START HERE
adventurer, traveler, and designer at heart, jay roop is on a mission to experience the most that earth has to offer and bring others on board for the time of their lives. currently residing in seoul, korea where he runs operations for his design studio, and previously living in gothenburg, sweden and san francisco, california, he is ready to share documentation of his life and work with all those who are interested.
curiosities? drop a line!!
FEATURED PROJECTS
pentaxian to be!
my new pentax k-7 should arrive at school sometime this morning. to say the least, i’m quite excited! after a stint with canon, my move to pentax is highly anticipated along with the availability of their wide range of prime lenses, the first of which i will have is the da limited 40mm pancake lens.
one of the disappointments with canon is that their cameras are either large and well-built, or small and feel like toys. i was originally planning on buying a new 7d, but the honest truth is that after seeing it in person i had no desire to carry around a medium sized rock in my bag all day. the k-7 on the other hand appears to be a much smaller package, and with that lens i mentioned above i should have a great package to carry around with me daily.
enough of this anticipation, i’ll have a more in depth review and first-hand reaction later this week!
homo ludens: the tools of play
although i haven’t yet publicly launched my introductory project at hdk – SecondCities/ – i am already starting to dive into my second course titled “homo ludens: the tools of play”, in which i will create a product and exhibit it at the stockholm furniture fair this coming february.
for me, this is quite a bit change in the type of project and medium i work with. coming from a rather traditional graphic design background with some dabbling in web design + development as well, making my first foray into the world of product design is quite a daunting task. while there is no doubt in my mind that i can adapt my process to this new way of thinking, i can’t help but be a little bit intimidated!
the framework that the design masters grade 1 (dm1) students are working with is the idea of play – yes, quite an abstract concept. it seems like the course is constructed to help the school launch their child culture design programme, the door of opportunity has been left wide open and i intend to fully embrace it.
my project will find my concerning myself mostly with lighting to help create chances to share and learn from ourselves and friends in 1:1 encounters and small group gatherings. as i have been jotting down ideas tonight, i realized how intertwined light and the atmosphere it helps create affect mood and conversation, and how that in turn makes it possible for people to open up, feel closer, and share with each other. obviously, this is not a finished concept, but i’m quite excited with this start and am looking forward to my first group tutoring session tomorrow morning to start getting feedback.
case study = story telling
i had a great meeting with staffan @ kvarnen studio this past week.
we’re currently in the process of developing the information architecture for the new website. we are both learning a lot about what the studio does and what image + information is important for it to project through this site relaunch. what started as a very formal assessment of content has turned into a conversation about the larger goals of the studio and subsequently developing ways to help visitors understand their philosophy + working process.
the big breakthrough this week was the creation of a format for each case study to take. the intention is to show the process, personality, and thinking of the studio through the documentation of an entire project – a look into the relationship between kvarnen studio + their clients.
we also came up with an exciting idea for showcasing the final project, but i’ll leave that for another post – it is friday evening and time to get going!
new project / kvarnen studio!
exciting news!
i’ve recently started work on my first job here in sweden designing + developing a website for göteborg’s kvarnen studio. the studio was co-founded by my friend, staffan and is focused on creating high quality design while incorporating a sustainable design process. they are working with everything from eco-friendly coffins to home-built recycling bins made from ikea furniture parts – quite an interesting range!
i’ll be posting updates as this project progresses – my first time to blog an entire project from beginning to end – which will hopefully yield some worthwhile conclusions and documentation about my process. bare with me though as i’m a newbie in this realm!
the logo above was designed by nicklas heltman.
progress, progress
over the past 5 weeks or so things at school have gone from totally relaxed to the beginnings of what will be full on craziness.
a little background: our class has about 19 people in it right now from all over the world. the majority are from sweden (no surprise there), but the rest of us come from thailand, korea, japan, and the united states (that would be me). among us are product designers, industrial designers, illustrators, graphic designers/artists, interior architects, and more. to say that none of us intend to wear just one hat in the next two years would be a complete understatement. rather, the brilliance of the program is the shared knowledge that we have together as one unit combined with the desire to crossover the traditional boundaries we face as ‘designers’.
we have been broken up into discipline specific groups as well as mixed groups to encourage quality feedback and exposure. the first few group and individual meetings with teachers and students yielded rather few results, but today – after having shown our portfolios to each other last week – we all got to see the progress being made on our individual projects.
i took the picture above this afternoon during our mixed group meeting. you can see our teacher, ulf (far right), discussing tommy’s work (left) while albert looks on in the foreground. everyone is working on quite different projects at this point, and it is really inspiring to be in this kind of environment.
but don’t just take my word for it, to give a little bit of insight to the type of work being done in class right now, take a look at this flickr set. i think you will be inspired by what you see.