idealist vs realist: 01.09

After 1 year and 3 months or so, the main project that I worked on while at vdVeer is finally seeing the light of day, and will be hitting the shelves over here around mid April. It's really quite something to see all that work pay off. Of course I can't take all the credit, it was a design team of, 5 myself included, and I acted as Jr Designer on the project.

-Fiets Innovatie Award 2009 - The Yepp child bike seat being shown off at the Bike show, won the Bike Innovation award from the show. We thought it was gonna be on TV (because of the filming and stuff), but apparently after about 2 hours of footage, what was shown was an edited down 2 minutes or less from the whole show, of which, it wasn't part.

-4 Colours to choose from - Rear bike seats hanging on a clothes rack (rack designed by the Sr Designer of the bike seat)

-The full set on display - The front seat here was only a prototype, while the rear seats are all production units. I also worked on the front seat, but to a far lesser degree, mostly adding Solidworks capacity to the project.

-Black seat on a white Giant City Storm - Not a bad combo. I myself was pushing that they do a white seat variant, but for now it's these 4. The plus side is it's easy enough for them to do different colours often enough. Easy to adjust the line that way.

-Yepp seat detail - So yes, you may be asking yourself, "that seat looks squishy, what's it made of?" Well, think Croc's, yes those horribly unstylish shoes that so many people damn for their looks but are apparently heaven to wear. It's that material. Good for all weather, anti bacterial, and cushy for the kids. All the current competition uses a PP seat, with a form of cloth/hybrid material seat cushion that is close to paper thin.

-Yepp in action - One of my colleagues testing out a pre production version (essentially the same as the production version, except the greys are lighter here) of the seat with his daughter.

-old steel mine - Norberj

-Norberj - panoramorama from across the lake

-shadow on church - Norberj

-church front - Norberj

-old mill, Norberj - most of the buildings in rural Sweden look like this (stained red wood, from residue from copper mines?), or at least the ones in this general area

-view of Gamla Stan (old town) from Skeppsholmen (the East) - Stockholm

-panorama - Stockholm

another panorama - Stockholm

-reflections on facade - Stadsbiblioteket Annexet (as if you couldn't read it) - Norrmalm, Stockholm

-steps up to central lending hall - Stadbiblioteket, Norrmalm, Stockholm

-central lending hall - Stadbiblioteket, Norrmalm, Stockholm

-lots of books, but it looks very cool - Stadbiblioteket, Norrmalm, Stockholm

-main entrance - Stadbiblioteket, Norrmalm, Stockholm

-park panorama next to the library - Norrmalm, Stockholm

-another park panorama - Norrmalm, Stockholm

-Stockholm architecture - Norrmalm

-centaur statue next to the library - Norrmalm, Stockholm

-text down a busy shopping street - I was just intrigued by the way this looked, polished steel words, marking the dividing line down the street as far as you could see (and I couldn't really read any of it) - Norrmalm, Stockholm

-view of Kungsholmen (right) and Riddarholmen (left) on the Riddarfjärden - Stockholm

-Storkyrkan - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-street scene - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-Gamla Stan side street - I swear, it seemed like about 1/4 of the cars in Sweden were actually all Volvo's (if not more), and a bit fewer Saab's

-Statue detail above Northeast entrance of Riksdagshuset (Parliament) - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-Northeast entrance of Riksdagshuset (Parliament) - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-Kungliga Slottet (Royal Palace) - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-view of Northwest end of Riksdagshuset (Parliament) - Gamla Stan, Stockholm

-Stadshusset (city hall) - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-courtyard of the Stadshusset - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-moon on the roof - Stadshusset, Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-gold figure on the roof - Stadshusset, Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-riverside interior of the courtyard of the Stadshusset - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-Stadshusset - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-roof detail - Stadshusset, Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-tower of the Stadshusset - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-almost dizzying - Kungsholmen, Stockholm

-Nordiska Museet interior - Djurgården, Stockholm

-time for a dip - the location just out of the city of Stockholm where I went, on a hostel arranged trip to a traditional wood-fired bastu (sauna), and then for a dip in the water. I did 4 cycles of this, and then the sun went down, finished our beers, and back to town. (if you click on the image for the full size, you can note the skaters in the background)

-deer in the yard - view from the Stuga (guest house) to the main house of my aunt and uncles, when waking up one morning to deer wandering by. Norberj