the client for review. 10 Logo directions, 4 site directions. I’m happy about the logos. But not really feeling the site design, just can’t seem to find my ideas.

3. FEEDBACK & ROUND 2 - As hoped, they client liked the Logo I liked as well, which was the first one I did, of course :P. But for the site, as I knew, not quite the right direction. They deleted some keywords from the brief, which might have screwed with my head a bit.

A 15 min bus ride, typing down a bunch of random keywords on my iphone, 5 min staring down at my white kitchen table, 2 min staring at my Notepad, and everything just cleared, I got a totally new idea which I really liked, I got hella excited, got it all from the visuals in my head onto the Photoshop canvas. Got it sent off to the client for Round 2, fingers crossed.

4. THE VERDICT -

” Emelie,

YES.
This is why I love what I do, it’s not always fun and easy, most often not, it demands hella lot of focus and it’s really frustrating when you can’t seem to find the inspiration, which also makes it really awesome, when you do “nail” it. It’s a kick, and it’s real, and the satisfaction of succeeding makes me happy, and the best part is that it was me myself who achieved it, I didn’t have anyone else make me happy, I made it all myself. Lol, this turned into some cheesy, deep shit, always. But still, think about it, most often its someone else brining you happiness, which also means, they can take it away, But this was all on me, and I’m gonna keep being happy about it, kuz I did something really cool. And yes I do realize it sounds like work is all that matters in life, but thats bullshit, kuz this is not work, this is my awesome life. So fuck that.

Latest work, Art direction/design and html/xml development. Got the brief from a small start up hotel to create their website, with the desire to inspire to spend a night or two on the Swedish country side. To experience the personality and uniqueness of both the hotel and its surrounding.

Launch site

Been quite busy lately, working on a few projects, and I figured it was time to present my latest accomplishments. Photographer Micheal Sugrue contacted me in December, with the brief to design and develop his new blog, showcasing a various range of content divided into categories. The design is based on his existing Portfolio site. The task required a bit more advanced Wordpress coding than I’ve been doing in the past, so it was a very interesting project that I learn a lot from. As a complement to the blog I also created an html email Newsletter that’s going to be sent out to Michael’s clients, partners, etc.

On the note, I had a great time last night, meeting up with Michael for drinks, it’s funny kuz i’ve been doing some freelance work for him, but we’d never actually met. Since he was in London for work this week, he proposed to meet up. It was really nice and we had a bunch of interesting conversations. I Love meeting new inspiring people, and honestly, that doesn’t happen as often here in London as it did in back in SF. Made me miss SF, and Americans.

Finally got my inspiration back, inspiration to create something else than the commissioned design I’ve been forcing myself to bust out the last few months.

Since I left San Francisco last September I haven’t been able to put any emotions onto my photoshop canvas. Usually my inspiration comes with anger, frustration, sadness, loss or happiness(!), but this time it didn’t, I think it was to painful to let it out that I kept it inside me and did everything to ignore the feelings. That’s not the right way to go though, I need my time to process, I need my time with photoshop to get it out of me, and to be able to move on. Well, it still hurts, but I guess this means I can see a small glimpse of light after all.

I’m excited over my new ideas, excited to have my excitement back, the feeling I remember from back at Hyper, when it was too hard to fall a sleep at night because I couldn’t wait to start working the day after. When after an hour trying, I got up and went to school, rather spending an all-nighter playing in photoshop in a scary old prison than sleeping comfi in my warm an cosy bed.