drLisica

I have been very busy these weeks and that’s why I did’t write a thing. BUt don’t you think that nothing interesting happened. Oh no. I was working a lot and I finished my diploma, well almost finished. And tomorow I’m going on a 5 week offline break. First on to our scout (guides - taborniki) camp in Bohinj and from there I’m going straight to Corsica for almost 3 weeks. With my good old Peugeot 306 off course. And this is still not enough, because I’m going to host a group of french scouts for two weeks (Bohinj and Maribor). Oh yeah, quite an adventourus summer. The most interesting thing of all is, that I expect the final “defence” of my diploma thesis to happen next week - when I’m in Bohinj. WoW, it will be interesting…

Because I won’t be blogging that often in coming weeks, I will be twittering through my cell phone. So, please feel fre to follow me on Twitter. The link is: http://twitter.com/drLisica . I will also try to put some photos on my Flickr. Well, have a nice summer!

drD

Yes, crime is happening everywhere. Today I went out to get the newspaper and… I saw a scene, not suited for my empty stomach. Just look at the photos and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It literally did happen on my steps. And the main actors? Obviously the poor dead bird and… my cat Pika. Oh yes. “I couldn’t be more proud at you my tiger!” NOT! But I guess, she won’t need any food today, right? And I just hope, that she would act the same if someone decided to rob me or something

Signs of serious fighting. “Please collect the evidence, mister secret agent man.”

And… The actual crime scene with the victim being exposed. “Nothing we can do now, my dear Watson”

This weekend (15-17.5.) I was attending the Magdalena festival held in Maribor. It is a festival of creative communication which is addressing especially the younger creative generation (-30 years). I sent some of my recent works, even tough I knew they were not the “wining material” but I wanted some feedback from the crowd and it worked.

Otherwise was this years Magdalena a bit low level in comparison with earlier festivals. OK, the lectures were interesting and well prepared, but the program should be announced earlier and should be better organized. Perhaps that’s why there were only 400 and something works and relatively small number of participants. And there was only one creative brief (Promote use of condoms), which could also be a reason for low participation.

AND THE WORKS?

There were some great works and some really creative ideas, but I think that works on the creative brief were not nearly as good as expected. Because many of them were not following the brief, even though they were well executed. That’s why there was only one winner on the brief and only one special mention.

In other categories we have seen some really good ideas, even tough some of them didn’t even make it to the final. The jury has picked up good works, but some of them are… well who am I to judge. Instead of judging or praising the winners, here are some works. ;

AWARDS

The winners definitely had an amazing idea and a well done execution, even tough it could be done even better. But still, a big applause for Dora Budor and Maja Cule.

Among the Golden bra awards I think there could be some changes. For example the music video was not really a state of the art, and the video from Aljoša Bagola (& Nenad Cizl) for Amnesty was really in a higher league than everything else. If you want to check all the awards and finalists go to www.magdalena.org.

CONCLUSION

This years Magdalena should be something special (it was the 10th) with great lectures and amazing works. It was great, creative and inspiring but let’s hope next year it will be even better, fuller and richer with quantity and quality.

And some of my favourite works:

WoW. I spent an amazing weekend. Not only it was sunny and a weekend without any kind of work (ok, except some animal cleaning in our reality show with degus at Mamut.si), I was the whole weekend in the company of adrenalin freaks on bikes. I used my press pass to enjoy some first person action and managed to get some nice photos. Check them out at on my Flickr page HERE

Here’s a sneak preview

UPDATE: The Kletka project is on-line and you can check it out and spread the word. I think the idea is original and it sure is funny. We just started officialy (yesterday) and the reality show will finish in 4 weeks. The voting will start next week. Heh, I’m just watching them and laughing out loud. Check out for yourself on www.mamut.si and wave at them.

I now, I now… I was really busy these weeks. My diploma is almost done and the other big thing I was working on, was long a well kept secret, but now, I’m allowed to talk about it . Together with the Mamut.si team we have been preparing the first animal reality show with small furry mamals - degus. You can find more in this week’s special edition of Mamut.si and I will get back with more info and funny facts. But now, it’s barbecue time! Woohoo!

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Update. Hell it just works. I have to admit, that I’m still getting used to all the new things. Keyboard for example and some applications. But I’m glad that Adobe works perfectly  ’till now. All the mayor shortcuts are the same as on Windows machines, so it’s not a problem. I admit, that I use MS Office, because I have my diploma and other important stuff in long .doc files which are mixed up in Pages. I must also say that the build in WiFi works amazingly, much better than my extern wlan card. So, I’m really glad I made the switch, even though it was an expensive one. For example, I got 300 euros for my old PC, which was not that bad. But, my Maggie (that’s her, laptop’s name) is worth every cent. She’s just lovely and amazing

Finally. I made the switch. Changed religion. Been reborn. Discover the New world.

What the hell am I talking about? About my new MacBook Pro which I got yesterday. Ok, I’m still getting to know it, but the first impression is… impresive! Now I just have to test the Adobe CS3 on it and I can compare the performance and more important stability. Hope it’ll continue to impress me

I’m doing graphic design several years now and I never tought that I would build a portfolio with logo designs. It was always the most prestigious of all the graphic design, the hardest. That’s why I admire the work of the big guns like Pentagram, which are well respected also by the masterminds of design such as Sagmeister. That’s why I’m excited and that’s why I’m sometimes not quite sure. Am I going in the right direction? I ask questions because I want to grow, be better and stronger.

That’s why I follow some great branding and design pages/blogs. One of them and I think a really good one is blog from David Airey (thanks iAlja) and some others such as HicksDesign . And those guys always impress me with great interpretation and the process behind the logo creation. And always, I mean ALWAYS it starts with some sketches and concepts. What happens when you are not good with pencils? OK, me to, I sketch and draw all the time, but all the real work I do in Illustrator. Is that a no-no thing to do? Some old school designers/artist once told me, that they hate computers because they are not only a tool and that they “kill” once creativity because they offer you solutions and all you do is choose the best one. Here you go, something to think about.

Hm… I guess I need a coffee, because I talk nonsense And later I will post some new stuff I’ve been working on. Please feel free to comment. In the meantime have a look at some of my photos. Yeah, I guess I’m better at photography than am at drawing.

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PODIM 2008

Last three days, I was at the Podim Conference (ning page) in Maribor. Podim is a conference about entrepreneurship and innovation. This year’s topic was »The power of networking« and that’s the main reason why I attended the conference. Lately, I’m interested in SNS more and more. Especially in implementing social networks onto the mobile platforms. And yes, I also needed a break from working on my diploma and a run away from work.

WHY GO?

I attended the conference all alone and decided to meet new people and establish new connections, hell if the topic is networking, than, let’s throw the nets. At the same time I wasn’t sure if this is the place to be for me, because I’m not really an entrepreneur type of guy. But, it’s always good to widen the horizons and after all it’s good to know how to set your price tag. Heh.

 FIRST DAY

The first day started with an excellent talk from Terri Whitesel (USA). She was speaking about identifying and addressing the »influencers« and how to build the networks upon them. Really a great talk. After Terri, there were 3 Slovenian speakers, which I must admit, were not interesting. At least not for me. Although I have my outmost respect towards the founder of Instrumentation Technologies, Rok Uršič (SI). His company is building important parts for particle accelerators around the world. You know, those are the huge pipes buried in the biggest research centers, such as CERN in Europe. Respect. After that, there was a great »history lesson« about Cambridge college and how it became the business incubator of the greatest ideas and also a business success. The speaker was prof. Alan Barell (UK). After that, again one lecture which was not to my taste. But after that, there were two great lectures. First was John Allen (UK) who formed the Manchester  Science Park and is also helping to form the Maribor Science Park. After him there was the most interesting talk from Les Squires (USA), whose theme was Social networking. He is a professional network builder, and helps to build social networks around the globe. He’s also a great speaker and has also vast experience. He has build networks for Disney, Microsoft and others. He was speaking about skype, Ning, and tools such as Google Reader. After that, there was a round table discussion, which was interesting, but I think that some people were not chosen correctly. I had some comments, but I wasn’t in the mood for arguing J .

 SECOND DAY

Second day started with two great lectures from a Swedish and a finish speaker. First was speaking about the importance of innovation in big companies such as Volvo and Porsche. He showed as different approaches towards project management and was talking about the open innovation. The second talk was about the finish university in Turku and the mergers which are happening in Finland on universities. Later it got was even better, because we were »networking« even more intense. We had a workshop with Miloš Čirič about business networking. We were working in groups and exchanged many thoughts and experience. I also met some new and fascinating people, with which I’m sure we’ll build strong relationships. After the workshop we took the lunch together, exchanged the contacts and au revoir. See you next year?

 WORKSHOP WITH LES SQUIRES

Oh, yes. There was the workshop on Saturday with Les Squires. I decided to participate because Les is THE master of social networking and a very interesting person. And yes, also because I’m interested in SNS. We worked with Skype, build our site in Ning ( http://mamutrevija.ning.com ) and went through Google reader. It was really a great workshop and great opportunity to meet new people. And off course an opportunity to bombard Les with questions about his experience. Thank you Les!!!

 NEX YEAR?

Well, I must admit that I didn’t expect much from the conference, but I gained a lot. The new connections and friend are more important than the knowledge itself. And that’s the main point of networking, right? 

I should be doing my studies and finishing my diploma, but… I was asked to make a logo for a friend of mine, with whom I work together on some projects. He is specialized in visual communication and especially in LED displays and more personal solutions. I was short on time, because it had to be done quickly and under slight pressure.

OK, the name… I didn’t agree with the name, but, it was not my decision. First, I have chosen the colors, something fresh, not typical for this business. Green and magenta (perhaps as a sign of a protest). With the typography, I wanted something sans-serif, simple and readable. When I made some sketches, I decided to build something out of dots, because they symbolize led displays. Because the final logo will also appear on LCD and LED displays, I wanted it to be simple, without transparency and shadows. Ok, I know it is not trendy, but I think it serves the purpose here. I made some variations, and I even made propositions with a bunch of digital flowers.

At the end together with my client we were chooseing between those two:

Finally, we decided for the second one.

Any comments are warmly welcome.

We always find information on Wikipedia.org, and so do I. And I was always asking myself who are the »no life« people who contribute and provide us with some really great articles. But, today, something amazing happened.

I have posted my first Wiki article. And it was censored. Really. And it was totally legitimate. Why? Because the post was too commercial. Now, when I look at it more objective, I agree with the ones who censored it. Those things happen. I recently joined the Mamut.si team and I wanted to post an article on Wikipedia, but I guess I got carried away. Heh. Check out what is left of my original post.

Yes, I joined the Mamut group and help them mainly with the promotion and as a guest writer. For now, all I can say is that the »crew« is amazing and I feel like in high school again. Hehe.