koliori

InDiE-Book (Interactive Digital E-Book)

2012-01-22T20:26:00.004+01:00

The motivation for this group project came from the term Multimodal Literacy in the question of "How could the E-book of the future look like?" presented to us by Nota, Nationalbibliotek for mennesker med læsevanskeligheder (the Danish National Library for the Blind, People with Dyslexia and Reading Disorders). Before June 2009, Nota has only been in charge of providing text and digital audible content for the blind and visually impaired people, which they have been doing for about 80 years. After 2009, they have been given by Kulturministeriet (the Ministery of Culture) the additional task to provide knowledge content for a new and growing target audience: people with dyslexia and reading disorders, with different needs compared to Nota's initial target audience.
We have done research on Nota's current mode of operation and how they produce content to their two target audiences. Furthermore, we have performed several targeted interviews with five pupils from Ryå Efterskole and five adults: a blind, a visually impaired, a dyslexic, a teacher, and the headmaster of Ryå Efterskole.
Based on this research we have formulated the following problem statement for our project:
How can a user centric interactive digital application facilitate a better reading experience for people with dyslexia and assist them in becoming equals in accessing knowledge as "common" readers?
We started out with a phenomenological approach by doing research on learning strategies, on how the human being learn and accumulate knowledge, and how people with dyslexia are described in the literature, in order to get a better understanding of what the dyslexia really is. We have investigated the current media technologies and applications developed to support people with dyslexia to read, write and learn in school.
As the result of our research we have developed a concept for an E-book reader and a prototype for tablet computer with the main objective of helping the persons with dyslexia in getting a better reading experience by giving the possibility to choose between the different help functions which can be definded on the profile site.
Our main recommendation is to provide the possibility to the user to create visual and audible anchor points inside the application while reading an E-book. This interactive feature will help the persons with dyslexia mark the progress inside the E-book reader and will facilitate an enhanced reading experience.
Here are some print screens from the prototype:

Christmas feast invitation

2011-12-29T17:39:00.004+01:00

Our Hungarian Society in Aalborg held a traditional "julefrokost". Here are the invitations.

My Christmas card 2011

2011-12-23T20:24:00.004+01:00

In English...

and in Danish.

U-CrAc project

2011-10-07T21:12:00.006+02:00

Since I've started to study "Interaktive Digitale Medier" in the Aalborg University time flies. After a short intro period we had a so called U-CrAc (User-Driven Creative Academy) workshop for 3 weeks. Here students from different fields - interactive digital media, user experience design, industrial design and occupational therapy - worked in groups on cases given by real clients - companies and organizations. It is all about innovation: each group got a different case and we had to solve them by using certain methods.
Our group got Castberggaard as a client, which is a center for hearing impaired people. We had to work on a system, which measures the stress level of hearing impaired employees in different working places. Since the case was too wide, we shared it with to other groups. One of them had to work out a device, which measures the stress. Our group made some suggestions about, how to process the measured data. The third group found some ways to deal with the problem in the long run.
Instead of well known methods such as brain storm or sketches, we had to use some recently learned methods. First of all we had do observe a subject of our case. That is why we visited a teacher - with the handicap mentioned above - in his class, and we filmed him. Then we analyzed the films and found out, what made him frustrated and how he dealt with the problems.
The next step was using body storm. This is like brain storm, but instead of words we had to use our own bodies. We had to play the problems and then spontaneously the solutions, too. Maybe it sounds weird, but we really had to feel what the problem was like. We taped these body storms, too, and then we analyzed them to get even more ideas. After that we made three video sketches with possible solutions:

The great thing about video sketching was that we didn't have to worry about the details: if we didn't have a device, we just made one of paper. Or we could easily fake an operating program on the screen by using PowerPoint slides. The point was the demonstrate the idea.
We presented them to our client, the representative of Castbergaard. Though we had some suggestions for preventing the stressful situations, we agreed to work out the sketch, which is a kind of first aid kit when stress is already around. Here is the video about it:

The whole project is published in our subside. It was a great experience to be a part of a group of people from different departments of the university, so we could contribute to our project in a varied way. Our client was impressed about the result, too.

Indie9000 GameJam

2011-10-03T23:00:00.005+02:00

About a week ago I participated in a game developing marathon called Indie9000 arranged by Unge Spiludviklere. I had never worked on a computer game before and it was the highest time to try it. I was a bit concerned when I saw that most of the participants were experienced in programming or in graphics. The topic this time was "adaption" and my group got inspired very quickly and went crazy with some Savanna stories. It was very intensive, we had less than 48 hours to develop our game. During the process I got a careful guide about how a game is designed and were allowed to work on some sub tasks, mostly on the vectorized graphic part of it.

Actually, it was fun! The game can be seen (and tried) here.

Decal for the Wilderness

2011-09-25T18:43:00.005+02:00

A good old friend of mine, living in California and working as a volunteer in the Sierra Nevada Wilderness, asked me to help with one of their projects. It was about making a decal with two purposes.
The first use is by wilderness rangers. This way the decals are intended to be used to encourage conversations with visitors about good stewardship practices, and as a tool to emphasize and make conversation more memorable and positive (the opposite of a Violation Notice.)
The second use is to offer the decals for sale at relevant outlets as a souvenir of National Forest Wilderness.

(The upper right one was chosen from the color variations.)
The goal of the design is to create a decal attractive as both a souvenir and as a back-country wilderness stewardship education tool. I made a small research on, what kind of animals or plants live in the Sierra, and which ones are "popular" amongst visitors. I found that marmot is considered to be a funny creature with its look and behavior, so the decal of it could also be popular.
The print is waterproof and suitable for attaching to windows, water bottles, etc. as is popular with many outdoor enthusiasts.

My friend's boss liked one of my other sketches. He asked me to finalize that design so it could be used as a T-shirt motive for the summer volunteer crew. Though mosquito is quite irritating during the summertime, with a good sense of humor it can be taken.

myBites

2011-09-09T12:27:00.004+02:00

I have already made a post about the design of a Hungarian gastro-blog. Robert, the owner of that great blog meant that it was the highest time to make an English version of it, and asked me for some help. After some online brainstorm (we have never met in real life), we found a name of it: myBites. The new site is not a direct translation of the original Hungarian blog, but a complete and structured website with photos, recipes and events. It was me, who designed the logo for it.

I knew already Robert's concept and taste, so it was easy to make the first sketches and he found his favorite one immediately. The final logo's colors are warm and natural, they refer to food. The letter B is a bite from a load of bread, and a similar bite pops up in the menu and in the favicon.

It was Robert, who made the site's programming, but I also contributed with my ideas and advices.
It comes without mentioning, that it also has a Facebook site.

Invitation

2011-08-08T22:54:00.003+02:00

for the Hungarian national holiday celebration in Noth Jutland, Denmark.

Sæby inspiration

2011-06-14T18:29:00.006+02:00

I had an excursion to a little fishing town in North-East Jutland, Denmark. Sæby is full of small beauties.

Living worms for sale

How many times can you read the word "fish"?

Candle holder from the middle ages

Pharmacy

My Easter card

2011-04-22T18:23:00.002+02:00

Californian inspiration

2011-04-20T23:44:00.004+02:00

Cooking club

2011-02-26T18:49:00.002+01:00

This is a new initiative of the Hungarian Society in Aalborg. In order to attract more Danes from now on we formulate everything both in Hungarian and in Danish. If you are around Aalborg and feel like cooking/eating something delicious, just sign up!

Personal logo

2011-01-11T21:56:00.008+01:00

I was invited as a guest to Stella's christening. It wasn't easy to find a present, since a new toy or a new cloth didn't seem interesting enough. But I don't think many little ladies about the age of 3 months has their own personal logos. So it was my present to her.

Invitation for christening

2011-01-01T14:19:00.005+01:00

I was asked to design an invitation card and a wishing list to a christening. The baby's name is Stella, which means "star". The parents wanted something girlish but not too sweet or too pink.
My idea was playing with the idea of sea star and referring to the journey of life from birth.

Happy New Year! - card

2010-12-30T19:03:00.003+01:00

This is my card for this part of the year. (Did I mention that I love playing with typefaces?)

Christmas card 2010

2010-12-22T19:17:00.002+01:00

Think about the birds in the snowy weather!

Christmas decoration

2010-12-18T19:46:00.006+01:00

As an educaded decorator, I worked happily as a volunteer on the the decoration of the feast arranged by the Hungaian Society in Aalborg. The low budget was a kind of challenge: I might not used more than 250 DKK for the decoration of the whole hall. With the help of some mates I collected a lot of pine tree branches, branches with different berries, pine cones, hortensia flowers, etc. in the nature. Then I made two different types of compositions (2 x 6 pieces) for the tables: a big one,

a small one with an apple,

and one type (12 pieces) for hanging on the wall lamps.

Beautiful Autumn

2010-11-20T17:37:00.003+01:00

Though Thanksgiving Day is not celebrated in my country, I like the idea of being thankful. That is why I designed this postcard and sent it to a good old friend who lives in the US.

My inspiration was a bunch of leaves and other beautiful things I collected in the nature.

X-mas party invitation card

2010-11-08T19:48:00.005+01:00

Experimental Kitchen

2010-10-21T09:18:00.009+02:00

A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from Beatbull. He is a Hungarian gastroblogger, who lives in Germany, we had already known each others blogs. He asked me to design a logo to his blog called "Kísérleti Konyha", which means "Experimental Kitchen" in Hungarian. I said yes happily, because the blog is so professional, with excellent recipes and photos, so I thought it would be great to contribute with a nice logo.
First we had to define, what "experimental" means in connection with his kitchen. He refused any associations with the molecular line, though once on a while he flirts with it. As he said he'd rather call his style fusion because he is really opened to everything: for example once he surprised his colleagues with a sweet cake which was filled with green peas. But as far as I see, he is very conscious and disciplined, and would never use any ingredients without a good reason.
As a client he was also very proper. It was not enough to use a typeface or a color because I thought it would fit to his blog. I always had to explain exactly, why. And if he couldn't see the reason, the sketch was refused.
It was a long process, but also a kind of pleasure because I learned a lot about, how to communicate with a client who I have never met personally. At least it takes more time to explain things in e-mails.
These are the versions I liked the most:

I chose blackberry because he often uses fruits to his dishes. And I wanted to visualize the process when a concrete ingredient is transformed to an abstract result in his kitchen. But he meant that this logo is about molecules, so he wanted something different.
Finally he accepted this version:

He often creates bubbly scum to his dishes, that's why there are some bubbles. As for the typeface, the starting points of the letters' lines look as they were written with edged pen held at an angle of about 40°, so it refers to the traditions. But the lines end with no angle and the typeface has no serif, so it's a modern feature. I think it shows some similarities with his kitchen where the starting point is often something traditional with a modern twist.

After the logo we had to make the banner and the enter tab to his Facebook site. I came with some suggestions visualized by sketches.

He made some beautiful photos, and I finally put them together with the graphical elements.

The Hungarian TV chanel "Paprika" had recorded a series of Hungarian gastrobloggers. Here is the episode about him.

Invitation for wine sampling

2010-10-12T23:26:00.004+02:00

Gradually I became the (volunteer) graphic designer of the Hungarian Society in Aalborg, which I posted about earlier. I can proudly announce, that the Society is constantly growing, the number of the members is over 100 now.
Recently we got a special offer for a vine sampling from Holsko Vin, a small company distributing Hungarian quality wines in Denmark. It was me, who designed the invitation, which had to be sent out quickly, that's why it wasn't printed, but was delivered online as a pdf file.

Budapest Terminal - new logo

2010-10-03T12:50:00.006+02:00

I was asked to redesign the logo and some of the visual elements of Budapest Terminal, which is a program site of Hungary's capital. The earlier logo was not characteristic enough. My client wanted something funny and playful, which refers to the function of the webpage: this is the starting point before one plans some programs or activities and goes out in Budapest. Since the logo has to be used in different surfaces, I decided to make 2 versions: a longer one to banners and other horizontal formats and one closer to a square format with the text in two lines. The comet-like star could be used alone, too, for example as a small icon.

After the logo I designed a printed press ad (left), a special format poster (right) and 3 different stickers (below).

Ex Libris

2010-09-30T23:23:00.004+02:00

I was asked to design an Ex Libris to my book lover friend. He wanted an old fashioned rubber stamp with wodden handle. Nowadays it's a kind of challenge, but finally I could even find green ink to it. This is the result:

Then I felt like making my own stamp. My first idea was to use the logo I had designed of my initials earlier.

But I found out that printed stickers would fit better to me. This technique required a different sign, which is feminine, more detailed and has one of my favorite color combinations: pink and turquoise.

Rhodes inspiration

2010-09-15T15:17:00.007+02:00

... from the spectacular Greek island. Typography, ancient pieces and other beauties.

More pics are here.

Hungarian Society in Aalborg

2010-08-22T14:31:00.006+02:00

After a long and proper planning process and organizing the Hungarian Society in Aalborg is established. The first assembly was held on the 10 July where the members decided to start up a Hungarian weekend school and kindergarden for children who live in/around Aalborg and a lot of great ideas popped up: film club, book club, excursions, etc.
The virtual meeting point of the whole group is here - the webdesign is still under constuction but the content is up-to-date.
The logo design was my task where besides the name of the society in Hungarian (Aalborgi Magyarok Társasága) I wanted to express our aim by using the Danish and the Hungarian flag: we would like to make some positive changes in our life here, in Denmark by networking, fusion and organizing exciting common activities.

Our second meeting was an informal celebration of the 20 August which is a Hungarian national holiday, the day of our first king St. Stephen (Szt. István) who founded Hungary and the the day of the new bread. Here is the invitation:

Maritime inspiration

2010-07-25T15:36:00.008+02:00

...from The Tall Ships Races 2010 in Aalborg. (More photos with less focus on the graphical details are here and here.)

Photos

2010-06-29T21:01:00.008+02:00

After buying a new digital camera I decided to share my favorite pics in a public album here.
Some samples:

Vision board

2010-05-15T10:26:00.002+02:00

I'm (still) looking for a full-time job in Denmark as a graphic designer. I feel lucky because recently I got a mentor (check out her website here), who is willing to support me in reaching my goal. It was also her idea to make my own vision board. The motto is: "If you can dream it you can do it!" Though I already know who I am and what I want, it's a good idea to visualize and put it into pictures. So this is my vision carefully selected and composed about my dream job. Hope I will get it soon.

Low budget

2010-04-26T11:06:00.005+02:00

I was asked to design a poster for a writing competition.
(Only the poster and not the website.)

34

2010-04-19T10:57:00.006+02:00

This design is dedicated to my friend who turned 34. I used the pattern to the gift wrapping paper of his present (a book) and included a greeting card, which explained visually the idea of turning numbers 3 and 4 into a pattern. The reason for choosing violet and yellow is that they match with the book's cover.

Dream and reality

2010-04-12T10:39:00.008+02:00

The latest project of Typoszalon (Association of Hungarian Typographers) was about dream and reality and has been exhibited in Vízivárosi Gallery in Budapest. I made a serie and used quotations from H. C. Andersen's fairy tale "The little match-seller".

Easter greeting

2010-04-01T12:27:00.002+02:00

Small project, fast work, satisfied client

2010-03-13T09:13:00.006+01:00

The other day an old friend of mine asked me to redesign her business card. The brief was:
"I'd like to have it with a sans-serif typeface. It should be simple but cool. You know me - it should be about me. I only need a few copies, so I'll get them printed in a digital printing house. And I need them as soon as possible!"
After making a few suggestions she chose this one:

Winter landscapes

2010-03-02T00:03:00.004+01:00

The weather up here in Denmark is not very friendly: we still have a lot of snow. But instead of getting depressed I decided to use it as an inspiration. I managed to get a big piece of linoleum with an interesting, grained surface, so I made a couple of linocuts.

Simple, personal

2010-01-19T16:43:00.005+01:00

I have two friends from an internet forum. We have a very similar taste in music and it's a kind of tradition to make our annual "best of" CDs every year around Christmas / New Year and send them to each other. We are hedonistic types: in the age of mp3 downloads we still buy CDs and enjoy unpacking them and getting surprised. That's why I always design carefully not only the track list but also the artwork of my disc.
This year I only used recycled papers and the whole thing is handmade without any print.

There are some of my other CDs from the last couple of years.

Paper-demo

2010-01-17T21:42:00.004+01:00

Some time ago I got a booklet of paper samples from a distributor. It was a beautiful, inspiring collection of different papers, but what to do with it? I mean I really wanted to use the sheets, to try, to see how different they were. That's why I made this small relief: its size is 23 x 33 cm (without frame) and its depth is 5 cm. I hung it close to the heating and it also got some direct sunshine through the window. After a couple of weeks, months some details turned to yellow, so the relief has gotten a kind of vintage-looking. It hangs to cover a not very nice hole with a piece of cable, but in the same time it's not too dominant on the withe wall.

Christmas card

2009-12-22T21:59:00.004+01:00

"Kartoffelkur" - this word in Denmark is connected with the credit crunch and means that instead of fancy foods we have to live on cheap potato.

Actually, I like potato. It can be used for several things. For example to make a stamp of it and to print greeting cards.

I used thick, rustic, brown paper and played with the different kinds of red colors. In the elementary school we also used potatoes to print, but we carved sophisticated motifs and sought to get a perfect result. This time I enjoyed the potatoes' not perfect surface and kept it as simple as possible.

Children's Bible - especially for Tristan

2009-12-19T12:27:00.008+01:00

I was invited as a guest to Tristan's birthday party and tried to come up with a special present. Though it was on his wish list when he got baptized about one and a half years ago, he didn't get any children's Bible then. So now I made a personalized, hand-crafted Bible for him. Since I was in doubt if it really was his first Bible, I called it "The two-years-old Tristan's Bible".

Of course in such a Bible illustrations dominate. But I added some words in Hungarian as well, since some children get an early interest in learning the letters. Tristan lives in Denmark with his parents, but his father is Hungarian. I - as one of their physically close Hungarian friends - feel a certain kind of responsibility to help him learning this language.

The book has a pull-out form made of box cartoon, which is light but strong enough (if not, I can easily reproduce it any time but I encouraged the family to really use the book). There are 12 pages both from the old and the new testament in chronological order, which will hopefully give a good time to Tristan and his daddy sitting together and talking about the different stories.
(More about the birthday party here.)

Tristan/Tractor

2009-12-01T14:07:00.008+01:00

My sweetest client is Tristan, who is turning 2 soon. His parents asked me to design his birthday party invitation card.

Tristan has a great interest in motorbikes, cars and other vehicles. One of his first words was "tractor", so it was easy to find a relevant motive to his card. Yesterday I got the cards printed and they seemed to be a hit at my client.
***
PS. I made a fancy cake for the party in a similar style.

Weltklasse-illustration

2009-11-16T17:54:00.005+01:00

I've been silent for a while because nowadays I've had quite a few exams. Not all of them were hard, but most of them took a lot of time to prepare for. Although I haven't passed all of them yet, it's time to get back to design.
Weltklasse, the small ad agency I had my internship at last October, asked me to make an illustration to their newsletter "Guck Mal". According to their brief it could be anything I think of or I experienced at Weltklasse.

My idea of them is that they are extremely sweet people. Their office is in a big and serious building (called Novi), but if you enter their door you can see immediately that they are crazy and different from the mainstream. And of course they love cakes, cookies and other sweets.

Business card

2009-10-25T14:07:00.004+01:00

A business card has to show the owner's competences and/or personality which was not easy to find out, since I don't know my client personally. She is a friend of a friend and we've communicated by e-mails. Finally she chose this one.

Self-promotion card

2009-10-06T23:09:00.003+02:00

Outside...

and inside.

Storyboard

2009-09-23T17:24:00.007+02:00

One of my recent assignments was a storyboard. Although my main competence is typography, it felt good to use my hand and a pencil again. Here are some shots:

Bulvár / Boulevard

2009-09-01T15:22:00.006+02:00

While I lived in Hungary I was a member of Typoszalon (Association of Hungarian Typographers). I still participate in their annual poster exhibitions. This time it's about "boulevard" which also means "yellow press" in Hungarian.

My work is about sudoku which is mostly part of these papers. I dedicated this poster for sudoku-lover-typographers.

I've just gotten the poster of the exhibition.
If it happens that you are in Budapest on the 8 September, don't miss the great opening at 17.00.

Mobiles

2009-08-30T22:05:00.006+02:00

I spent my last weekend producing a couple of mobiles. I designed the first one about 2 years ago, and since then they turned to be a hit amongst my friends - especially the one with the ladybirds. My bedroom is my exhibition hall, so I test them personally by lying in my bed if it's relaxing enough to look at them.
I'm planning to come up with some new design soon!

Welcome to my blog!

2009-08-22T16:46:00.005+02:00

I'm a Hungarian graphic designer living in Denmark. On this blog I let you know about all the things I create.