I was at Nordiska Museet, and their exhibition "Tapeter, tapeter!" about wallpaper. I don't really have an historical interest in wallpapers, but they have a great many old ones from the 18th and 19th century on display. Also a few from the 40's through 60's, and some that appeared to be fairly new. I love wallpaper. Not so much that I actually have them on my walls, but I love them all the same. Particularly in books.

I'm in the middle of a book project, that I can't tell you very much about. I can, however, show you some pictures from my office ... where I'm doing it.

Upcoming illustration.

I went to Paris to attend my aunts birthday. I spent a few great autumn days there with my family and girlfriend. We had dinner at Gare d'Lyon wich sports a fabulous "belle epoque" restaurant, "Le train bleu", with a breathtaking ballroom like dining room. If you're around, go there.

A crop of an illustration for Forma, Hus&Hem. Above: Me (bad hairdo) and my cousin at "Le train bleu".



We stayed at "Belle vue" on rue de Turbigo, also in belle epoque style. The hotel is a bit rough, but mostly in a good way. That's where I found the wallpaper for the illustration. I'm collecting things like that.

A collection of older stuff. See them here.

Upcoming illustrations for Hus&Hem. This time it's supposed to illustrate fireplaces. A warm, cosy, fuzzy feeling. Hope they don't mind I'm showing a preview ...

I haven't done many illustrations lately, as I've been working pretty much at Family Living and Mama ... It's nice for a change. Somehow, when you don't work regularly with something, it usually takes a while longer to complete. I worked all day on these. I photographed a dress for the wallpaper, so that's a stolen design. It's probably stolen in the first place from a wallpaper design, so I don't feel bad about that. It's recycling.

I found this personal world map at "From now on ...", a friends blog. It shows you with a graphic representation which countries you have visited, and a percentage of the world. I got 9%. Out of those 9% I have seen very little. I have never been to the far north of Sweden for instance, which is downright embarrassing considering I have lived here all my life.


Countries Staffan Millqvist has officially visited

Check it out for yourselves here.

The entire site was accidentally deleted by either me, or Apple, depending on how you look at it. I changed some things on .mac, and boom; it was gone. Now it's back again, as you have probably already noticed...

I went to Berlin, to visit my friend Pål. He works there as a scientist, and I met some of his new found friends. A pretty mixed bag of Europeans, and an Argentinean. As it were there were one Hungarian, one Romanian (Transylvania), three Italians, four Polacks, one argentinean, one Spanish, two Germans and two Swedes... unless I missed someone. I biked around on a borrowed bike, and went to a couple of muséeums. Berlin is a slow city, and I was slow too.

Berlin is a very special city for Europe. It's one of the last places in western Europe where a big city actually hosts a lot of semi-poor people, without huge mortgages. As I was told, about 90% of the flats are rented, and there's no problem getting one. This has lead to a city where shop owners, and bar owners doesn't have to make a ridiculous amount of money. Which in turn leads to less commercial establishments. Dr Pong is just such a place. I couldn't think of a less hip place, and yet it's amazing. You pay a fee for a ping pong racket (that you get back when you return it), and buy a beer. Then you play against the people who happen to hang around. I got hit pretty hard by a swedes serve, but we only lost by two points in the end in a double we were playing.

We also went to a weinery where you pay one euro, and eat and drink all you want, then pay what you think it was worth when you leave. Or not, if you so choose. I can't see that place working out in many other cities in the west.

Pål outside the exhibition "Berlin Tokyo Tokyo Berlin"

I've heard, but never put much credit to the fact or rumor, that every person has seven look-alikes. I have seen, on several occasions, people that remind a lot of other people I know, but never anyone who I think looks like myself. Until now, that is. I only saw him briefly, passing by me in the street, and he turned around to look at me. We sized each other for a short while with our stares, and then proceeded to rush off in different directions.

I was on my way to get a burger, and wasn't dressed nearly as sharp as him, something I regret deeply. Of two doppelgängers, I want me to be the handsome one.

Anyway, I still don't believe in the seven look-alikes, but I know there's at least one now. I wonder if we think alike too, if we do the same things...

UPDATE Look what it says on wikipedia: "... Alternatively, the word is used to describe a phenomenon where you catch your own image out of the corner of your eye. In some mythologies, seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. A doppelgänger seen by friends or relatives of a person may sometimes bring bad luck, or indicate an approaching illness or health problem."

That doesn't sound good at all.

I went to my cousines wedding a while back, and took some photographs for and of her. I think she looks so beautiful in these, I had to show them here...



Well, that's it... as you were.

More like telephone jots. I have no idea when I made them, or why. I think I made them when I got my Wacom tablet and Painter. Probably they're made on a Powermac 8600. Old stuff. I haven't had time, or the "inspiration", to do much of these lately, so it's fun to find these old things. Some are pretty good, others are not ...

I found these old drawings just now. I barely remember doing them. They're called blomma A, B and C. I think I made them after a trip to Beijing, some six years ago. They fit to this page in an almost scary way...

I've been working with Bonzoo (Bonnier zoo) for the last couple or three weeks, with both Mama and Family Living.

Not surprisingly, for a magazine called Mama, they always seem to be at least one woman short of a full staff. Even their extra is on maternity leave. Good for me as there's bound to be work there for a metro-man like myself. A lot of interesting people. A pretty mixed lot, even though there's 100% women on the floor. Oh, there is one man at marketing, but I'm fairly sure he's gay.

I have a new layout on the blog pages. Well, a minor tweak actually. The images are now shrinking as you shrink the page, according to certain rules. Pretty nice, if I may say so myself.

If something does look weird, don't panic. Send me a message, and I'll see what I can do, or better yet; tell me what to do. Internet Explorer is tricky, but I think I finally got it right.

UPDATE It seems pictures are stretched in the most absurd ways in Internet Explorer, so don't use that... for now. I hate to say it (no I don't !), but the internet looks a little better on the Mac. I think Internet Explorer 7 will finally work better, so if you're not afraid of installing beta products from Microsoft; get it here. Or install something that is proven to work well.

UPDATE 2 I scrapped the new layout altogether...

In this picture, taken at some sort of art gallery party in a San Francisco basement, I'm trying hard to look like I'm not enjoying myself... or, more likely from what I've heard, I'm getting near my Totem.

Sometimes when some people stick together for some period of time, they start making up little stories only they know about. There were several of these small make-believe fables on our road trip this summer. It's a sort of bonding, I suppose. We know, and you don't.

Indians, as most of us probably know from our enlightening cinemas, find their Totem in various stages of "exhaustion". Well, we were at the brink of finding our true Totems somewhere not far from central Monterey. The problem is to bring the Totem together with your conscious self, otherwise you could only hear from others what your true Totem is. We called this, in a metaphor; "the Falcon and the Pig". I never met my Totem, but was told later it's the Llama; basically cool and calm, but arrogant and could spit you in the face.

I suppose it could be worse. At least they look distinguished, even if they're anything but. Read More ...

Right... a bit late, but here is a gallery from my road trip starting in Los Angeles and ending in San Francisco. I went with seven friends, and we met up with a couple of others living in LA.

I've only been to New York and Washington before, and the west coast is different. I never quite got a grip on Los Angeles. I suppose, being european, I like a city to feel like a city. Los Angeles is anything but a city. In places, like Venice beach, you can walk around without a car, but it would take a while to get a feeling of the city as a whole.

San Francisco is a weird place. We lived just fifty meters from the Hilton, in the worst possible crack-ghetto. Walk fifty meters in another direction, and you're suddenly thrown into the the business district. No sign of any crack there. I suppose you learn a city after a while, but I found SF weird and LA even weirder... but not in an altogether bad way. Americans are fun.

San Francisco is much more like a european city. Apart from the vast amount of crack heads literally littering the streets, I really liked it too. I went to SF Moma to see the Matthew Barney show Drawing restraint, and we went to a few clubs. A hipster club called Qoöl, among others. Qoöl is an after work house club, with the beautiful and/or rich.

On to the gallery then....

I've been on a trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco. More will follow soon.

Read More ...

The latest issue of Residence has been out for a while, and there are plenty of my layouts in it. I'm back at their office, working with issue #5. It's completely different from Veckorevyn, of course, but the general idea is the same; making the best possible magazine for the intended target group. In both cases, this is the same as making the best possible magazine. Period. That's not always the case, there are lot's of people making magazines they wouldn't want to read themselves, which I think will show at some point. Read More ...

I think I have become addicted to Vietnamese coffe with condensed milk...



Read More ...

At last you can go out in Stockholm, without getting frostbitten toes.

I was tipped off about this page, where my illustration is shown. Erasmo Spicker also keeps a "best of" of blog posts by artist Nick Currie, previously mentioned here.

Larger version of the
illustration can be found here.

Read More ...

I have been working at a new place again. This time it's VeckoRevyn. It's a girlie mag, for girls between 18-25. Editor-in-chief, Ebba von Sydow, has been in the limelight for some time, and often made a bit of a stir. She's young, blonde and ambitious, which doesn't work well with many people. I don't know if it's because she's young, blonde or ambitious that sets people off. I's probably just that she's a successful woman. Young, successful men are hailed as geniuses, while women are considered bimbos until proven otherwise in a series of IQ-tests. The fact that she sometimes flaunt herself in the magazine, is probably a factor to count in too. That many other commercial editors does the same thing matters little.

The controversy at the moment is her book called "Ebbas stil" (Ebbas' style), which is a style-guide for women like herself (young, but not necessarily blonde or successful). She's gotten a lot of beating for being conservative in a victorian sense, and for trying to push girls back to a mindset of the 50's (or 19th century even). I must confess I haven't actually read the book, and likely won't as it's not meant for me, but Ebbas' standpoint is that women, or girls, shouldn't fold in to becoming a bimbo. The way to not do that, is to not get too drunk, not wear skanky outfits and play a little hard to get. Seems like healthy advice to me. Who want's to be attacked by a drunk girl, dressed like a whore? In times of Big Brother, where a girl who has sex on the TV is rewarded 1 Million SEK, a different view is always welcome. Who want's their daughters to feel they need to get silicon breasts to be accepted?
The people "attacking" her book say she's trying to stop women's liberation by recommending girls not to act like pigs (men). I can tell you this; you need pretty refined arguing techniques to talk down someone who stands for a healthier view on society, which gives Ebba a head start in the debate.

Anyway, it's a breeze to work at VeckoRevyn, and I hope I can work there more later in the summer. I'm learning new things everyday. I hardly knew who Lindsay Lohan was before I made a job about her, I now know which is the most moisturizing shower gel and how to get a glossy beach look. Plus: it's four minutes from home, it's all girls, and everyone's very nice. Who wouldn't want to work there?

"the Miura Bull", Anders Kumlien

Anders Kumlien, a friend from my "office space", has done three very successful exhibitions in the last year. The latest, "different fuels for inspiration", is at Elverket in Stockholm until june fourth. I like his canvas a lot, and the foreground subject seems almost secondary to me. It's very visual, with layered oil, and I don't think there's anything you need to "get". If you're in the neighborhood, get something to eat and look at the paintings... Anders also designs clothes under the label Stoked.

On a similar, but different, note, "Hos oss" (with us, at our place), is an "open air" exhibition on the backyard of Skånegatan 68. It's made by a sort of loose art collective, that arranges art exhibitions for and by friends. Henrik Borggren, a friend and former room mate of mine, made the flyers with a manipulated satellite image. Hanna Hjälte, Calle Mobergs' girlfriend, appears to be a leading force in this little collective.

There's surreal pieces, as well as some political, fun, poetic and, well, generally confusing ones. Here's a few:

I'm not sure, but I think this is
a scattered brain.

Hanna Hjälte. This is part of a "ghost game", that I didn't quite get the rules of. It's human shaped
bed sheets on hangers. Lot's of them.

What's interesting about the exhibition is how you react to art in places where you're not used to seeing it. If you take away the minimalist environment normally seen, and use a backyard instead, some pieces will suffer while others shine. It resembles guerilla-art, although this was clearly sanctioned.

This has inspired me to pick up art myself... but I won't make any promises.

I didn't write down the names of all the artists, I'm affraid. So if anyone knows, please let me know.


A beautiful scale-torso,
that really seemed to blend
in with the environment.

I've been working at Residence for the last ten days or so, helping them with their fourth summer issue. I'm really glad to be working here, since it's a magazine that suits me very well personally. The people working here are very nice too. I've had a lot on my mind lately, and actually thought I would be "unemployed" for a while. Alas, always when I plan for some time off to reflect on my future, I get tons of job offers. That's not a bad thing, of course, but I never seem to be able to decide what to do with the remainder of my life.

Opening a café is an appealing idea, but I'm not sure that's really what I want to be doing. I'm sure things will fall into place eventually.

I read about a swedish company that had developed a paper with a liquid display. Among the uses would be changing wallpapers. Sometimes I wish you could enter a suspend sleep mode, and wake up when all these things actually exist. On the other hand, if I had gone to sleep in the 50's and assumed we would be flying saucers by now, I wouldn't have been impressed.

The first product using something touted as based on e-paper was the Sony Librie, but it seems it didn't really take off. Not outside Japan anyway.

A test with a book of old illustrations...

It seems it doesn't always work as it should, keep that in mind. In fact, it sometimes crashes my Safari.

Yesterday I got a call from a very friendly police officer, who wanted to talk to me about my experience of being attacked in my own home. He informed me about my right to talk to a counselor and possibly get a monetary compensation for my sufferings as a crime victim. I assured him that I was fine, and really didn't need neither counseling nor money. Our chat lasted about twenty minutes just the same, ranging from rookie police officers to a relative of his who had been burgled some nine years ago. It seems where I was very impressed with our forces handling of the case, he wasn't. They're constantly battling working conditions older cops can't handle, and the rookies aren't experienced enough to investigate a crime scene in the best way possible. In the end I believe my case got a more than fair treatment. I'm certain however I have talked to the nicest cops in Vasastan. Real chatterboxes.

Vietnam is a country of contradictions. You can start a business whenever you feel like it. You don't pay taxes. You do pay for schools, your children are your pension and medical care isn't free. Yet, Vietnam is a communist peoples republic. In the words of our tour guide Phuong Thao:

"Although we are Communists,
we have to pay for everything".

I never really got what the communist part was.

See a gallery with more pictures here

Perhaps it would be more clear if I had went to Hanoi, where all government official buildings are. Presumably there's a lot more police officers and, well, communism in general. In Saigon it's all business and no government. Police are scarse and people doesn't seem at all afraid of speaking their mind, like they definitely are in China.

Vietnam is now open to the world, and has grown economically since the reform, Doi moi (Renovation), in 1986. Before that, after the Vietnam war, the borders were closed. Vietnam still remains a very poor country though, especially in the country where farmers and fishermen live off the land. If you want to make a better life for yourself, you have to move to the fast growing cities.

The population in Vietnam is 82 million, and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is home to eight million of them. HCMC is a blend of french, chinese, indian and perhaps a touch of russian influences (they are thought russian in school). Naturally it's a lot of western influences nowadays too. They have incorporated the cultures of their invaders without second thought, and seems to forgive and forget in a rather healthy manner. There is concern about the past, but no hate. This may not have been the case just after the war, and Thao told us her father, who fought for the losing power (USA), was discriminated up until the late 70's. As his daughter she wouldn't have been able to go to the university at that time, but later things changed and she has. Meeting her, it's obvious she skipped her mathematics for something else though.

Phuong Thao, tour guide

Our tour guide had a theory why Vietnam didn't quite follow the success of Korea and Japan; They aren't as clever. The Cambodians are even more stupid, however. She also thought vietnamese people lazy by nature, who won't do anything at all if their lives don't depend on it. She told a few stories about it, but I'm afraid I can't remember them truthfully. If your get a chance to go to HCMC, send me an e-mail and I'll forward her contact address to you so that you can hear her stories first hand.

Although people outside the cities are poor, they are very friendly and seem happy. I know very well that westerners tend to glorify the poor and picturesque, but I don't think you can fake happiness.

Another article on vietnamese coffe can be found here

When I went to Vietnam two weeks ago, I was really delighted to find they had a flourishing coffee culture. Vietnam is now one of the major growers of coffee in the world, and their highland Rubusta is excellent. Everyone drinks coffee, and there's a coffe shop around every corner.

They grind the coffee quite coarse, not like espresso coffee, and often spice it a bit with vanilla or cocoa or something similar. Combined with the unique method for brewing, it gives you a very tasty cup of heavenly coffee.

Coffee School


This is a typical coffee brewing
filter. From left you see a filter/
water container, an additional
filter/base, a lid and a pressure
device.


Take your highland coffee and put
it into the filter.


Add hot water, and press it with
the appropriate device.


Put the lid on and wait. This takes
a while, since there's two filters
and the coffee is coarse.


When the lid is removed, it doubles
as a coaster. Enjoy!

You can also put condensed milk into the cup first, for a sweet coffe drink. Since it's rarely below 30° in Vietnam they mostly drink iced coffe, which simply involves pouring your finished coffee into a tall glass filled with crushed ice.



I was so excited about their coffee, that I'm actually thinking about opening a coffe shop with Vietnamese coffee in Stockholm. Viet Cong Café sounds catchy, doesn't it?

More about Vietnam here

Two extremely nice women police officers came by my apartment today, dusting for prints and chit chatting about interior design as everyone seems to do at the moment. While not nearly as sophisticated as seen on TV, they did have the usual gadgets. Black powder, some micro-fast-drying-plastic-padding-thingy and a magnifying glass. I tried not to make any remarks about it though, as they probably hear that to no end all day as it is.

They took my prints, which they promised would be destroyed, to rule out my handling of the computer. They also made tool mark casts with the magic plastic padding from the hinges of the front door. Thorough and impressive I think. They were also quite concerned about the well being of my precious Powerbook as well as my own, something I appreciated. All in all a pleasant experience. Hopefully it can help them put a stop to the the almost epidemic-like burglar rampage in my neighborhood.

Yesterday when I was in the bathroom after taking a shower, I heard a noise that sounded like it came from within the apartment. I looked out and saw a little fair haired man passing the bathroom door, making his way to the living room. A bearded character stood in the doorway looking at me. I followed the little man into the living room, where he had picked up my Powerbook and came rushing towards me. He knocked me over, and I took the Powerbook from his hands while he dashed off to the hallway.

Bloody Monday. Who said you need to go out the door to find excitement?

Moderna Musseet in Stockholm has an exhibition of "modern" swedish artists. I often think going to an exhibition is worth it even if it isn't that fantastic, but this time the best thing on display was the view seen through one of the windows. It can be summed up in two words: stay clear. I won't write more about it.

Why is it that some corporations do ugly designs, and others do beautiful? There are countless examples, but I'm going to home in on a couple.

Not long ago Panasonic revealed a new camera based on the 4/3 format. Basically a fairly unexciting camera with an impressive Leica lens. What is exciting is the way it looks. Under the skin, it's just about the same camera as the recently released Olympus e330, but who in their right mind would choose the olympus over the Panasonic L1?

Often cheaper looking designs are cheaper, but I fail to understand who would like cheaper looking objects around them rather than beautiful ones. Good design isn't much more expensive than bad when it comes to mass produced things like cameras and computers. The Olympus is over-designed if anything.

Same story with Apple vs Dell. It's basically the same computer except the Dell is ugly. There's nothing stopping Dell from making computers like Apple's. There's nothing to Apple's design at all, just remove everything that isn't necessary and you're there. I think Apple is a bit boring at the moment, they lack a final touch. But compared to Dell, and all other computer makers, they're design gods. Minimalist, expensive as hell, design gods.

Jonathan Ive, chief designer at Apple, has gone from playful to strict since his first appearance at Apple in the -90s. No other technology company, except maybe B&O, even have a clear design profile. And certainly no other company have an evolutionary design process. Everything from the inside out is well thought out. Even the power cords are a little different, a little better looking. I don't think we would have a better world if everything was designed by mr Ive, but if everything was designed the world would certainly look better.

I hope China will pick up it's past of minute attention to detail, when their economy allows for it. Then we could have dirt cheap home appliances, looking as good as Apple or B&O. After all, if there ever were minimalists, it's the Chinese.

A former Apple engineer, Mike Evangelist, urges people to boycott Hd-dvd and Blueray because they infringe on your rights. Here's a talk in more length, that when digested say's that everyone lose on invasive copyright. The only ones who don't are the ones they are meant to affect, the pirates.

I'm perplexed over the fact that electronics companies seems to do everything the media giants tell them, when it's clearly bad for their own business. Of course, Sony and Apple do rely on media content, but I don't think Panasonic and the other real giants do. I just don't get it.

Nick Currie as Tintin, a picture I made a while ago.

Nick Currie aka Momus, one of hopefully many artists yet to come, has realized that the current business model is flawed. By having a very close contact with readers and listeners on his blog, he gets money from Pay-pal, giving performances and writing articles. He's obviously not the ordinary pop-record-company-golden-boy, but there is a movement among artists to go indie.

Follow-up on iMomus

Henrik and Calle behind an empty aquarium.

I went to the Fabrice Gygi exhibition at Magasin 3 with Calle Moberg and Henrik Borggren. Gygi does heavy looking and sturdy neofascist inspired pieces. Putting up objects that serves no apparent purpose, but looking as if they were, isn't exactly breaking new ground. But the hostility and rawness makes Gygi´s artifacts striking none the less. The aesthetics of under financed military regimes makes the place depressing and filled with despair, at the same time I can't deny the beauty and absurdity of practical and destructive design in this new useless form.


Magasin 3 is a very good exhibition hall, but for these pieces I think it's perhaps a bit too minimalist. In a different environment, that could tell a story of it's own, I think the impact could have been even stronger.


On a closer inspection the bomb lamps and fictitious barricades appears to be made of plastic... I tapped on them.



Fabrice Gygi, a small wagon with big speakers putting out a very annoying low hum.

Also on show is a collection, curated by none other than my cousin Elisabeth Millqvist (actually she's my second aunt, but since she's my age that seems too awkward). Anyway, it's a collection under the name Walking & Falling, which is a quote from Laurie Anderson's record Big Science. Laurie Anderson isn't actually on exhibition, which I kind of had hoped she would be, but I'm guessing her spirit should somehow be present.


Danica Phelps, a journal of daily chores and finances.

There were som really brilliant pieces. I especially liked Danica Phelps' colour coded and illustrated journal. Very mysterious and elaborate, and at the same time very decorative.

Although I didn't see the entire film of Rebecca Horn, the little I did see I found intriguing. It's extremely surreal, featuring a ballet teacher in New York. Ann Hamilton had made a couple of repetitive video installations that I liked.


Danica Phelps

A slow cold day in Mars.

Comments are turned off, as they didn't work very well. Until I find something that works, without randomly deleting comments, they will stay off.

Send me a letter instead.

All countries have their own way of satisfying their need for caffein. There are trends in the coffe culture, and what you eat with your coffe varies according to these trends.



I used to like to like going to cafés, drinking coffe and reading a book. In Stockholm you almost always need to go to the counter and get your own coffe and carry your purchase yourself to the table, ie there is no waiting. This used to be a nice way to keep the prices down and avoid tipping, something swedes have a hard time getting a grip on.

I think tipping is a very strange habit, that simply must have it's roots in slavery. If you feel for the poor slaves that bring you food, you throw them a penny. People should get paid for their efforts in a normal way, regardless of what they do. I have never tipped a police officer, a nurse, a store clerk or a bus driver. The only profession I would feel really comfortable tipping would be a lap dancer, but I've never done that either. (I do tip waiters. I just feel it's wrong, and haven't got the guts to live up to my preaching)

Cafés in Stockholm have in later years successfully blended the worst parts of several different coffe cultures. We have the spartan italian sandwich menu, the poor american coffe quality, the norwegian prices and the swedish service. Going to a café in Stockholm is a very Soviet inspired experience. You go to the counter and point at the sandwich you like. If the one you like isn't there, you can't get it. You take your tray to a table, that hasn't seen a cleaning in weeks, and pick up the remains of the last guests café visit. I could stand this if the price was very low. But it isn't. In fact, I think the cafés in Stockholm have prices to match the most expensive ones world wide.

The final step in this swedish coffe culture morph is that we have to tip the non-waiting waiter, I'm sure.

Illustration of a little girl in wellingtons, yet unpublished. It's for a pretty meaty article about damp houses, and what to do about them. Put rubber boots on it and be happy, I say...


(Due to issues with transparency, this post looks dull in Internet Explorer... try Firefox if you're viewing on Windows)

Why doesn't everyone get flu shots?

I've been sick for almost a week in some kind of flu. Every year over ten percent of us get it, and unlike me, most of us get paid when we are sick. One would think that would be a strong argument for giving free flu shots, as our national economics are affected. It doesn't make anyone happy, and it costs money. Yet almost everyone goes without vaccine, and few seem to care.

I've stopped filling in forms to get money when I'm sick. Last time I did, they calculated I had a right to get 0 SEK for a two week sick leave. That's not worth the hassle, not for me and not for the one who has to make the tough decision not to give me any money. "–Let's see. This guy payed an obscene percentage of his earnings last year in taxes. How much shall he get? Let's give him nil, like we usually do."

I think they probably deny everyone money, and then you have to appeal before a judge to get what's rightfully yours. Don't get me wrong; I think our government is very wise not to overspend, but somehow I get the feeling I'm cheated on only because I don't have a "real job". The workers aren't the ones in trouble in Sweden. It's people like me who are... non-workers.

I'm currently treating myself with red wine and a vampire book, to make up for the lack of a flu shot and health care money.



Anyway, I'm starting to feel a little better, and will pick up a few "jobs" tomorrow that's been left unattended. I'm working part time with Forma and also with Buffé. Some illustrations are on the way too. I'll put those up here shortly.

While looking through the piles of books that are all over our living room, since we threw out the book shelves, I found a book called "Tiden är" ("Time is"). In 1999, when I was still attending Forsbergs, I made an entry to an art contest. I won, got some money and my entry published in this book.

The book was part of Swedens millenium celebration, and contains articles about time by some philosophers, journalists and what's commonly referred to as "culture elite". My entry was a mildly provocative piece called "Work Sleep Fuck Think", with a clock face and cut circles. My point with it was that without actions, there's no time and without time there can be no actions, apart from the more obvious "common people's day" interpretation.

As I was flipping through the book, I thought about how we looked to the future in 1999. Much has happened since then, and not everything is good. International terrorism, camera phones, a large scale war, e-commerse and smoking prohibitions. I don't think we anticipated how much we would rely on the internet for our daily lives. At our poorly funded design school, we had one dial-up modem connection. I'm guessing it's now considered impossible running a school without a broadband connection. We had one computer capable of processing video (a Macintosh G3) and a grossly over-hyped colour copier. I'm not being sentimental about it, but much has changed, things we don't pay much attention to, but important things.

This is a photograph from a trip to New York, funded almost completely by Ericsson, we made with Forsbergs. I'm on the left in the Photograph under the elk. We made some artsy thing on the theme "red". For som reason the theme should be red, but that got almost completely lost somewhere along the line. If that had happened today, I think we would have had a hard time pressing Sony Ericsson for 300 000 SEK. Then, it was easy.

Designed and built in 1917-40 by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm is one of the worlds best designed open spaces. It earned a place on UNESCO:s world heritage list in 1994 with the motivation "The design blends vegetation and architectural elements, taking advantage of irregularities in the site to create a landscape that is finely adapted to its function. It has had a profound influence in many countries of the world."

Apart from being a cemetery, it's also a real designers heaven.


You find more pictures in the gallery here

I would have loved to make a book about it, if there wasn't already a very good one. I can't seem to find a link to it now, so maybe it's time for a new one.

Illustrating interior lighting. Maybe I should start designing wallpapers or lamps... or green turtlenecks.

edit:
A friends brother is a designer. Some would probably say nutty inventor, but he makes all kinds of funny and beautiful things. Lamps, chairs and jet engines. You can see him here

We wanted to spot an owl that had been seen in Djurgårdsstan, but he must have moved on.


See todays pictures here

Depicting Muhammed is obviously forbidden by islamic law, but if you're not a muslim should you obey that law anyway?
No, all you could expect is some consideration for other people. Drawing Muhammed with a bomb in place of a turban couldn't be seen as anything other than a statement that religion drives people to killing, and ironically some voices has been raised that al-Qaida should bomb Denmark; thus making that statement true (for those particular "voices").

Sadly this "incident" has made cases stronger in both camps, the anti-islamic forces that do exist in Denmark got fuel on their fire. Dansk Folkeparti, a right wing populist party, have been riding this thing like a surfboard, and the burning of Danish flags in places all over the world speaks for itself.

Can one blame the artists behind these drawings? Well, I don't know what kind of picture I would have made, but the ones I've seen from the article are unnecessarily negative. I made an illustration for Amnesty in may 2005 about abortion rights. I used symbols for the west, middle east, christianity and the written law as a backdrop, with three young women in front of it. The consensus is, obviously, that religion is oppressing women in matters concerning their own body. What's important here is that the women shouldn't be victimized, but rather show a unified front. Unify is the keyword, not alienate.

Well, at least firm identity. Some time ago I made a logo and stationaries for Ankar Arkitekter. It lead to more identity work with Emil Mattsson, also an architect, working together with Ankar.

Architects, as well as designers, often prefer simple. A name is always unique, so there's really no need to make it too complicated unless you're planning to market yourself in a big way. A billboard demands a different approach entirely.

See the gallery here.

A whole bunch of cute pets for kids, made for an upcoming "one shot" from Forma Publishing (Hus&Hem) about kids and families. One shots are a good way to milk every last penny of the advertisers. Like Pamper and Pedigree in this case, probably. Every publisher are into it now, and it's a good thing for freelancers because they often can't do them all by themselves. Also, the advertisers get more bang for their buck, because the target group is so narrow.

I like the dog, the guinea pig and the bunny a lot.


I made some layouts for this issue too, so if you happen to pick it up you can play a guessing game of which ones I did.

Voted "Publication of the year in 2005" in Sweden, 'Metro Hus&Hem' is terminated and replaced by 'Metro Bostad'. I made it on and off for about a year, and personally I think it was better when I did it. 'Metro Bostad' looks kind of similar, only ugly and with strange content.

Metro Hus&Hem was made by Forma Publishing Group, and I was contracted as AD/layout. Forma had a really nice little crew on this one, led by Robert Kjessel (who is now making films).