Last week we finally launched the new website for 'Kastanievej Efterskole' - a Copenhagen based independent boarding school for lower secondary students. Its been a long process of defining the new framework for the website, developing the information flow, designing, programming and finally introducing the teachers to the new website where everybody contributes to a dynamic site.
Stagis developed identity design and the schools first website 10 years ago, this is only their second site, which we hope will last for many years - if not 10 - less can make it as well!
Kastanievej is one of our oldest clients, why its been important to create a product that corresponds to their needs as well as challenge how they use their website as a tool for communication. One of the new features on the site, is a 'daily life' news stream where every teacher contributes with notes, pictures, movies and sound from their daily work with the students. The news will be directed to relevant pages on the site and create a vivid website, reflecting the colorful life at the boarding school.
The new website evolve the identity design as well as keeping the old spirit of the chestnut leaf which is the characteristic symbol for Kastanievej!

Last weekend I had the pleasure to participate in the seminar: Map Marathon, an event that is part of the annual Frieze Art Fair, based in Regents Park, London. The seminar had an impressive line up of scientists, mathematicians, graphic designers and artists all talking about how mapping can be used and unfolded in different directions and for various purposes. Two sessions caught my mind in particular. One was a presentation made by editor of Wired, David Rowan and Hal Bertram. They revealed the technology behind some amazing new technologies for turning dynamic data into useful mappings. For instance the showed us how OpenStreetMap - an open map system generated by people all over the world - helped the rescue workers when the earthquake hit Haiti, and how the timetables of London buses can show the density of traffic in London. And how the air traffic was monitored during the ash cloud incident last spring.

The other was graphic designer and cartographer Joost Grootens. Joost runs a design studio in Amsterdam, specialized in making books – Atlases in particular. It was impressive to hear Joost explain about the history of mapping, and how the graphic reproductions has developed. The concern of detail in color, typography and precise communication of data in his work, has result in beautifully crafted atlases, that is worth a study in information graphics. 

The last few weeks has been the first, in my new position as both a member of the Stagis team and as a master student in London. I had the privilege to be accepted at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design’s MA in Communication Design. The school is located in Clerkenwell and Holborn in the center of London and is a part of University of the Arts London. The course is focused on developing designers who question and develop the communication design scene, work with concept developments and problem solving instead of focusing on particular practices.

And how does being in London match with me still working as a designer at Stagis? During the week I will be in close contact with the colleagues at the office in Copenhagen, and I try to be present at the office as often as possible, in order to work on projects and stay in touch with clients. In the meantime I work from London, with the kind help from Skype and other technology wonders, which makes it possible for us to maintain our work processes and work as we use to!

Of course being both a student and a professional requires a hole lot of time, and the work load will probably be a bit more that I’m used to, but as this an amazing opportunity for me to develop my practical and theoretical design skills, I’m convinced it's worth the work. Central Saint Martins is considered one of the best design universities, and I already had the pleasure to be enriched by interesting lectures and skilled tutors. 
The shaky image above is from one of the lecture hall’s: To thine own self be true – a Shakespeare quote I used to see every day on the wall at Stagis.

Study focus
My major interest and motivation to do a master, is to study the relation between theory and practice related to identity design. At Stagis we always investigate the indicators of authentic organizational identity before we develop identity design. At Central Saint Martins I will focus my studies towards the way we map or survey the identity, and then how the collected data is transformed to a concrete design proposal. The particular process of mapping and translation is in my opinion a very interesting and important phase of the design process, and I’m aiming towards improving myself as a designer and this area in particular.

Municipality of Copenhagen wants to raise the traffic safety between so-called ”soft” and ”hard” road users to get less injuries in the busy metropolis. And as Stagis has worked a lot with different institutions and organizations in regard to traffic and safety as well as the bus industry of Greater Copenhagen we seemed to be the obvious choice to partner with. This work has led to a collaboration with Department of Traffic within the municipality of Copenhagen. The Department of Traffic wishes to create a better dialogue between the different road users, in order to obtain more safety and less conflicts on the busy streets of Copenhagen. During the summer, the Stagis team has developed, written and designed a new magazine targeted at the ’professional’ road users, namely the busdrivers of the city.

Part of the concept is, that there is a busdriver involved in every story, giving different contemplations about safety. Most of the stories are fairly short and they involve different road users who give their personal view on the issue of safety. The first issue of 'God Tur' (could also be translated to 'Safe Travels') features a story involving a dialogue between a busdriver, a motorist, a cyclist and a pedestrian, advicing each other on safety and pointing out the most dangerous places in the city. The magazine also contains good advice on how to avoid stress during work hours and communicates some of the new initiatives happening in the streets of Copenhagen.

The magazine is handed out in the workplaces of the busdrivers (about 20 places around Copenhagen) these days, reaching about 3,000 people who spend most of their workday in the traffic. In the next couple of months we will work on the next issue which will be out on the streets about November 1st. The content will be created in collaboration with the busdrivers and the other road users in order to speak with their voice and make the magazine easy to identify with.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, Stagis hosted the 21st DDA Bar, an event for the members of Danish Design Association. Peter Kreiner, CEO of Noma gave a brief talk on the success of Noma. He also added an important comment on the window of opportunity that not only Noma and Danish restaurants have due to Nomas status as the Worlds leading restaurant. Other Danish companies, especially the creative ones, could use the possibility to travel out in the World and export more of our social and creative skills. At the end of the two talks we decided to create a new platform in Danish Design Association focusing on internationalization in the Danish design industry.

Nikolaj gave a talk on authentic organizational identity, demonstrating our concept of authenticity and explaining how we come about understanding the authentic strengths of the company in order to help them grow into authentic market positions. He used Noma, Bøgedal, Absolut and Ducati as casestudies – all part of the book that Nikolaj is working on (he says there are only the last 80 pages left to go).

After the talks our guests looked around the Stagis Museum which has been updated and we served local, nordic snacks from Manfreds (former Noma chef) and DinBaghave (“YourBackyard”), all organically grown, primarily delivered from Kiselgården, a small farm who also delivers to Noma.

Thank you to everyone who joined us - both new and known faces! We had a lovely evening.

If you want a tour in the Stagis Museum, let us know – just call or drop a line to email@stagis.dk. You can read more on the Danish Design Association website and see more pictures on our Facebook Page.

To be honest I'm not a huge sports person, nevertheless the European Championship in Athletics dragged my attention yesterday. It was the medals round the necks of the champions I found exciting. The medals are in my opinion quite remarkable due to the v-shaped design, and as the medals are hanging from a white ribbon, the medal itself is a perfect reflection of the ribbon.
I'm note sure if the medal lead my thoughts to the sport, but its very simple and beautiful. The designer is the Spanish Martin Ruiz de Azua's who is a man of medals. Among others he designed medals for the 2003 World Swimming Championships, a transparent bubble filled circular design, which indeed leads my thoughts to swimming.

I recently became aware Timothy McSweeney's - an American Publishing house. I was intrigued by getting to know them more as I read this hilarious text - I'm Comic Sans - published on McSweeney’s humourous litterature site McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
A part from the Internet tendency, the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is another initiative that stands out. The journal started out featuring only works rejected by other magazines. And from there they started to publish material that was written with particularly McSweeney's in mind. An interesting way to build an editorial brand, maybe aimed at attracting the most distinctive contributors?
McSweeney's have recieved a lot of awards both on design and content for their selection of books and publications, and I sense that when the Founder of McSweeney's comments on the name of the organization, he frames the sphere of the publishing house in a fine way: "[My family] would always get letters from someone named Timothy McSweeney ... He claimed to be my mother's long-lost brother ...[Letters] would always include flight plans, like he was planning on coming to visit. I don't know if he's real or not. My relatives deny it, but who knows?" I dont think I have visited or searched the McSweeneys for the last time.

During the past few weeks I have worked on an identity project for a small management consultacy firm. Heliotrop is offering team and organizational development from the perspective of the mid-level manager. Ulla, who is behind the company has a background in the recruitment industry and as an ingineer, and this background combined with a passion for philosophy and human relations creates the forcefield from where she turns teams towards a positive and forward-looking progression.

In the design, we wanted to emphasise both the idea of the name - Heliotrop - which means turning towards the sun, and the authentic strengths we found within Heliotrop:

- Heliotrop works with the relations between individuals and organizations
- Heliotrop believes that a person's conception of a positive future works as a powerful driver for change
- Heliotrop stimulates processes for change by questioning and challenging the the organizations perception of itself

By making a simple and clear combination of a circle - the sun - and the name - Heliotrop - we developed a system that allows the logo to change in 7 different angels. This refers to Heliotrop's authentic strengths of 'turning' someone towards the sun, focus on change through process and the relation between the individual and the organization. All summed up in a dynamic logo and byline: Leadership with drive.

To enhance our ways of interacting with all the smart and interesting people around us, we have decided that it is time to shut down our current Stagis Facebook Group and build a brand new Stagis Facebook Page instead. All our Facebook activities will be moved to the Stagis Page, and we would love for you to join us.
Aside from featuring photos, articles and case presentations, the new page will also work as a platform for networking, job openings and invitations for events. In other words, it is a great way to stay updated. Like it here

 For the first time the artist is a photographer, and there is to variations. Artist: Søren Solkær Starbird. Copenhagen Jazz Festival