BRACAU 27 BLOG'S

Karlskrona based Digital Media student Emelie Ivansson reports on the STRP festival:

The traditional festival “STRP – Art and Technology” took place in Eindhoven, Holland and of course some of us hyper students had to check it out. In an enormous industrial area we were able to experience and take part of a crazy combination of art, technology and music performances. In the installations we also could se some similarity to our own Experience technology exhibition, with sound and light as the main content. We actually saw a version of “GraffArt” that one group in the Karlskrona class did, almost exactly the same.


It was a great weekend with lots of interesting experiences and interacting. I truly recommend for the future hyper students or anyone interested in tech and art to give it a visit, it was a big source of inspiration for all of us I believe.
For more information about the festival visit STRP.

Emelie Ivansson

Digital design magazine IdN has a feature on Hyper Island student Simone Magurno in their latest issue. They write: "A new meaning of the word "impressionism" may hit you: though the work has little to do with Impressionism as a school of painting, it certainly impresses!" and claim that he has created "a whole new world with his simple, colourful illustrations, bereft of any fancy composition". We asked Simone a few question about life on Hyper Island.

How did you find out about Hyper Island?

I discovered Hyper Island one year ago just browsing thought the personal portfolio of Markus Karlsson. I got immediately interested in the school, as i was already astonished by its student's works, so i promised myself to try to apply once i had finished university, which happened in March of last year.

What have you learnt at the school?

I'm learning a lot on how projects develop through the different stages of their production: how human resources are divided on different kind of projects, depending on size, expertise and final goals.
I've developed a better understanding on the importance of good planning and management when working on a project along with other people.

Where would you like to work in the future?

I'm not sure of where i would like to work yet. Definitely some cities and agencies are more attractive than others, but i believe that its going to be the career perspective of the bureau which will pick me which will be the the most relevant influence on my choice. I keep a list of agencies where i would like to work tough, you never know i might get lucky.

Check out more of Simones work at www.serioussituations.com.




Sebastian Suarez-Golborne

Check out this article that Hyper Island CEO Mattias Hansson wrote for industry magazine Dagens Media’s Opinion page. It is written as a (somewhat tounge-in-cheek) letter to new Berghs School of Communication CEO Pär Lager describing the Hyper Island modus operandi.

Read the full text below (swedish only):

VÄLKOMMEN TILL HYPER ISLAND, PÄR LAGER!

Välkommen i gänget Pär. Eftersom du nu är ny VD på landets mesta reklamutbildning kommer våra vägar säkert snart att mötas.
Ni är ett fint komplement till oss. Sida vid sida. Tillsammans kan vi hjälpas åt.
Vi kan hjälpas åt att utbilda de nya svenska kommunikationstänkarna, de som tänker förbi Guldäggsnomineringar (och arbete kring Stureplan). Du har säkert en idé kring detta som du kan knåda till att vara en färdig produkt om några år.

Hyper Island har i tolv år utvecklat en metod för att fostra duktiga kommunikatörer i den nya digitala medieverkligheten. Vår metod är i grunden enkel, den är free ware med öppen källkod.
Men som en hjälp på traven kommer här några av de grundläggande knepen:

• Noggrann uttagning.
Branschen tjänar inte på att många personer utbildas. Därför har Hyper Island en mycket nogsam utvalsprocess för att gallra ut de mest lämpade som ska få börja hos oss. De studenter som tror det räcker med att betala skickar vi vidare till andra skolor. (Dessutom är vår KY-utbildning gratis för svenska studenter!).

• Gruppdynamik.
En duktig tänkare (och utgörare) måste förstå hur en grupp funkar. Det är A och O. Första månaden hos Hyper Island är en crash course i gruppdynamik. Alla studenter genomgår bland annat en veckas UGL och två dagars teambuilding. Det är dyrt men det är värt det. Vi arbetar stenhårt på att eliminera dysfunktionella arbetsgrupper. Slutkunderna (byråer världen över) älskar det. Det bjuder vi på.

• Upplevelsebaserat lärande.
De som genomgått Hyper Island lär sig genom att verkligen göra uppdrag åt riktiga kunder på ett verkligt sätt. Vi välkomnar studenter till sitt ”nya jobb” inte till sin ”nya skola”. Därför kan studenterna börja arbeta samma dag de börjar i arbetslivet. Byråer världen över tackar oss för det. Varje vecka.

• Med världen som arbetsplats.
Hälften av utbildningarna på Hyper Island bedrivs i dag helt på engelska språket. Om några år är alla på engelska. Och kanske på mandarin. Och arabiska. Vi förbereder studenterna på en verklighet som är global och internationell. Ett resultat av detta är att många studenter hellre gör praktik (och får jobb!) på utländska byråer, då de ibland kan tycka att svenska byråer är hopplöst efter i utvecklighen.

• Skippa böcker, datorer och lärare.
Vi har ett annat sätt att se på lärande än de traditionella skolorna har. Men det kan jag berätta mer om när du besöker oss i gamla Kronohäktet på Stumholmen i Karlskrona. Eller om du sätter dig på tunnelbanan till förort och besöker oss i Ericssons gamla lokaler på Telefonplan i Stockholm.

• Kanalsammanhängande.
Vi tror att det inte finns något som heter kanaloberoende i den nya drastiska medieutvecklingen. Nu har slutligen webben gått upp i täten bland alla mediekanaler. Det visar att tron på att all media snarare är kanalsammanhängande stämmer. Och då måste man kunna förstå och styra i relationer och grupper för att klara sig.

Välkommen till Hyper Island. Pär Lager. Här är kaffeautomaten alltid på för dig. Vi har inga hemligheter. Vi lär gärna ut.


Mattias Hansson

This is good: we will be offering a free presentation by Pixar Technical Lead Director Ziah Fogel on Thursday 29th of November. Ziah Fogel is invited as part of the North Kingdom-led Interactive Art Director module and will be talking about Pixar and the making of "Ratatouille".

Click here to apply for the free presentation.

Technical Director Ziah Fogel has been working at Pixar Animation Studios for seven years. This week she has come to Hyper Island to give a presentation about her workplace and their latest work “Ratatouille”, for which she was the crowds supervisor. We sat down with her for a quick chat about one of the great success stories of our times.


What technical limits do you face when working at Pixar?

Well, the technical side has really gotten very far lately. It used to be that the animators would say “hey, can you do this?” and then the programmers would panic and try to come up with a way to do things. But for every movie there has been one new development – like Sulleys fur in “Monsters Inc” and the water effects on “Finding Nemo”, and now we can pretty much do anything the writers want us to.


What kind of software do you use?

- We use a lot of inhouse software. For crowds we use a program we developed for the “Cars” movie. But we also use some external programs – like Maya for modeling and explosions. And for “Ratatouille” we used Massive, which was written for “Lords Of The Ring”.


What are you looking for in new recruits?

- Most people that we hire have no idea of how these things are done. Sure, you can be really good at LightWave 3D or Maya but we are actually rather looking for the ability to learn. Our animators have often never even touched a computer before coming to Pixar.


There is a trend in the industry right now to have employees with a very broad palette of know-how. Pixar seems to be structured differently.

- Yes, that is true. There are generalists but most employees are specialized on a pretty specific thing. So it is setup as a pipeline with small work done at different stations. So, for instance, our animators are strictly animators – that is all they do. We say it is good to be really good at one thing and… kind of good at another, but you can’t be doing everything. In the beginning it was different, then everybody was working on everything. But now, on “Ratatouille”, we had maybe 3-400 people working on that.


Sebastian Suarez-Golborne

We will be presenting our programs at the SACO Student Fair, Swedens largest forum for post-secondary education. Check out our booths:
22nd - 23rd November in Stockholm
28th November in Malmö
Head over to the SACO website here.

UPDATE: Read the Hyper Island press release regarding the SACO Student Fair here (swedish only).

In a typography workshop led by former BON Magazine Art Director Christoffer Wessel the Digital Media students in Stockholm were asked to design a book cover for a Richard Avedon book. Here are seven of the resulting book covers, which one do you think is the best?

Business Management student Anu Lyra writes about the latest module, Building a Brand:

We first year Business Management students in Karlskrona have been engaged in a module called Building a Brand. Four weeks of intensive work with several projects, and it feels like time well spent. The different projects have made it possible to look at branding from different perspectives and it's safe to say the whole class feels we've learned a lot with all the work we've done.

The two main projects we worked on, in small groups, were quite different from each other. Partly we have studied existing brands, each group picking two examples within a field of business - a big (inter)national company and a smaller, local company. Comparing these two, they're goals, visions, missions and values. And how well they're achieving what they were set out to do. The other project got us involved in creating a brand from scratch. So it was all about creating a concept and figuring out a way to communicate it to the others. Branding, essentially.

We also had two side projects, both to do with branding as well. We've been thinking about and creating our own personal brands as well as one for our class. Both of these projects will continue and keep us busy at least until Christmas. The point with both of these is to prepare us to communicate our goals and aspirations to eventual internship-places. Personal brand will be part of our portfolios and class's brand will eventually materialize as a homepage - with the kind co-operation of Digital Media students.

We're looking forward to launching the site and our brand in December, hopefully - more news on that will surely follow!

/Anu Lyra

Some news from the main homepage:

PROJECT MANAGER WANTED
Hyper Island is starting several new programs and want a project manager who can run
the PR work with regards to student recruitment. The employment will be between December 2007 and March 2008.

Read more in the Work at Hyper Island section.


APPLICATION INFORMATION
Students: Are you a future Hyper Island student? Sign up after the jump if you want to get more information. Click here.

Companies: Would you like a Hyper Island intern? Fill out the form to express your interest. Click here.


RESUMÉ REPORTS ON LATEST HYPER ISLAND COURSE
Industry magazine Resumé reports on the "Advance Interface Design" module in the Interactive Art Director program in Stockholm. Design firm North Kingdom has developed the module and invited international top names from Wieden + Kennedy, Pixar and Goodby Silverstein and Partners as speakers.
- We are in charge of the module and want to give the students the chance to learn something. It is also an investment, they are next generations' working colleagues, says North Kingdom creative director Daniel Ilic.

Read the full story here.