There are lots of different kinds of perfume in the world. Many of these have very beautiful bottle designs. Every bottle design is made just for you or the person who likes that perfume. It’s an identity – a three dimensional logotype. A lot of other products use the three- dimensional logo too - for example the Coca-Cola bottle. Many different soft-drinks have their own type of shape. This time I’ve made a perfume bottle that mainly wishes to attract a customer that likes the rougher look like vehicles that are fast and impressive – a Ferrari or a Hummer for example. Hummer even has it’s own perfume. This could be an alternative bottle for their next perfume. Most perfume-bottles are in made in glass. This is probably to keep the fragrance fresh and exact as long as possible. For this “Block” perfume I have designed the bottle in metal. The inner container could be made of glass so the metal doesn’t destroy the fragrance. The outside though, should be in this slightly brushed steel look – with the logo in relief. This would also make the bottle feel heavy which would give it some extra dominance. The scent will be the next challenge, of course. What should the scent be like for a fast-lane and dominant perfume?

A car taking you to and from the beach -a convertible that can you can stuff your board in and tag off to the shore to catch a couple of waves. It would be an open car that would be battery-driven so you just plug it in when you park it - might even be an alternative so we don’t pollute the air too much. There aren’t so many cool battery driven cars yet. There are a few hybrids – but they still haven’t pleased the public that want a cool car at the same time as one is polluting the air a wee bit less.

The tubes at the front and side of the car should be in chrome or in brushed steel and a pair of sport seats that would be made in some kind of wet-suit material - so that they dry quickly if your trunks still are wet when you hop in the car and of course big broad tires to give a nice grip feeling when driving. I want there to be a surf-rack at the back of the car so it is easy to bring your board along. The steering-wheel should be in a cock-pit kind of way…might draw one of those in the future.


Drive safe!

I have made a graphic pattern again that is more similar or goes in the same style as the ”leaf-pattern”. This would look nice on a heavy sofa. A deep one – broad sitting area with a sofa to enjoy your rest and give you a nice welcome home feel. The pattern has a wave like and organic look with several dots to enhance curves and the flow of the pattern. I often look for a nice regularity in the pattern – wanting it to give a pleasing look covering the furniture. It would also make a nice daybed or divan. I wanted this pattern to be bright with a dark background to give the divan a heavy and inviting look.

There are several ways of designing furniture. There is a lot of comfortable furniture and there is a lot of uncomfortable furniture too. The more stylish furniture I think is nicer when having a clean cover or "pastry". But a softer and more inviting sofa or divan can have a more intricate pattern. The pattern should not be to small – one wants to get the whole look from far away and be able to sit and follow the flow of it when relaxing in the sofa. Sit and enjoy – maybe even meditate in the middle of this hectic world.

The tree has been portrayed in many different cultures and has been worshipped as where the super-natural, or gods lived and slept. The trees are also known to be calm and give us human-beings a relaxing feeling. Some Asian culture even says that the trees are the ones most sure of themselves. The Trees always know that they are trees and have no hurry or intention to go anywhere else. A nice soft and non stress environment – the woods. The archipelago with its trees far out in the cost band of Sweden give just that sense of calmness.

So the leaves in this pattern are made by oak-tree leaves. Green fresh leaves. Maybe this could actually be a pattern for curtains or bed-sheets. Just so one could get a peaceful and pleasant nights sleep. Encouraging you and making you get the well needed sleep to be ready for next days work. I was thinking of printing some garment with this pattern to see how it would lift up the room. With some fresh picked flowers in a glass vase in the same room would give the room an outdoor experience.

I have shown a part of the pattern and also a square where you can see the flow of the pattern. This pattern should not be made to small. The leaves should be a bit larger than in real life. Just too enhance the leaf-feeling.

The design here is of a group that is known as “Lunch Club Monday”. Three guys singing and playing club-music in a nice low-key place. Only very carefully selected places are chosen as venues to play their gigs. Three characters give out the third album “Strong”.

This is the briefing I gave to this band poster / logotype. A red, orange and yellow colouring is given to suit the album name – Strong – with the text in a block-font to give it a kind of Jazz record-cover. You might have seen some in their very characteristic style. Often silhouettes on the front cover too. I have made facial expressions in black pencil-like strokes and shading in a plane and simple grey. This is also to give a simple and cool look. The eyes on the faces don’t have any pupils to give a more secretive and harder feeling. The band has to get some extra cool or toughness. The different lunch-club-texts in the background are to give the poster some kind of depth… and the faces have a bit of white sprayed behind them so one can see them clearer. So now I’m waiting for some cool music to accompany this groovy band!

I like to put a lot of thought into my work, designs and art. Proportions, colour, shapes and size are all important in their own way. I got a question about how I have made my pattern inspired by Josef Frank. The starting idea was awoken by the lecture about him the other day and my interest in his work, that I have come across before. All images and shapes that I meet in everyday life also have their impact on what one wants to use in the next design one is going to do. You want your artwork or design to awaken a thought or feeling with the viewer… or maybe several emotions and thoughts. Hopefully - even want to take them on an emotional journey and that they will carry that image with them for the rest of their life. Even a little pictogram - you want it to make the right impact suitable for the occasion within it’s genre.

Back to how I made the pattern. I very often like to sketch on paper with an HB pencil. Just to get the right feeling and flow to the idea that is being born. Then, in this case I inked the graphite drawing and scanned that into my computer. There I start redrawing the work in Adobes Illustrator so I have a vectorized file - since it probably will be used for print. It also is an easy way to work with shapes and sizes - if you want to get a quick feel for the design, if it needs to be bigger in some parts or smaller in others. So my main goal is to get the shape right – the flow in the picture – the right feeling. After that I coloured the pattern’s main shape and gave it some extra circles and dots. Here I’m totally up in my own idea – but somewhere in the back of my head I have thoughts about the inspirational lecture the other day. Finally I try out the pattern’s main-shape to see how it works as a complete pattern.

Now you might want to order a pattern from me or even get started on one by yourself. Set your mind free and get going.

Would you like go get started quickly with your site but don't know much about design?

Here is a tip for you. There is a site called Open Source Web Design that lets you download templates for free. Browse through all of their designs, choose one that you like and simply download it as a zipfile to your computer. Several files will follow; index.html, style.css and an images directory,

'index.html' has a predefined structure that uses the cascading stylesheet 'style.css' which in turn uses images. You can tweek the style sheet and/or index.html. If I was to use it here I would probably rename it to 'index.php' and get some dynamic content from a mySQL database into it as well.

Good for newbies to start with. Also useful to veterans that lack design skills (like myself ). It would also be a good choice for people that already knows this stuff but want a clean start with a well-defined html- and css file.

On Tuesday evening I attended a lecture about Josef Frank organized by the Swedish store, Svenskt Tenn. The lecture was held by Kristina Wängberg-Eriksson, Fil.lic, and author of two books about Josef Frank. I really recommend you to go to this lecture. She is probably one of the few people that have studied Frank and his work so thoroughly as she has. So the stories and things she had to say about his design were truly enjoyable. Most of all, it gave me lots of ideas and inspiration.

Briefly about Josef - if you haven’t met him or his work:

He was born 1885 and passed away 1967, so many of you probably never met him including myself. Frank was born in Baden bei Vienna. He studied architecture 1903-08. - but he designed much more than houses… He designed more than 2200 pieces of furniture, different patterns for carpets, upholstery and many more things. He had a nice idea about furniture not taking to much