Elissa Goes Abroad: graphic

Hello all,

Thus begins one of the last entries from this trip, much to my sadness. I'll begin with Monday, where the moment I walked into the office Lars said, "It's your last week!" I laughed and told him to not remind me, but it ate away at me all week. I'll get back to that in a minute.

Saturday the 27th was tough. It was the street party, and frankly I'm trying to find a way to be diplomatic in my approach to my analysis of it. In theory, the street party is a splendid idea. Block parties are great ideas if you have the enthusiasm for them. And the table we set was beautiful and the food was great, and even the company was great...if you spoke Danish. It was full of songs and conversation. But it was also full of people who were not my age, with the exception of one lovely girl who left shortly after dinner. I hardly talked to anyone, and the one person who did talk to me after the girl my age left (besides my family) happened to be very drunk and kinda touchy, which made me a little uncomfortable. It was a long night, and while it was a nice time, I found myself bored and sketching on my phone. It was probably the least interesting thing I've experienced in my two months. I was super exhausted by the end of the night, and I'll blame my introversion here, because I just wanted to crawl up into my bed for the next three days by myself I was so people-tired.

Sunday the 28th was much better. I went with Ella, Marcus and Sophie to look at efterskolen. The efterskole is a type of boarding house that students can choose to do for a couple years in High School/Gymnasium age. She is interested in Design (I'm not really quite sure what that meant, even after looking at the schools...the "design" that I know is not what these schools were teaching. Looked more like the obvious industrial/furniture design and fashion design than graphic design as I know it.) But it was cool to see a very traditional Danish experience and shop for it with Sophie. Brought me back to my own college-shopping days. The first place reminded me a lot of Purchase College and I wasn't too crazy about it, but it offered more options. The second one was more my speed, but offered less. That was only two schools though, she may explore more options. I think she will do great no matter which place she chooses.

On Monday night I went up the Vejle to essentially present what I experienced and learned during my time in Denmark, while also getting to see the similar presentations that Arense and Christina gave. Following dinner we took some goofy pictures. I was sad after the meeting, realizing that this was the last time I was going to see my friends for a very long time. I'm not ashamed to admit I shed some tears on the train home. It was a very emotional experience for me, and I definitely have a weight in my chest knowing that I can't just hop a train or in the car to see these friends. They both tell me they will be back in the states, and I hope that I will get to visit them in DK again sometime too.

On Wednesday I went with Ella to the Trapholt Museum. It was a small art museum, mostly contemporary, but with some exhibitions on Danish furniture design and photography. They had an expansive exhibition on Børge Mogensen, the famous furniture designer whose work I have definitely seen before, whether in a house or otherwise. I also got to see the very famous Red and Blue Chair by Rietveld, inspired by Mondrian. It was very cool to see this piece in person, as it was very talked about in my modern art classes.

The museum also had a really cool exhibit called "10,000 Hours: What Is Talent?" which was a, discussion of sorts, of the cultivation of artistic "talent" from a young age. Each artist had (at least) two pieces of art on display. One from their younger years and a recent work, and there was a description of how these Danish artists were encouraged, schooled, etc. into becoming the artists they are today. It made me think about my origins as an artist, and "what is talent" is a question I often think about.

My favorite gallery was the photography one, showing the words of two very famous Danish photographers known for their photographs of musicians. The two artists were Photographers Bent Rej (1940) and Søren Solkær (1969). You could tell that Rej was very big on photographing the Rolling Stones in particular (or they liked him) but I much preferred Solkær's aesthetic more. His were more intriguing photographs with more personality, whereas Rej's were more portrait-like in nature.

Teglgårdsparken 106, Middelfart
on my last morning.

Now to revisit work life. On Tuesday morning I was riding my bicycle in the rain on the way to work. The bike's brakes aren't the greatest in the first place, but in the rain they are even worse. I came down the big hill to fall behind a young girl, maybe 10, on her way to school. I was about to pass her, but couldn't because there was a car behind me. For no reason, she suddenly slams on her brakes. Unable to stop in time, I plowed right into her. And naturally, she wasn't wearing a helmet, even in a country of bicycles. She was crying and cradling her cheek (thankfully, she didn't hit her head), but otherwise seemed alright. I didn't have a phone with me, she didn't have a phone with her, and apparently schools don't have nurses to provide ice packs. I felt terrible, but after making sure she was alright and could bike onwards, I continued towards Uhrenholt.

The rest of my week was spent finishing projects and reviewing them, so my coworkers would have everything organized, prepared, etc. in case they needed them in my absence. Friday (today) was tough. I was up early, before the sun was up, so I could drop by the bakery for the Thank You cake I ordered and have a breakfast with my team. At breakfast, they presented me with a lovely card and a beautiful scarf gift (and later a Danish design key...thing). The rest of the day was spent printing my own copies of the works I designed, making sure I got copies, and changing parts of the confidential text of the manual into Monty Python and Star Wars lorem ipsem text. A little fun for whoever decides to read them when looking at my portfolio is in for a surprise.

At the end of the day, we took a group picture, minus one person, and sat around the table eating the cake. I expressed my gratitude for the hundredth time that day, but no less sincere. I had an amazing time working for Uhrenholt and had a great team to guide me and help me grow. I'll especially miss Lars, my charming superior and coworker who I distracted and who distracted me with great conversations, laughs, design talk, and nonsense. I'll miss seeing your goofy grin every day, and talking about the Spooky Scary Spider that hung out outside our window. Keep sending me new tunes to listen to, Lars!

On Saturday the 5th of October, the family and I drove down to Flensburg, Germany. I didn't see a whole lot of the city, merely the gåsgade (pedestrian street) that walked through the old city. It was very interesting. Ten minutes from the border, and you could already see and feel the difference in culture. The architecture was different, the people were different, and obviously the language. There were so much more smokers, people were a little colder (at least that was how it seemed), there were more cars and hardly any bicycles. They had gorgeous churches towering over the walks. Buildings had beautiful facades, the harbor was lined with old wooden schooners, and all the grocery stores were cheaper... It was very entertaining to go shopping with my family in there. They bought 3000g of nutella, 8 containers of butter, a LOT of candy, and who knows how much cream cheese. I got to eat a currywurst (or sausage, because my friend Ruben says I should never ever try to say German words with my sloppy English) for lunch....that was quite delicious. Overall, the city was nice and I'm glad I got to experience it.

I don't think I have anything else to write from this week.

Until next time!

Søren Solkær

An interesting set of sculptures in the 10,000 Hours Exhibition

The canteen.

This woman made our breakfast and lunch every day.

My first day, Lars had it flipped. I'm sad too!

Uhrenholt was a food provider for
Sochi 2012. There's a torch in the lobby.

The showroom

Marketing and Design Department!

Collection of the Emborg Brand products

The view I'll miss.

Hello!

The very first thing I noticed about the Icelandic design was how contemporary it was. Even just setting foot in the terminal in Keflavik, it's modern aesthetic was noticeable. There were glass pyramids, decorative and not-quite-windows, hanging down like tinted teal appendages from the ceiling, no doubt a reference to icicles. I will have to try to remember to get a photo on the way back to the States. The drive from the airport was lacking in architecture, and mostly had dark landscapes that I couldn't see. But my first taste of the city of Reykjavik was the Harpa performing arts center at night. The windows changed color, which was quite nice to watch. The windows were cubes in nature. As a reminder, this iconic building was built during the Icelandic economic crisis, whenever that was.

In the daylight, I began to notice more trends in design. The buildings were almost entirely contemporary. They were all incredibly geometric in style, and fairly neutral in color. It is the older houses that had much more life to them, colored in saturated hues. If the [older] houses themselves weren't colored in bright colors, their roofs were. Below find examples of the old city architecture (built in the 1800s-early 1900s) and then the modern architecture, from 1945-present:

Now, regarding graphic design, there were some examples of vintage-style design, but for the most part, it was all very clean, contemporary, and generally rather abstract. There was very little that offended me, although I did see someone use papyrus typeface once. What did surprise me, was the seemingly random areas where advertising was placed...in other words, there didn't seem to be a system. It was on fabric hanging on signs, stuck on buildings, street corners. I didn't see any large billboards. But I did see a lot of small ones with the triangle shaped posts that rotate to form a complete picture.

Below find some examples of Icelandic graphic design.