12 JUL 2022
outsmarting the math
“Trust what you see, not what you measure. It’s hard for the rational mind to accept, but if it looks wrong, it is wrong, math be damned.”
– Jonathan Hoefler.
☞
Justification. Grid spacing. Gutters. Marginals. Security found in rules.
☜
I left college and entered art university in London at the age of 20. Having grown up in Finland where academia flourishes and standardisation in education is at its peak, I had certain expectations about university and attending one. Granted, I should’ve known, being an art student and all, that this experience would be highly subjective of the country and field of study. I can vividly remember my astonishment along with the disappointment of realising there’d be no math. No math, no physics (which I absolutely loathed in college), no geography, no biology. I started to question the whole deal after a few weeks of cut and paste. Surely this can’t be legitimate?
Never did I ever imagine I’d miss maths so much. As the daughter of an engineer, I managed to craft math problems around the creative brieves, enjoying every bit of calculating exhibition floorplans and print spines. Enter third year of uni and a visiting lecturer mentioning the layout bible called ‘Grid Systems’. This bright orange hard cover goodness of German precision and mathematical guidelines got me high on systemisation, organisation and – most of all – clarity. Here were a set of rules approved by some of the most talented people in the industry.
I devoured every word in that book over and over again. To this date the epic sits on my nightstand (a shrine to Bauhausian geometry in itself) as if to guard me from disarray in my dreams. What nobody told me was that there really are no set rules when it comes to design and actually working with it in ‘the real world’. It has taken me immense amounts of googling to figure out how to invoice, how to deliver the correct file formats to each customer, how to set up my prints, how to build digital environments. Now that I’m starting to get comfortable with how everything’s supposed to work, I realise it’s all made up. It’s mostly just guidelines that might make working easier but in reality, the math and the systems are not set in stone. Instead, one should find the most efficient way of working. And the most efficient way is usually the most obvious way.
It's like grammar and writing – one must know the rules in order to break them. It’s nice to know I’ve got tested and trusted answers in my orange bible for when I’m out of ideas but it’s equally liberating to know that even Jonathan Hoefler has not only green-lit but frankly encourages designers to trust what they see, that there’s no rules for design, that you can’t do it wrong simply by having a millimetre too narrow a marginal.
12 MAY 2022
Reference up!
You can’t force inspiration – it’ll find you when it’s the right time. You can’t force creativity – it’ll take the magic away from the work. You just must wait for it. There’s nothing you can do about it. No. Nope. Nuh-uh.
☞
Fig. 1. Warhal, A. (1985) 'Amiga Launch at Lincoln Center'.
☜
The common misconception of creativity and inspiration being these intangible, flaky blobs of energy just floating around at their own whim is straight up bullshit. I refrain from writing out of anger or frustration, but this does frustrate me. It straight up angers me. So, I’ll attempt to approach this topic from an educated point of view, a well-thought-out place rather than a menacing I-feel-you-are-all-wrong standing point.
I went to art school. I went to art school thinking I’ll be studying design. No, nope, nuh-uh. I spent three years delving into the art of ideation – a tedious process that culminates in the skill of coming up with pitches on the spot regardless of shooting blind for a hit of inspiration. There are exercises to make your brain juice flow. There are step-by-step methods that’ll produce loads of ideas. Granted, they’re not all good but that’s the point. They’re ideas none the less. And as they say, out of a hundred bad ideas usually comes one good one. So, there we are. It’s not about all your ideas being epiphanies but rather the ability to come up with and then filter through plausible ones, that are developable.
Really anyone can work with a good idea, with a master idea just as really anyone can colour by number – some might make more out of it but it doesn’t require much hardened skills to be able to work with that. An unready idea though, a seedling of a thought requires work, development, skills. And this is what I spent three years studying. I execute design projects but it’s mostly the ideas I get paid for. The ideas I am then able to develop into fully fleshed visualisations. I’m not a visionaire, I am an ideator.
Once in while a master idea meets a master developer and that’s when the prementioned magic happens. If one out of hundred ideas is good, call one out of thousand a great one. What I really want to get across is that ideas shouldn’t be credited to just happen. The once-in-a-blue-moon, spur-of-a-moment spike of inspiration is a sum of what’s been ruminating in the back of one’s mind for quite some time now. It’s the correct tools that aid bring them out in the daylight quicker, more efficient. It’s the know-how that enables the backtracking of an idea, building the referencing for it.
No idea is brand new. This is what we were taught on the first week of uni. Every idea, every creation is just a more or less new way of combining, collaging, referencing existing ideas, concepts, creations. It’s impossible to not repeat ad campaigns – to certain extent, at least – so it’s crucial we are aware of those references and credit them where needed. ‘I just thought of it’ no longer suffices as an explanation for exploitation of others’ work. Even if it was your own idea that you thought of yourself chances are you’ve seen it somewhere before, maybe not even taking notice of it consciously. There are no coincidences. Everything new is a sum of something old.
In the creative field so much is credited to talent and way too little to hard-earned skills. I don’t wonder why. If ideas and creativity are so commonly linked to something one just has then clearly everyone in the field was a master from day one. No, nope, nuh-uh. So, know your sources, credit your process, and leave the magic for novices.
19 FEB 2022
the Epitome of Cool
Undoubtedly very few of us were cool in high school. Granted, I was seriously lame. In the back of my mind, I always sensed there was potential for it, but I only began to find my cool in university. Then I began to ponder, why does it matter to be cool.
☞
this is not paid product placement, just a ticket to the smeg toasters' club
☜
For the past few years, I have really pondered what coolness is. There’s such cool music, such as Ian Dury and the Doors. Nothing elevates oneself more than Pink Floyd’s money. To think of it more, many things considered ‘cool’ do require said money. But being simply rich is somehow the antithesis of coolness. Simply being rich often implies lack of taste. Can we therefore deduct that instead of having money, it’s having taste that defines coolness?
See I have somewhat dedicated my precious life to honing the very pinnacle of ‘good taste’. This, of course, is an unapologetically frivolous and, more than anything, a futile goal for ‘beauty lies in the beholder of the eye’. What I consider the ultimate cool is absolutely nothing in someone else’s eyes. Of course, there are things considered cool universally — part of the ever-feared ‘pop culture’. Because, again, mainstream does not equal cool. It is easy to like pop. Liking pop does not require exploration. Pop doesn’t evoke such deep understanding, say, in juxtaposition, alt does. So, is coolness the ability to like something that is not as easily liked? How do we avoid, in the pursuit of coolness, trying to like something that, instead of being challenging to like, is actually just not that good? It’s a rather fine line.
There is an excellent book, the object of my ever-lasting praise, The Ways of Seeing by John Berger that talks about advertising and how it deploys ideas of exclusivity and jealousy. It shouldn’t come as news to anyone these days that advertisers haven’t advertised products for a century now, oh no. What they advertise is ideas, concepts, lifestyles, feelings. Products are not there to simply serve their purpose. Products are there to bring us closer and closer to the idea advertised. I have a Smeg toaster I paid way too much for. It doesn’t have any fancy settings. It serves its purpose as a standard toaster, but my god does it feel good to be an owner of a Smeg toaster. I belong to the highly imagined club of Smeg toaster owners. That toaster is a milestone right next to my degree certificate.
It’s this exclusive club culture that I think ultimately defines ‘cool’. I went on a few dates with this guy who was really into really cool music. He knew a lot of other cool people in the town which made him even more cool. They were this accidentally (or intentionally, who knows) exclusive yet vast network of really cool people and I got to experience a glimpse of that while on dates with this guy. I do, however, go on a lot of dates and my friends were not particularly surprised to learn I keep a matrix of all the dates I’ve had. Some of the main brackets I grade are ‘coolness’, ‘humour’ and ‘charm’ — each surprisingly difficult to come by, not to mention encountering them all in the same person. It was only after a few dates, and thanks to my matrix, that I began to realise this guy — although appearing to be cool — was really quite regular one-on-one. This was a drastic revelation for I realised it was the group of people I had enjoyed spending time with, not particularly this one person in it.
I went on a few dates with this other guy whom I described to my friends as the epitome of cool. While he did mention his friends, it was purely him I thought the embodiment of everything cool, starting from his upbringing in a different cool country, to the way he dressed as if he was about to head out to the country to do some recreational hunting. He was a rather intriguing mixture of old money style, financing high life and vast understanding of current affairs. On our second, and last, date we went to a park, and I remember him lying on a blanket with a cool hat on his eyes, seemingly spent from a party the previous night. He didn’t say much which added to the unattainableness. This was very much repeated in all his communication. It was as Taylor Swift describes ‘Out of the Woods’: perpetual ambiguousness and constant uncertainty. Looking back, it was just bad behaviour. (I want to mention here, that my own behaviour at the time didn’t boast well for myself either.)
So, is coolness bad behaviour? Or just plain ambiguity? I’d argue so, since this guy, nevertheless how messed up his actions, to this day remains the epitome of cool I’ve yet to find a match of. It also coincides with Berger’s thesis on how exclusivity is attained by disclosing as little as possible of oneself and therefore gaining the envy of others. This guy remains cool in my mind for I did not have the chance to get to know him at all. In fact, I learned virtually nothing about him. The cool didn’t get a chance to wear out.
These encounters have left me rather frightful, of getting to know people too much, of never meeting someone who’s genuinely cool even after getting to know them very well. This concern has also brought me to a very topical question of why does it matter so much to be cool, anyway? Is it plain vain to care about one’s coolness as well as the coolness of people around oneself? Am I simply a victim of my own taste? While trying to shift my priorities from coolness to kinship, singlehood has certainly both empowered and enabled the search for cool. Though a fun hobby if all consuming it might leave one stranded in one’s own standards. Trying to keep that in mind.
17 DEC 2021
sitting on trains
These days I work and then I go home and think how I worked and how I'll work the day after. The work is never done. It's never finished. So when do I rest? Where do I find peace before my death bed?
☞ Cue Jóhann Jóhannsson's A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder and cry along ☜
Time. It flies. Years back in college I remember writing up an essay on how it is a commodity no one can directly buy — something that we all can only lose. So what do I do with this thing that is only slipping through my fingers, with these days I’ll never get back? Well, for one, nowadays I am lucky enough to work. I worked hard to get the opportunity to work. Yet now that I work, time only seems to run ever faster and according to everyone around, it’s not planning on slowing down, ever.
For the past year I’ve sat on trains as opposed to airplanes. The only time I ever really feel at peace is when I sit on trains. I’m moving. Something is happening. So my brain doesn’t have to. Working has once and for all shown me, one will never be at peace with work. It’s never done. And when we get home, late in the evening, we then think how the work is not done. So I work to reach peace. I work a little more and a little more yet that finish line takes steps forward as I do. And thus, it is never done. So I sit on trains, let my body move and my mind rest.
I suppose this is escapism. The world rarely stops so in order to stop oneself, we must keep in motion. For the first time in my life I’ve got a home of my very own — a place I’ve furnished for I am staying. It’s rental and that’s the way it’ll stay. It’s paying money into someone else’s pocket but I’m free, free to leave, free to keep in motion. I’ve come to realise, during this short existence of mine, there’s not many things that petrify me as confinement. I’ve got no problem with holding promises. But if there’s no room to grow, I’m out the door. And then I’ll sit on an airplane, alone. These days I couldn’t be happier sitting on these trains, alone — free to go as I please.
This brings up another concern, a much more minor concern, but a concern, nevertheless: What if I drift through life, unable to stop, ever? What if I am unable to decide, to commit, to settle down, to compromise, to sacrifice even the teeniest part of my existence? But for now, I sit on trains, not thinking and just watching out the window like the melancholic being that I am.
2 MAR 2021
Smoking in long leather coats 101
— or —
a journey through the fashion student trope, the industry and realisation.
☞ What's the meaning of matching your outfit to the local mail box ☜
A friend once told me that chef apprentices eat macaroni for dinner. During my time in London College of Fashion I too developed a somewhat of a phobia towards glossy fashion magazines, the fashion week, retail and much more! And for a good reason too: glossies promote very problematic ideals, the fashion week promotes fast cycles of new designs and retail is its very own chapter I wont delve in right now. While focussing on the apocalypse that is the fashion industry, I got so angry and spiteful and bitter I pretty much expelled all things frivolous and sartorial from my head, my home and my habitus.
What once was exciting and cool and wonderful became a massive weight on my shoulders. And not only on mine, but once I started chatting about my new-found hatred towards the industry I quickly learned I wasn’t alone.
On our first year we spent hours on extravagant make-up looks, which brought us closer to paintings, clearly differentiating us from everyone else on the tube. We spent even more hours in avant-garde book stores and industrial cafés playing with Photoshop blending modes. We wore long leather coats and colourful berets outside the campus on High Holborn. We went on a field trip to Paris and only smoked there. And then it all went away, lecture by lecture, once we started realising how messed up all this was. It wasn’t the stuff we found joy in, per se, but the industry behind it all, behind the idea, the image that we subscribed to.
I have come to understand that university is the prime time for developing criticism, skepticism and — most of all — cynicism. Not that we all suddenly started reading Nietzsche obsessively but we might as well have. And this was instantly reflected in our styles. Ironic, I know.
Very soon I ditched Blair Waldorf altogether and transformed by wardrobe into a collection of uniforms consisting of jeans, t-shirts and crew-neck jumpers. Personal styles evolve, some might argue, and they most certainly do. Only here the change was highly conscious.
This is when I came to understand the core, the essence of any art student: the world is bloody awful when you stare at its flaws through a magnifying glass for three years straight. Therefore one must limit exposure to said flaws to the extent one possibly can. Only one cannot stop thinking about all those awful things so in the door walk bitterness. My attempt to save myself was to drop the ‘of fashion’ off the end of my degree title whenever I had the chance and come up with a scheme to enable me to draw forest animals for the entirety of my final year.
During that final year I had a very poignant conversation with one of my course leaders in which I vividly recall declaring my disgust for anything commercial promoting material goods and to which my lecturer answered: “Well that’s too bad because we live in a capitalist world. Who are you going to work for then?” Or something along those lines. It left me thinking for a long time. Who am I going to work for if not the devil promoting goods?
Somehow my dissertation got written and my final major project got completed and I found myself holding a degree certificate on an airplane on my way back home to Finland.
Six months later I bought my first fashion magazine in three years. They’re still problematic but I’d like to think I am a responsible reader these days. I am excited to design and make my own clothes now. I even bought something frilly bordering-on-frivolous. My degree and having had study all the things that are wrong have made me a more conscious consumer.
As much as I appreciate all the hardening knowledge gained during university I am much more at ease now that I’ve gotten some distance — both mental and physical — to the epicentre of fashion that is London, and be able to enjoy fashion with the lower case ‘f’ that my lectures always talked about.
26 FEB 2021
One Nostalgia, Please
With life so very restricted these days, what to resort to in these desperate times?
☞ sometimes simplicity resides at your pier ☜
It says a lot when you’re looking forward to your dentist appointment — then again it is the only bloody social event in your calendar. I doubt life as a recent graduate is easy for anyone at any given time, but oh boy has this year been a nerve-wrecking rollercoaster of anticipation, disappointments and anticipation for disappointments. Haha… ? My life has diminished to writing job applications and desperately trying to come up with new hobbies around the house. The other day I managed to squeeze in a random weep-session-bordering-on- a-meltdown. Yay!
Life does not suck for me nearly as much as it easily could — as it no doubt does for many. However, now that Finland goes into another ‘lock-down’ (which is still very little compared to the ones London has seen) I face real unemployment as middle schools will move to remote learning. The brief joy of vaccines making all this go away was — well, brief indeed. Every time there is a glimpse of an end in sight it gets thrown out the back window. It’s been a year now and we’re dying for a break.
I find remedy in old vines that I was too lame to know about back in the day. They provide me the much needed entertainment and distraction being some of the only things that make me laugh out loud these days. Scrolling through the comment section one can sense kinship: person after another declares they are here, watching in 2021 reminiscent of a more ‘simple time’. Yes, me too.
By no means was the world let alone society any easier or better back then. Sure, we had no super killer virus but neither did we have equal marriage laws, or Taylor Swift’s Folklore. Jokes aside, it’s still very easy to miss those ‘simpler times’, to find comfort in reliving parts of the past. Nostalgia is a big thing among my generation, I read, and I completely agree. It is also very wonderful to be able to call oneself a 90’s kid, although technically I only managed to witness three years of that golden decade. Still I and the majority of my friends identify strongly with the turn of the millennia alongside the Nokia bricks, Friends et cetera — even more so now the present has frozen in time and all we have to live by proxy of is the past. So all hail the ingenious vines, family photo albums starring red overalls, and the billionth reruns of the one with that group of friends I wish I was a part of. Bye.
3 JAN 2020
Lost direction
I have done a bit of a one-eighty. This is merely a result of a year full of existential questions: who am I, what do I like, what do I believe in?
☞ looking for that direction i lost ☜
I am in my last year of my uni degree now and I find myself asking the same question all the time: what do I actually want to do? According to my casual research — aka conversations with trusted friends — this is fairly common among final year students and especially common within final year creative students.
I started university with a set goal, a bunch of ambition and a great lack of experience. Cue the experience and everything else got turned upside down. For a good while I thought I had lost all that ambition I had as an 18-year-old college student stuck in a little town, dreaming about a grand future in a metropolitan city. Now that I have lived in London for almost two and a half years I, ironically, miss the little suburban town back in Finland. I miss the trees and I miss the scarcity of people. There’s way too many here (and the Christmas tourist wave has not helped a bit!).
My degree and life in London in general have shifted my goals to a whole new perspective. I no longer want to do any of the things I was longing for just a few years ago. In fact, I have no clue of what I would like to do. I might just take that piece of advise and apply to everything and see who takes me — and then figure it out from there by eliminating all I can’t stand.
Reflecting on 2019 I complained way too much. I still complain way too much but I am starting to try to accommodate to my situation and see all the good in it rather than pining over something I had in the past. Truth to be told, I would not want to repeat all of college even though I am very reminiscent of that time. I probably wouldn’t want to move back to that little town because finding a job there was absolute hell. So I am starting to appreciate London in a more realistic manner than when I first moved here in awe of a lamppost.
Some of that ambition is being gained back and, consequently, goals are starting to form from the fog I have been staring for the past twelve months. Next week I am going back home to deliver a presentation at my old college. Building the presentation has been a great push to reflect on my time here. I don’t want to discourage anyone from coming to study here but rather to provide a disclaimer to think twice rather than jumping into something this big like I did.
I am hoping this is all just part of actually growing up (I am starting to genuinely see the appeal of a Monday to Friday office job). It is hard changing as a person. Appreciating completely different things and feeling alienated from your past self puts you on thin ice.
I stopped social media and writing my blog almost two years ago. Back then it was a conscious choice to retain my mental health to a somewhat sane level. Over time new reasons emerged and I started to pay attention to the culture and behaviour on and around social media. Why do I take all these images and post them online for everyone to see when I don’t really care about other people’s pictures of their breakfasts? Why do I need to share my thoughts on a platform like my blog? I don’t really remember why I started doing it. Most likely someone else I knew had a blog and it seemed like a fun thing to do.
There’s just so much online. There’s so much I am in constant battle trying to avoid it and enjoy something real, outside urls and hashtags. Yet here I am again. Because reading back, looking at the images from the past communicate that clarity that I yearn for now. I could just write in my diary but writing for myself doesn’t require such structure and curation as publishing online does.
I cannot really justify hating social media and writing here. It does make me a hypocrite. Being this lost demands some action, though. In the past this blog earned me an internship and help me develop my writing as well as other communication skills. That’s my reason to write again: to give me something productive (ish) to do and hopefully gives me some direction. If having a blog helps me to get a job, I’ll do it anytime.