Back in October of 2009, I was contacted by the guys over at 45royale regarding a project they wanted me to help with. I had been admiring their work and their attitude for a long time and felt really honored when they asked me. The project, though super intense, went really well. Everything matched—style, communication and ambition. We immediately became friends.

We kept talking every once in a while about doing more projects, though with my situation as a full-time employee of Scandinavian Design Group here in Oslo, the timing just didn’t quite work.

Meanwhile, about a month ago, I wrote a post on my blog where I opened up about my current plans for 2010. I mentioned that I’d like to do freelancing for 6 months and then traveling the world. Not long after, Adam from 45royale asked if we could set up a call on Skype and we did. They asked me if I would be interested in working with 45royale as a designer on a more permanent basis starting on March 2nd. This call couldn’t have come at a better time and of course, and overwhelmed with joy I said yes!

It’s an absolute honor for me to be able to work with people I admire and as of March 2nd, I’ll be a designer on the 45royale team. I’m really excited and can’t wait to get started!

Stay tuned for more awesome news this week!

A river we crossed while driving through the city.

After we got our room, we went out to find a kaiten sushi restaurant, which was a lot harder then first expected. We didn’t have a clue what to look for, and it took us about an hour and 6-7 locals to point one out. The food however was delicious (oishii desu in japanese). Our room is on the 14th floor and we have a spectacular view, with the Shibuya Crossing just beneath us.

Shibuya crossing, seen from our hotel room

Ferris wheel we drove past on our way through Tokyo

So far this has been one of the coolest experiences in my life. Everything here is so different, and I love it.

I’ll post some more pictures and write more about the stay in Tokyo later. Now I have some sleeping I have to attend to.

The classics, from 1978

Felt like being a bit creative in areas I usually don’t wander today. This is probably a result of doing too much web the last couple of months. Gonna try to experiment more the upcoming months in typography and print work.

Large version

At times, I’ve considered going back to school again. I’ve been tempted by trying to get a Master in graphic design at some university.  I’ve also considered applying for a full-time job at several agencies, both in Oslo and abroad. Yet, these options have features that doesn’t appeal to me simply because they involve a lot of commitment over a long period of time. This doesn’t mean I’ll never consider doing it again, it’s just that at the moment I need more time to figure out what I want to commit to, so I don’t end up doing things I don’t want to do. With that said, I’m not trying to avoid doing mistakes in life, just delaying them!

So, as a result of a lot of thinking and considering — I’m going freelance and I’m gonna travel! The plans are not set in stone quite yet, but I have a few ‘drafts’ in my head of how I want to do it, and what I want to do. I’ll be going freelance from March 1st, and I’m hoping to make a deal with an agency to fill at least 50% of my availability (I’ll try to explain this decision in a later post). The rest of the time will be spent doing freelance work for clients, as well as personal projects.

September 1st, 2010 (not set in stone) I’ll be packing my bags and travel the world! Woho! I’m extremely excited about this :-) I have made some thoughts about where I want to go (thanks to a lot of help from my readers), but at the moment I’m gonna keep it pretty open. The thought is to allow myself to find new destinations as I go, and embrace the fact that I have no commitments.

While I will try to spend most of the time exploring the places I visit by taking photos, blogging, eating great food, drinking beer and wine, wrestling tigers, exploring the world, meeting new people (you!), snorkeling and enjoying myself, I’ll also be working! The plan is actually to finance parts of the trip with money made while freelancing while traveling. If you hire me, chances are I’ll might stop by in person!

I’ll probably write a lot more about this in the future, and I could probably need a lot of help with the planning of this trip. Where should I go? What’s the cheapest way to travel? Can I sleep at your sofa? Will you make me eggs for breakfast?

2010 is definitely the year for adventures.

One year ago a man sent me a mail regarding a website he wanted me to design, including a graphical profile, some graphic elements and icons. A rather large project, but the project was interesting, and the size of it made me excited as I were looking for new challenges and find out what I was capable of. We got started, I designed and after a bunch revisions and discussions things were going quite smooth. Logo was settled, icons designed, site architecture, back-end was set up and the design on the way. At the very start of the project we decided to split up the payments in several pieces for safety reasons. We also signed a contract, although it never actually arrived in my mailbox.

After a few months, the project came close to the finish line, and there were just a small amount of bits and pieces remaining to be put in place, and the project would be ready for take off. Throughout the process the communication went on and off, sometimes it was good, other times days and weeks could pass by between our correspondence. Although this annoyed me and certainly made the process a bit slower than it could have been, the payments arrived as we agreed, and I felt comfortable moving on. The 3rd payment however (3 out of 4), he never sent. Being a bit naive, I continued the work, but as more days went by and I heard nothing from him, I discontinued the work. I continued to mail him, for several months without any response. I gave up after some time.

Looking back I see a lot of stuff I could have done different, and that there are a lot of things to learn from this. From a business perspective there are number of flaws from my side as well, and I don’t do business this way anymore. But I still don’t look back and consider this project a complete failure. The hundreds of hours I put into this project makes me proud and aware of my passion for this business. I worked day and night for several months, with only myself and the girlfriend I had back then as motivation and support. I think it is a nice reflection, as it definitely reminds me of why I’m in this game, and it also reminds me how I should play it, as ultimately, I can’t survive in this business not getting paid.

The name I saw in my inbox, which I could so easily remember is the name of the client. He says he is sorry, and wants to continue this project, 1 year after it’s original start up.

Dear interwebs, what do you think I should do?

• Tom, @pope52
• Eduardo Mota, @eduardomota
• Jake

Congratulations! The winners should have received an email with the invitation, if not - please contact me.

I’d like to thank everyone for submitting comments, and hopefully I’ll be able to give out some more invites to CloudApp, or some other fancy new application sometime soon.

CloudApp is an application for made designers, developers and other creative minds that can benefit from sharing things they make on their Mac (rumors say that this will come to iPhone too..) to clients, co-workers, friends and family. Of course it’s not restricted to brilliant and creative minds, but I’m guessing that they are the ones that will use this app the most. You use the app simply by taking a screenshot of anything you’d like on your screen, and it’s instantly uploaded (you can turn this feature off) to the CloudApp’s servers. Immediately after it’s uploaded, you’ll find the URL to the image on your pasteboard, available to you simply by pasting it wherever you’d like. These features however are not unique, and what makes it unique is this:

• Integrated functionality in some of the most used designer/developer applications in Mac OS X
• Possibility to not only share screenshots, but also directly upload images and files from your Mac
• Plug-in engine for further expansion

In other words this is definitely an app you’ll want to get your hands on early and start using, and that’s why I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to hand out 3 invites to CloudApp Beta!

How to win?

Simply jump down to the comments below and write down your 3 favorite cities in the world and why you love them. I’m dreaming of going on a freelance tour, visiting most continents of the world and designing on the go with only my Mac and a notebook and I’m unsure of which cities to see. Leave your twitter name or e-mail and I’ll send 3 lucky winners an invite each! This ‘competition’ will end on Friday 3PM (GMT +2, Oslo)

If you like this post, please consider following me on twitter and checking out my portfolio.

A social media expert is not a 57 year old person that has spent the last 25 years of his life at an old private university teaching students how the internet works and the history behind it and then recently took a learning course over the weekend in the basement of the local gym called ‘How Facebook will change your life and reconnect you with your family’.

That same person also took the course ‘Dreamweaver for professionals, learn how to make those tables look right’ and ‘SEO - We’re not sure what the fuck it is, but we can make lots of money off it’.

PS: No harm intented for professors at universities, just an example.