I am terribly sorry that I couldn’t post earlier. Some very exciting weeks have gone by at Hyper Island, with many cool projects, late worknights, and lots of fun.
The Muffins have worked really hard on the module Advanced Interface design, which results will be displayed in this post, I’ve created my portfolio during the Christmas break and I’ve started my second semester with a great new team with who I’ll will be working on a new identity for the Swedish Armed Forces.
Cas & The Cats
Tue 2 Feb 2010, 8:40
The IKEA Homepage
Mon 23 Nov 2009, 8:01
During our last module, called ‘Interactive User Experience‘, we had the chance to work for IKEA, one of the biggest furniture stores in the world. IKEA started in Sweden, which is still resembled in their design, efficiency and price. It’s a great company that receives a lot of love, and hasn’t got that many enemies. And it is exactly there for they’re a difficult client. IKEA manages to deliver cheap furniture that is durable and well designed. It has branches across the globe. It pays a lot of attention to green energy, re-using old furniture and clean materials. Apart from that they spend a huge amount of money on advertising, hiring the best companies to bring marvelous campaigns and tv-commercials like the lamp, IKEA in the Sims, and Obama’s new oval office.
You can imagine it’s not that easy to find a hole in their company, and area they didn’t pay enough attention to. We did a lot of research, and found one new area where IKEA is missing: social media online. After a lot of brainstorming and prototyping, we came up with our solution: IKEA Homepage.
Behind the curtains at Hyper Island
Tue 3 Nov 2009, 17:17
During the first weeks at Hyper Island, a weird man walked around and stalked five students for five long days. This particular man was Jonny Von Wallström, a young filmmaker who made a small documentary on how we work here at Hyper. In my opinion, this movie resembles perfectly what we’re doing here, and how awesome the drill is. Be sure to look 
Awarded with the first Febelgra prize!
Mon 19 Oct 2009, 6:36
A few weeks ago, a lector from my previous school told me he nominated me for the Febelgra prize in Belgium. Febelgra is a federation of Belgian graphical companies, and each year they nominate potential talent within the graphical industry. The four nominees who all studieds at Artevelde College, had to do a presentation for the jury. And since I’m still in Sweden, I did this via a video-conference with Skype, and a computer in Belgium I could control from Sweden using iChat and MobileMe.
Prank war – Part 1
Thu 15 Oct 2009, 13:33
My dear neighbor Alexander Strand Kristensen and me have been having a small verbal prank war going on since Hyper Island put us so close to each other. Over the passed few months, an occasional ‘You suck!’ became mandatory as well as more diverse expressions such as ‘Sucker!’, ‘You suck more man!’, ‘You sucky sucker!’, and more of these nice and friendly conversations became a daily habit.
But yesterday, our prank war went to the next level. I was rather surprised when I saw that my friend Alex had changed my desktop wallpaper to this typographic and esthetically correct piece of art. I must say I was rather pleased more than insulted. None the less, this means the game is on, the war has begun, the battle shall start! Prepare yourself Alex!
Photo shoot of IAD10
Wed 14 Oct 2009, 9:01
Saving the life of ICA Banken and men
Sat 10 Oct 2009, 17:49
At Hyper, we learn to work on several different projects at the same time, by having a major project running while lectures give us smaller projects. Our major project at this moment is improving IKEA for the next coming years. We have seven weeks to finish this projects, and at this moment only 3 weeks are left. While this project is running, we have the chance to attend several lectures on the material we’re learning within this module. These projects don’t mean to be big or impressive, but should express the fact that we learned something new, and understand the things we’re learning. Here are two examples of such projects.
Seeing the future
Thu 10 Sep 2009, 16:40
In our first real module here at Hyper, we researched the future of the digital industry. We had the chance to attend lectures from some really interesting people like Måns Adler, founder of Bambuser, Petter Warnsberg and Jonathan Briggs. They talked about how technologies will describe the future and how this will chance the society, the people and their behaviors.
We were asked to get in contact with some other people we found interesting ourselves. So we contacted Noah Brier (Barbarian group, NYC), Richard Gatarski, Benn Malbon (BBH Labs, NYC), David Droga (Droga5, NYC), Anke Lidne (Disruptive Media) and Iain Tait (Poke, London).
Team building in the far far Sweden
Sun 30 Aug 2009, 14:56
When you think of team building, you normally think of rafting, climbing walls, do survival things in team. But team building for Hyper Island means something totally different. After our long and hard UGL we went to Barnens Ö, somewhere far outside Stockholm, truly in the middle of nowhere. And off course we had to do to some things together, for example the first task. We were all blindfolded, and scattered across an open field. Then we were asked to find the rope that was lying somewhere in the field. Once everyone had the rope, we had to form a square with it. The cool thing was the collaboration. I couldn’t find the rope, it took me a long time. But than suddenly someone took my hand and guided me to the rope. And the rectangle worked perfectly as well. We were able to form a perfect square!
Reflecting on the UGL
Sun 16 Aug 2009, 17:11
Every course you take at Hyper Island start with a module they believe you should do in order to work fluently and fast at Hyper Island. The module is called UGL which stands for Understanding Group Leadership. It’s a module that was developed for the Swedish army so they could work better as a team. Yes you’re reading this right, we’re getting military training here…
But first things first: what happened in the first two days of Hyper Island? Thursday and Friday last week were two days full of introductions and presentations. Every student had to introduce him of herself to the group by using a single large sheet of paper and some markers. You can see mine here to the right. And the only thing I can say, is that this is the most diverse group I’ve ever been a part of. We have people from every continent, many many countries are represented: USA, UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Norway, Finland, Egypt, Turkey, Australia, and many many more. And everyone has their own experience, knowledge and interests, so I really can not wait to see them work in a project. But that won’t happen in another week. Apart from the excitement, I also felt a bit scared. They told us UGL would be really hard, we had to be mentally and emotionally stable, be prepared to work for long days, and make sure we didn’t plan anything outside school for the coming week and even the week-end after. We would get 5 days of rest after the UGL we should use as much as possible.
So than, the first week started. On Monday morning we were divided into groups of 12 people. My group consisted of all international students, some studied Digital Media, some Interactive Art Director like me, and some came all the way from Karlskrona where they studied Motion Graphic Designer. And than the UGL started, a week of doing group assignments and reflecting on it afterwards, of feedback and discussion, of common agreement and conflict. We got together in a small room somewhere in the gigantic complex of Telefonplan, where we would work and reflect for the coming 5 days. Every task was followed by a long reflection, or in group or with one person individually. We of course started with new and more personal introductions of ourselves, but soon the repetition of assignment and reflection began. Tasks learned us how to get to common agreements. For example, we got five bad persons who where in a bad situation (ill, divorced, drinking problem, …) and we had to agree with who we had the most and the less sympathy for. Or we had to order 15 things we should take on our rescue boat when our ship sank, and agree on what was the most and less important. Other tests told us how we trust people, and if we take the assertive of offensive way when dealing with challenges. We had to do the Prison Brake test: first telling us we had to collect as many points as possible, than dividing us into groups. Which made some people believe we had to collect more point than our opposing group, and other saw the light and wanted to have as many points together. (I did not see that light if you want to know…)
And in the end, the big test came: see that your group has a leadership. A task of 2 hours where you had to agree on a common workflow, so that the right people would come out, regardless of false opinions or prejudice.
In the end you realize the UGL is a must for everyone who wants to work fast, right and respectful within a group. You learn to get to know people on the right levels, see what they’re good at and on which aspects they fail. But most of all, you learn a lot about yourself. Your fears, your opinions, your influences. You learn which aspects make you a good leader, and which don’t. You open up for new experiences, taking new and unknown roles in a group and in the end you put yourself to the challenge of overcoming your bad aspects and make this year the most opening and rewarding year ever. Cause as they say, Hyper Island is 50% digital media, and 50% leadership.
This course made it immediately clear why a lot of projects at my previous school failed, and most of the ones I’ll do here will work. The best foundation of a good project is working with a group where you know who you can trust, who needs help, who can take which role.
Apart from that, there was a lot of fun as well. The coffee breaks, beers in the evening, tearing the room down in the end, and most of all the fun we had, are as well an important part of the UGL. The days were long, exhausting and hard, but the group spirit was so much fun, I never felt bad going back for another day of mind digging.
And the week is over, time for mediation, thinking over, and washing clothes. This Thursday we start our two days of Team Building somewhere outside Stockholm. Stay tuned!
Every course you take at Hyper Island starts with a module they believe you should do in order to work fluently and fast at Hyper Island. The module is called UGL which stands for Understanding Group Leadership. It’s a module that was developed for the Swedish army so they could work better as a team. Yes you’re reading this right, we’re getting military training here…
But first things first: what happened in the first two days of Hyper Island? Thursday and Friday last week were two days full of introductions and presentations. Every student had to introduce him or herself to the group by using a single large sheet of paper and some markers. You can see mine here to the left. And the only thing I can say, is that this is the most diverse group I’ve ever been part of. We have people from every continent, many many countries are represented: USA, UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Norway, Finland, Egypt, Turkey, Australia, and many many more. And everyone has their own experience, knowledge and interests, so I really can not wait to see them work in a project. But that won’t happen for another week. Apart from the excitement, I also felt a bit scared. They told us UGL would be really hard, we had to be mentally and emotionally stable, be prepared to work for long days, and make sure we didn’t plan anything outside school for the coming week and even the week-end after. We would get 5 days of rest after the UGL we should use as much as possible.
Hey! I'm Cas and I'm currently studying Interactive Art Director at Hyper Island in Stockholm. Here you can read all the details about my adventure, see what I'm up to, look at the pictures or track me down to find me. Don't hesitate to leave a comment, contact me via one of my various profiles, or visit my website. Hope to hear from you soon! Cas
