I am happy to announce I recently got hired as Junior Designer at Kontrapunkt in Copenhagen.

Kontrapunkt is an independent brand and design agency. They’ve been working with global and local brands for 25 years now, and today they are more than 60 professionals crafting from offices in Copenhagen and Tokyo. Kontrapunkt cover every brand discipline: Strategy, expression and implementation.

You might know the work of Kontrapunkt already from cases such as their visual identity for DSB, design strategy/wayfinding/identity for Billund Lufthavn or the visual identity for Post Danmark.

In the newest issue of the architectural magazine "Arkitekten" you will find a small article on our project Dear City and how its usability and design encourages citizen to engage in the growing digital critical mass.

I am honored and proud to be selected as one of 12 danish university students to attend INDEX: Design to Improve Life Summer School at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea - consistently ranked as one of top universities in the world. The course spans over four weeks and is aiming to educate the next generations of global citizens and leaders in an experience-oriented, cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, international and integrated learning environment. In addition to attend the summer school I will also act as an Assistant and Culture Bearer for Denmark.

This i a unique chance for me to engage in a fully multi-disciplinary team to solve wicked problems and learn more about the Design To Improve Life methodism. It is also a brilliant chance for me personally to get familiar with Korean culture and urban lifestyle.

I can't wait to eat kimchi in the morning and sing karaoke in the night after a nice portion of bibimbap.

As part of the ongoing collaboration with the local exhibition space KØS – Museum of Public Art, Wood Wood now presents their third installment - courtesy of international art duo Elmgreen and Dragset. The tshirt was designed by me while working for Elmgreen & Dragset and is soon to be available at Wood Wood Berlin, Copenhagen and on-line.

During my time as Art Director for the danish fashion label Norse Projects i was in charge of enhancing the brand and storytelling behind one of the rising stars of Scandinavian street fashion.

Norse Projects has gone from printing tshirts to designing their own full collection in only a few years. One of the key factors behind this success is the persistent curiosity for cultural, sociological, design and architectural subjects which the creative team by excellence manages to incorporate in their business. In addition Norse Projects find most of their inspirational references in quality workwear and goods from the early Scandinavian functionalist era. In times dominated by mass production and global fashion superpowers – true passion and quality is still rewarded.

— Take a closer look

Our project Dear City is one of the nominates for Index Award 2011. What sets the INDEX:Award apart from other design awards is its focus on designs that have a life-improving impact. INDEX: is looking for designs that target and solve the challenges and problems of human life.

We need your vote to win the Peoples Choice award. Swing by this website and click 'Like'.

As a part of a strategic effort to activate the young citizens of Hillerød municipal they turned to Kære København for help. We helped set up a reworked version of our existing platform and concept which already has been proving its worth in Copenhagen. The new website Hej Hillerød! is up and running today, and will be online untill september 2011.

Cover art and identity for Sound of Copenhagen - the successful series of biannual compilations by DJ’s and radiohosts, Le Gammeltoft and Kjeld Tolstrup. Sound of Copenhagen aims to promote underground electronic musicians in Copenhagen. The 5th volume was released September 2010 at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen.

— Take a closer look

Tonight New Media Days published a list of young innovators under the age of 25. The annual conference, held in Copenhagen, attracts over 800 attendees to 2 days of lectures, workshops, inspiration and innovation. The list, containing 38 young innovators, is a new initiative by New Media Days to focus on the the upcoming talents shaping the new media scape in Denmark.

I am happy to announce I have been included on this prestigious list, among familiar faces from fellow designers, developers and thinkers.

A month ago the new website for The Danish Ministry of Defence went online. The progress of planning, designing, developing and implementing this new online presence has took almost 3 years. The project was art directed by me while working at the danish design studio Goodmorning Technology from 2007 to 2008.

The new portal features press archives, themes, information about conflict zones, video channel and a knowledge database about military units & departments. The main objective of the new website was usability and cross browser compatibility. Another unique task was to find a solution how to visually connect the many departments of the Ministry of Defence as well as show how these are related in the design. The solution was a detailed style sheet of all visible elements and information how to develop new sub sites in the same graphical grid and visual language. This has already been carried out on The Danish Marine Safety Administration, and we expect all of the administrations and departments to follow within the next few years.

It has been a pleasure to see this month's Metronyt, a journal published by the Copenhagen Metro, adapting the rhetoric and aestethics from Kære København. All over the journal, which is to be found for free in every metro train, you will see small post-it messages concerning the Copenhagen Metro and the Copenhagen infrastructure quoted from Kære København. Of course we like the attention, but we love how the Metro company are following the utterances on Kære København, and (hopefully) adapting to the ideas and feedback from their users.

The subject of design has undergone an impressive evolution within the last 50 years. The speed of innovation has left design undefined. Our society, young designers and even the design education system are not aware of the possibilities of design. Design has misleadingly been positioned as commercial tool for individualization of products to power consumerism.

I believe design is the hub between culture, business, society and man. It is not a product itself, but the result of research and transdisciplinary collaborations. To engage the ever growing complex challenges of today the world needs design more than ever. I believe the sophisticated methodism of the design practice can be used to re-frame and re-think the current and future issues of our society. Enabling true innovation and communication to evolve.

Design, architecture, art, advertising, business, ethnography, sociology and strategic development should not be isolated fields since their real power only exist in perfect harmony.

Think, design.

One of the main projects i worked on as Art Director at Norse Projects was to implement a new online strategy. Until now Norse Projects has been virtually invisible online. They relied on new media publicity and maintained a mysterious public profile. Lately, because of the enormously growing success, a need for a new media platform and brand store emerged. In cooperation with the Norse Projects designteam and swedish Young&Skilled new media agency we developed a innovative platform containing a combination of brand store and collection overview. The website is running on a total VMS solution covering front end sales, internal collection management, online retail log-in/showroom access and communication workflow. After launching the new website it generated 35% new daily visitors.

As a part of the strategy i also redefined the use of media streams such as Facebook pages, Twitter and Foursquare which resulted in a growth of followers above 500%.

Visit The Norse Projects website

Kære København ('Dear Copenhagen') is a simple website allowing citizen of Copenhagen leave messages to the city of Copenhagen. These thoughts, ideas and complaints are then being rated by other users. The simple metaphor of a post-it is a well known medium for the users. It contains a range of already determined connotations such as the length of the message and the informal mean of communication. All comments has to start with "Dear Copenhagen, .. " which defines the relation towards the recipient as friendly and open.

We wanted to create a micro-political platform for easy communication between citizen and politicians in Copenhagen. Everybody can write 250 characters - it is not everybody who are capable of writing a well articulated letter to the editor of the local newspaper.

Kære København has been created in association with Mikael Stær and Henrik Ralf Nielsen. Follow the project on Facebook and Twitter.

I am now temporarily resided in Berlin for my internship at Elmgreen & Dragset. It is windy and wet which means perfect climate for coffees, work and clubs. If you have any business inquiries, project opportunities or feel like grabbing a coffee in Berlin within the next 6 months — please do not hesitate to contact me.

The new IdN (International designers' Network) Magazine is released today. The new issue contains a feature on danish designers which I am a part of. If you get your hands on this Hong Kong based magazine you will find some work of mine as well as an interview.

I will be moving to Berlin this summer to start my internship at the world-renowned collaborative artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The duo is known for it's commentary work on cultural concerns through installations and sculpture. This work, often rendered in modernist aestethic ethos, alters our perception of public and institutional space.

As a student of Visual Communications I look very much forward to experience the synthesis of their work as well as working with deconstruction and reconstruction of semiotic meanings in 3dimensional space.

KINK (Københavns Inkubator) is a new initiative by KPH Projects which goal is to incubate young non-profit cultural organizations for one year. In this period of time KINK educates these organizations in organization and economical management.

The flag connotates creative young unity.

The network Dansk Dynamit has existed for almost 4 years, and now serves 1000 registered users and 35.000 monthly readers. The future contains loads of exiting new partnerships and collaborations, as well as events and more networking activities. But we need your brain. After over a year of preparation we now open up and share all our thoughts and ideas on our future design network Dansk Dynamit. Our vision is to convert the network to an organic open-source platform where the users are invited to co-create the future of internet.

If you understand danish and have interest in topics like design network, semantic internet, taxonomy, drupal, co-creation and community i would like to invite you to participate in this thread.

Identity proposal for legendary jazz club 'Jazzhus Montmartre' located in Copenhagen. Many jazz musicians, including Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, and Chet Baker, have performed there. Jazzhus Montmartre closed down over 15 years ago, but re-opened again in March 2010 at the old address in Store Regnegade, Copenhagen.

The identity pitch features a bespoke typeface, signage and poster concept.

With Sun Helen Isdahl Kalvenes

Take a closer look

Post Danmark asked students from Danmarks Designskole to participate in a design pitch for a new danish stamp about camping in Denmark. The above illustration was is entry. The stamp focus on the simple life within the camping culture illustrated in a simple iconographic style. More images after the jump.

The typeface is drawn by Ulrik Ejlers.

I am currrently working on a revival of the dutch garalde typeface Elzevir. The original typeface was drawn in 1768 by Christoffel van Dijck.

If you are in Copenhagen the 28'th of may i recommend you swing by Jolene Bar around 19:00 to participate in the release of the anthology 'Generation Kan Selv'. A selected group of young talents from the creative and political scene of Denmark was asked to comment on their own generation. The written and visual work has been compiled to one anthology. My contribution was an illustrated snippet of a quote by Dr. Timothy Francis Leary.

See the event on Facebook

See my contribution

Ulrik Ejlers and I were hired to design a new publication from Danmarks Designskole & Danish Fashion Institute concerning the relationship between the fashion educations and the fashion industry. The layout is inspired by classic book aesthetics printed in antiqua typefaces in only pantone light grey and black.

See more case pictures here:

http://battin.dk/projects/mode-of-forretningssans

Read more about the publication here:

http://dkds.dk/nyheder/ModeForretningssans

This new book is an encyclopedia of design blogs. I am happy to see Dansk Dynamit is featured in the publication next to some of my favorite design and art-related websites such as VVORK, Honeyee, Manystuff, etc.

Buy the book at Amazon

My work for Hus Forbi and Mylius Erichsen Bryghus is featured in the new book Logo Design Vol. 2 from Taschen.

Read more about the book here.

Sun Helen Isdahl Kalvenes and I were invited to battle E-Types, Goodmorning Technology, Jody Barton and Spild af Tid by Copenhagen Design Week. We were given acrylic paint, tools, a card box wall and 3 hours. We managed to make a melting iceberg.