General OverviewMy first semester here at KHiB has been full of surprises-- both inside and outside of the program. In general before starting the semester I had high expectations in terms of having the space to challenge myself technically and conceptually. Making the move from working in design to going back to school was easier transition then I originally thought. I found out that strict client timelines at my last two jobs have instilled a very strong sense of time management in me that I have been able to carry over to my first semester here at KHiB.

In terms of the actual courses this semester I think I got the most out of Torhild’s dynamic project management course, Morten’s theory lectures and the Joint project towards the end of the semester. I feel like these courses really helped me hone in on different aspects of my thesis (passion in my topic, theoretical backbone and leadership skills, respectively) that I was personally struggling with and in the end helped bring clarity to my ideas. The the overall process of writing my proposal was actually a lot of fun, through creating a master blog I reflected on my thoughts and ideas on a weekly basis. The result of this free writing was me feeling more confident and excited about my topic and the next two years. I found the 10 question writing project towards the end of the semester to be the most successful tool in writing the proposal as it really helped me to address the tough questions about my thesis in bite size pieces.

I think a challenge for myself next semester in terms of written analysis is to actually just seek out texts that approach my topic from some different angles. As of right now I have only looked at my topic from critical writing perspectives of art and design. Next semester I would like to push myself to look at cultural perspectives on my topic. To be more clear an example might be a text that talks about the differences in how art and design is percieved based on class and cultural standing. I am very curious how this might effect the way I got about my project. Secondly, even though the research portion for me shifted a lot during the course of the semester because of the evolution of my topic I feel I got the chance to gain a lot of knowlege on my topic (How can I use Art as a tool in my design process) through my readings. I read a great deal about the crossover between the art and design fields, and the many arguments about why this should or shouldn’t be. One key insight from these reading was me understanding that in order to have

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a strong intellectual discussion in my topic I will need to read as much of these discussion as possible The reason for this is because the arguments between these fields has already been discussed from many different discplinary viewpoints and in my opinion has lead mostly to dead ends. I think that to have a good critical discussion about this I have first needed to realize the mistake of most of these writers of really trying to put the discplines of art and design in boxes.

As far as keeping myself updated and where I have gathered my inspiration from this semester: I have kept two blogs this semester which I use to organzied my this sort of information. One is a personal blog that focuses on more of my day to day sketches and experiments, and is limited to material and content that I have generated. The second blog is geared more towards written reflections and gathering images,designers,artists, and videos that I am interested in. It serves as a visual gallery with my added commentary which speaks to why it effects me and my masters thesis. Through these two blogs on tumblr I am also able to follow a number of other creatives work and experiments and I find this to be a conintual source of inspiration and a catalyst for progress in my own project. This blog also allowed me to catalog alot of the small bits of text from articles and essays, which resulted in me finding a great amount of literature for me to read into about my topic.

On a more personal note I have challenged myself this semester to initiate many personal projects and experiments. These project/experiments allexplored aspects of my thesis topic and were attempts for me to really tighten up my illustrative voice and visual vernacular before next semester. Coming from an environment where more of my projects were created within the confines of a clients brief I felt it was essential for me to “practiceprogress” in my work and get a stronger grasp on the characteristics of my voice. I believe this will play a part in helping me identify the sort of projects I will take on during the rest of thesis project. In reflection, I think the biggest weakness in my work right now is that compared to my body of design work it is more fragmented and consists of smaller pieces. I want to challenge myself next semester to create bigger bodies of illustration work based on concepts in my thesis.

Lastly, I spent a great deal of time experimenting with screenprinting this semester. I felt it was something that I wanted to incorporate into some of

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my thesis work in some way. I often feel that something gets lost when I print out my designs and drawings through a regular printer and I really have grown to love how it feels to physically pull the ink through the screen to create prints. I really want to continue my experimentation with this technique next semester as it allows for some great “mistakes” that can evolve my illustration work.

Introductory CourseI think the introduction week was good at setting up an overview of the courses as well as the standards of the work that were expected over the next two years. Torhild’s course the first week caught me totally off guard because it caused me to change my original thesis. Her exercised on identifying passions and channeling that into the thesis project seemed quite simple and obvious to me at first. However, as the course pushed on I realized that those questions require a significant amount of reflection and ultimately ended up steering me in a new direction with my topic question. In my research as well as looking at some of my heroes in the creative field during and after the conclusion of the course it became really apparent to me how important part passion plays in a catalyst for sculpting your own personal “brand vision.” It was also an enjoyable experience to here about the past master projects from the two former students. Although it was mostly in Norwegian I really was excited by all of the great work that came out of Åge’s process for his masters.

Morton’s Theoretical LecturesI found Morten’s lectures to be highly effective not only because of his content and knowledge but also because he is an entertaining speaker. I have never met someone who can keep my attention at eight fifteen in the morning like him. As someone who read’s a lot critical texts and theory on design I found it refreshing and important to understand how many types of theory (outside of design) really effect what we do. This is something that I don’t think that I could have ever gotten from my undergraduate education or the advertising field. I think that his class really highlighted some of the more technical aspects of approaching our thesis topics. Whether it is identifying research methods or breaking down the concepts of semiotics in order to show how to effectively communicate to our audiences,I found his commentary to be very useful. I also drew some interesting parallels between his discussion on trends in the identity theory in my own project.

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Being keenly aware of these trends and having a maybe a bit of foresight into what they are to become is to me an important insight into knowing how to put yourself out there as an illustrator and designer. Lastly, Morten’s class has directed me towards some titles that I would have never looked at for my thesis that provide some interesting variety in my literature curriculum, specifically Pierre Bourdieu whose book “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste” I am not reading as part of my research.

Joint ProjectI found Linda and Benta’s joint project course to be really interesting because although I have been involved in many group projects before, not many of them have been cross disciplinary. This was also the first time that I assumed a leadership role in a group project, another very interesting aspect for me. I would say that this project taught me that I need to let go of things more when working with others. Although we had a successful final product, I feel like my obsessiveness and standards on having things polished in the presentation led me to take on a lot of the work. While I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, I think that I need to learn to push other people in the group to work harder rather than to just take their tasks on myself.

Writing CourseRandi’s writing courses were more interesting to me because of the smaller exercises that she had us participate in during the classes.To be more specific, a great example of one of these exercises was when she had us spend twenty minutes free writing the conclusion of our thesis. This quick exercise really helped me have some breakthroughs because it made me write about the project from a different angle then I was used to. As someone who includes writing as a very important part of my creative process I felt that it was a great refresher on how to cite sources, and I really appreciated the small workshop on what makes a good thesis question. I felt that the last two courses before handing in our final project description and the questions we had to answer beforehand were a great runway to taking off into writing the final proposal.

Joint Project

Bergen Regn FestivalThrough our research and brainstorming we decided to create a “Regn festival.” We believe that an event like this would bring pride to the citizens of Bergen, by celebrating something that they endure all year round. As a secondary benefit it will attract tourists coming to the city, maybe even turning it into a place for “Rain Enthusiasts” which in turn flips the notion of bad weather on its head. A festival as unique as this could attract a cult audience and eventually bloom into being a reason to come to the city. During this project my role was was to design the visual identity,colleteral, a poster series and character design.

BERGEN REGN FESTIVAL

How can we designers promote rain as a key element of the city of Bergen, to help it be seen as a positive trait?

Bergen Regn Festival Character Design

During the project we decided that while the festival would have a consistent identity, each year the festival would apporach the subject of rain from a different thematic angle . This would help keep the festival as a consistently interesting experience to visit each year while maintaing it’s upbeat and whimsical voice . As one exampe I created a series of poster’s that approached the subject of history in the festivals voice. The idea was to take some cliche norwegian characters (viking,troll, black metal member) and to illustrate them dancing in the rain.

Collateral

Poster Series

Thesis Proposal Book

Thesis: Semester Daily Experiments

A selection of 10 Images from this semester most of which were turned into screenprints. The purpose of these exercises is to Practice Progress, gain a stronger handle on my voice, and continually experiment with composition, color and character design. As well as to work on more abstract concepts that are not confined to a brief.

Sketches & Information VisualizationSmall selection of sketch idea visuals from the last semester.

Sursurro Magazine

Editorial illustration for a new Oslo based art and literary publication’s upcoming January Issue.