I’m pretty busy designing for Stevens Pass, and I really enjoy it! So here’s a new poster for the Stevens College Pass sale.

Yet another poster that I’ve designed for Stevens Pass. This time it’s for the Slopestyle Event in March and again, it was a real fun job thanks to Forrest at Giraffe Design and Matt at Stevens Pass.

Today, I started teaching a new design basics course at L4. All 11 days are spread over 4 weeks and the students will learn the basics of scribbling, design, layout, typography, corporate design and many more.

This Friday the 100th issue of DE:BUG will be released as a special 100-pages issue with a dictionary about the “electronic aspects of life” as they call it. It’s definitely worth its money and it comes with a free music compilation with exclusive tracks by To Rococo Rot, Lawrence, Mouse On Mars and many more.

Yesterday, I’ve finished reading the comic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. I saw the movie at the world premiere, so I ordered the book the other day at Amazon. I was pretty surprised when I figured out that the story was first published in 1983 and the style of the graphics had this rough 70s / 80s look. It’s an intelligent, yet frightening story about a totalitarian world in 1997. Though, I must confess that I enjoyed the modern style of the movie more than the book and particularly Hugo Weaving as “V” and Natalie Portman as “Evey” were more likable than the comic characters.

Inspired by Friday’s Rocketboom videocast, I made my own LED throwies. They were easy to assemble: a 10 mm LED, a 3 V battery and a magnet — all tied together with duck tape. So people, if you find these somewhere attached at magnetic objects in Berlin — it was probably me… Hope to make some pictures in action very soon.

Yesterday, I was at the Einstein Tower in Potsdam. The “Einsteinturm” was planned and built in the years 1919 to 1924 by the famous architect Erich Mendelsohn. The Einstein Tower is a functional building, a solar observatory and until the second World War the most prominent research institution of that kind in Europe. A substantial overhaul of the Einstein Tower started in November 1997 and it was re-opened in 1999. I think it was pretty crowded by tourists there during the Einstein Year 2005, so, yesterday was my first time at the site which gave me the opportunity to record a little wobbling video.

This afternoon I watched Sehnsucht (Longing), a movie by Valeska Grisebach. Told in a realistic style that sometimes has the feel of a documentary, the story is situated in a village not far from Berlin. I think it would be a very good short film rather than a — sometimes very slow — feature film.

Tonight I was at the award ceremony for the Berlinale short film selection. The Golden Bear went to Jonas Odell who some of you might know by the music videos he did for Franz Ferdinand. The film ALDRIG SOM FÖRSTA GÅNGEN (Never Like The First Time!) about people’s “first time” is just brilliant! I couldn’t find any clips of the movie, only at MTV.

This afternoon I went to see Knallhart (Tough Enough) by Detlev Buck. The movie tells of a drastic change in the life of young Michael Polischka. He moves from the bourgeois Berlin district of Zehlendorf to the social realities of Neukölln, a district marked by unemployment. A good movie with fresh and creditable acting, only the soundtrack was terrible: white New York rock music à la The Kills (don’t get me wrong — I love them) doesn’t fit to a German / Turkish / Arabian district like Berlin-Neukölln.

Yesterday, I was at the world premiere of V for Vendetta — directed by James McTeigue, produced by Joel Silver, The Wachoski Brothers and Grant Hill based upon the comics by VERTIGO. Part of the movie was filmed in studios in Berlin.
Of course, Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving were there, too and I was pretty excited to see them live. I was sitting in the theater looking forward to the screening when suddenly the side door opened and Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving appeared next to me heading to their seats!
As always, Natalie Portman was enchanting and Hugo Weaving did some nice dubbing (his face is always hidden behind a mask) — I just love to hear him speaking. So, people, don’t go and watch the German version — you must see the original one!

Matching the Superpipe Event Poster for Stevens Pass, I designed this e-mail flyer for their newsletter.

Finally, after my dental surgery, I can go to the Berlinale and take advantage of my accreditation. It already started last Thursday, but today is my first opportunity to watch one of the hundreds of films. More later this evening…

For Stevens Pass – a great ski and snowboarding resort in Washington, USA — I designed this poster for their new Superpipe Event later this February. Matt at Stevens Pass allowed me free play, so I was very happy to make the design a bit “louder” than usual…

This afternoon Sybille and I spent some time in Motzen (Google Earth) at the Motzener Lake south of Berlin. It took us about an hour to get there by car but it was a beautiful sunny winter day and we enjoyed walking on the frozen lake.

This afternoon I had a meeting with the Peter and Lars of Pictoplasma who organise conferences and events on contemporary character design. They maintain an extensive web-archive and publish books and resource books on the topic.
Together with Jenny and Ecki of Webcuts — the Internet Film Fest and Mara from media.net bb we agreed on teaming up and organizing something together as we’ll both have our events later this summer — nothing confirmed yet, but it’s gonna be thrilling!

Together with friend and business partner Peter Ruschel, we released the German press folder for Das geheime Leben der Worte — a new film by Isabel Coixet with Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins and Javier Cámara. The original title is La vida secreta de las palabras (The Secret Life Of Words). We designed this folder for Tobis — the German film distributor which was a challenging as well as a satisfactory job — and Charlotte at Tobis was just great! The movie will be released in Germany on 6th of April. We had the chance to see it last year and I have to say it’s a very good story and the actors are brilliant! You can download the press folder here (PDF — 2.5 MB).