Flight

At last, the semester is over. The last couple of weeks was immensely stressful, even if I forced myself to take it slowly – think, wee b, think! Use your head! A simple command, but with water leaking in everywhere, keeping head above said was not trivial. I remind myself now and then that this is – in the large context of things – a fart in cosmos. Soon I am off – going to rellies in Denmark, play with kids, eat duck and drink scnapps.

Do I still have it?

As exam dates starts to show up on the best-before-dates on the perishables, the educational pressure cooker is heating up. Some are dropping out of some courses, some hang in there by the skin of their teeth, some stay under the comfy duvet. The wheat from the chaff, possibly, or maybe just bad judgement under strain. Doing things in media courses can be pretty stressful – there is a lot of lugging heavy equipment around, and with no hierarchy democracy is prevalent in every bit of production. Design by committee. And we all know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Useful for certain places and certain tasks, but not a versatile, esthetically pleasing object.

Back to the grind – higher education, year 2

This blog was initially ment as a school related project, but I am a fickle person, it seems. There are so many other things that interests me, and expanding connections, ideas and thoughts simply seems more fitting to the blog format instead of a record of day-to-day minutiae.
Besides, I also use it as an experiment in how the Great Web works.

Helvetica, gods of fonts. I don’t like the a.

I finally saw the much-trumpeted film. It was amusing; mainly for the characters in it – and I mean the designers, not the fontface. That helvetica is everywhere is no surprise. It is clean, bland, large, simple and good for signage. Generally.
But the designers was the funniest bits. Some of them are clearly off their rockers, and I love it. Especially Erik Spiekermann is a raving loony, a man with wit, opinions and a careless regards of others. “I am always on time, but always a year late”, he says. He despises Helvetica for having no contrast; no rhythm. He shrugs, and says bad design is everywhere.

custom css, exams finished and the shoemakers children

Had the last exam today, in digital documents, and now I’m free (!) for 12 weeks! (an old hag like me- I have no idea what to do with all that time..) The idea is that I’ll fix a custom css here, learn flash, set up a website proper, and get some good webdesigns done. And looking forward to read some fiction, and not programming books only.

……..but as the saying goes, the shoemakers children go barefoot. And good intentions never changed anything. Ask me how it went in 12 weeks time. And a happy holiday to all :-)

media – gossip central and major irony

I don’t read papers much anymore, I don’t have a telly.

In fact, I have been sans telly for …oh.. the main part of the last sixteen years. I had a telly the first four years, I used it as a pedestal for potted plants and asian souvenirs, considered making a fish-tank out of it, and watched, hungover, all in all four hours of the good Sir David Attenborough. I had it for months before I turned it on to figure out if it was colour or black and white. The thing is: some things on telly are good. Some first class stuff. But it is surrounded by trash. So either you turn it on – default – and accidentally bump into something good,… or… I simply forgot when to turn it on for the good stuff.

The great student riots of 2008

In the spring of 2008 campuses all over the country exploded in political protest. Riots spread like wildfire, and creative students built barricades of tables, vending machines and arming themselves with molotovcoctails and general kitchenwear found on campus.

The first buildings they occupied, was the server and computer labs, and from there coordinated their actions. In Østfold, they painted the glass walls and brick buildings with slogans of politcal dissent, and set up watches with web cameras and sensors on the roof of the university college.

The leaders of the riots said to the press, via video interviews, that they will not give in, that the demands must be met, and that the educational system..

Letraset, academics and writing

Went through some old notebooks, boxes and piles of stuff before moving here.. and the in the process found my old, precious Letraset book- it used to be a treasure, and a priced possession. Hands up, all who have done plaka lettering; meticulously drawing up and painting letters on awful quality paper. Thought not. Not a common pasttime, exactly. Art school stuff. Initially flicking past the endless pages of sans serifs, grotesks, helveticas, looking at fonts impossible to draw with silly names, flourishes and elan. Basically, it’s a good deal easier to camouflage mediocre penmanship in a swirly, messy font, than in the grotesks… and we where into art, not geometry!

God, how wrong can you be.