Formation is the name of Beckmans College of Designs Graduation Show 2022 with work by students from the three programmes: Product Design, Fashion and Visual Communication.

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College of Design

Press

RUNWAY_Desiree_Bjurinder_Fritzon_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

Familiar kinds of garments that are shredded, that pull away and stand out. A study of my own design practice and aesthetic preferences, now also an exploration of men’s tailoring.

Clothes as selfish and self-fulfilling forms of expression. The way we explore and present ourselves through our looks. With the option to peel off and scale up, fit in and stand out. 

My degree project is an investigation and in-depth study of my own design practice and aesthetic preferences. I explore the tension between me being a former hardcore maximalist, and my newfound appreciation for something more subtle and stripped-down. I work with modular garment functions, where the expression is also affected by static versus dynamic states, in order for me to be able to move between the two fields—maximalism versus minimalism. A function that is also well suited to our fast and social (media) society with the desire to constantly upgrade, improve and change itself.

I explore and play with familiar garment types where the characteristic features are transformed into something new and exciting, in my opinion. For the first time, I have explored male-coded garments and menswear, something that has added another dimension to my expression and collection.

ABC Ö is a collection that has its origins in character and craftsmanship. The feeling is exploratory, playful, with a bold attitude. The design language is, as always for me, winding and pointed. I examine cavities and the gaps in between. Material choices include deadstock combined with leather, wool and denim.

Additional words; Everything does not have to be ABC, it can also be Ö. Something shredded, which pulls away and stands out.

WYSIWYDG (what you see is what you don’t get)

As a Russian-born Swedish citizen, I wonder how we communicate in a world where censorship prevails. WYSIWYDG (what you see is what you do not get) is a satirical project that examines the Russian state’s approach to freedom of expression.

Over the past decade, the Russian state has censored websites (Facebook, Twitter, BBC, etc.) for citizens, in order to limit the distribution of information that is incompatible with their position. One of the few websites available right now is Youtube. According to Youtube’s data traffic, half of the content available on their platform today is instructional videos. When I look back on my design education as a visual communicator, most of my specific skills derive from YouTube tutorials which I have turned to, to learn ‘how to…’ use different design tools. 

The project is expressed in the format of those instructional videos, explaining how to use image editing tools, in a context where the examples shown are aligned with the Russian state’s approach to censorship, in order to ridicule, with an aim to disrupt the political narrative of the Russian state.

Alice_Brostedt_LOOKBOOK.zip

RUNWAY_Alice_Brostedt_Svensson_photo_Mathias_Nordgren_.zip

I have explored form and textile craftsmanship in a fashion context by examining the look of furniture and interior details from my childhood home. Nostalgia implies melancholy, a sentimental longing, or wistful affection for a particular period or place in the past.

I often feel nostalgic when I flip through old photo albums and think of my childhood years. How I have been affected by all its impressions, both good and bad, and how the objects and environments around me were filled with different meanings.

In my degree collection, I have translated textile and interior design references into concrete garments. I have hand-woven many of the garments on my loom at home, as my intention has been to transfer an interpretation of the typical home textile into a fashion context. My goal has been to incorporate a kind of melancholy into both colour and material choices. The garments’ details, shape and silhouette are derived mainly from interior objects and should, on one hand, symbolise femininity with elements of playfulness and, on the other hand, be function as armour, protection from what one experienced was difficult as a child.

PRESS_Alva_Nylander.zip

In this musical, we meet some different characters who all suffer from hypochondria. In the elevator, the waiting room and at the doctor’s, their anxiety is expressed through song. Inner torments take on physical expressions and in the meeting between patient and healthcare staff, friction arises which causes the headache to affect us all. 

There are a large number of click bait articles relating to body ailments that do not soothe the anxiety that many may have about their physical health. To seek help for things that worries you shouldn't be that strange, but why do you always feel like a burden? 

‘Sjukvårdsuppropet’ and Covid-19 have contributed to expose the increased strains on the health sector. In these times, you get dismissed more often than not. I have therefore chosen to base my project on the theme of hypochondria because of its intense connection to feelings of guilt and shame.

The project has resulted in a short film that is approx. 3-4 minutes long. The musical format is used as a method to get an insight into the characters’ minds in a short time. Heavy emotions can take place without the film itself being particularly dark.

Alla som ställt upp och jobbat på filmen!

Annabella_Gustafsson_fotograf_Annabella_Gustafsson_2022_HR.zip

Death is a natural part of life—in spite of this, we have an approach to death today in Sweden that has made the topic of conversation something difficult and uncomfortable. Ett levande samtal wants to make it easier.

To a large extent, Swedish people’s reluctance to approach death is the result of us simply being too comfortable. As our living conditions have improved, death has moved further and further away from our consciousness. The phenomenon of death has become distant and elusive, which is clearly reflected in society’s attitude and actions towards it.

Death will never be fun or easy—but what is important to realise, is that the questions about death really are questions about life. As the author André Malraux put it: “Death is only important because it makes us think about the value of life”.

Ett levande samtal is a conversation game that, through a de-dramatised and accessible format, wants to encourage people to open up to talk about death and mortality with their relatives. The question cards act as a third party and give the opportunity for the participants to laugh, feel sad, contemplate and reach insight—without making a big deal of it. It’s a game with no rules or correct answers, and everyone wins by having this conversation.

The world revolves around you, or rather how others perceive you. Therefore I can offer products with a design right up your alley. Welcome to a vending machine entirely to your liking.

Self-seeking Service presents a future scenario where the design of packaged items “for sale” adapts to your values. The project is an investigation of identity and self-realisation in relation to consumer culture, based on the assumption that people create self-portraits with the help of a collection of objects that we consume for identity building purposes. 

The project is presented as a vending machine, an interactive video installation of my personal belongings that possess different nostalgic values. I then “sell” my identity in the form of a still life based on your likes. The changing design is a response to how the algorithms used in social media create targeted advertising based on the choices that we make when we interact with them.

I have investigated how companies use socially coded design to convey values and have been inspired by the internet culture aesthetics in order to design the alternative brand identities. These have been sorted by values ​​that lay the foundation for these lifestyles.

In my degree project I present a concept for a fictional hairdressing salon called the Hair Archive, where the visit is enriched through an inspiring research trip in the history of hairstyles and the hairdresser’s craft.

The hairstyle is generally a means of differentiation and an expression of one’s identity. During the research process I became curious about how people get inspiration when it comes to their appearance. I therefore chose to reinterpret the purpose of the salon’s traditional waiting room into a visionary hair archive—a professional material library where you can be inspired and get advice on the spot. A both interactive and educational place to visit, spur of the moment, or in conjunction with one’s booked visit.

The hairdressing industry has a social and economic relevance in our modern society. My work aims to inspire the hairdressing industry by giving them new interior design and architecture proposals, with concepts that emphasise and honour the hairdressers’ role and knowledge.

Central to the project is to offer an innovative experience around a visit to the hairdresser’s with a view to make the salon a lively and social place. The archive strives to create a dialogue between consumer and professional, by strengthening trust and interaction between the parties.

Tack till Ivo Rubboli för den visuella identiteten, och tack till Mitekgruppen för hjälpen med modelltillverkning.

PRESS_Elias_Berg.zip

Light hits surfaces, is reflected, and bounces away. This organic solar cell lamp utilises and gathers the energy from light sources that would otherwise have bounced off into nothingness, in order to spread an atmospheric light when amber fades the sky.

I have created a lamp that paves the way for how we can incorporate a new generation of solar cells into our everyday objects. Together with solar cell researchers at Epishine, I have built a system for integrating organic thin-film solar cells into design products. 

The system is made up of screens that protect the solar cells, these screens can be put together in many constellations. I have considered the solar cells as a material in themselves, and integrated them into my design as a central form element. 

With this project, I want to participate in the pursuit of a more sustainable and circular society by taking responsibility as a designer through value-driven methods with a view to apply sustainable innovations to real products. I see an opportunity to show the design world how far we have progressed, and above all, in what direction we are heading.

PRESS_Emil_Ahlgren.zip

Based on the shift from pre-industrial craftsmanship to serial production, this project examines how the growing field of machine learning can affect the designer's role in the potential future.

The project focuses on the design process itself, designing a system, and, through machine learning, synthesizing the design process from inspiration to iteration. The project shifts focus from the user to the designer, with the question of how the creative process can be automated.

During modernism, the serially-produced chair became heavily associated with the role of the designer. Swedish folk chairs are interesting as they represent a time before the "chair", while at the same time representing the first widespread distribution of the chair. However, the creators of the Swedish folk chair have often been lost throughout history. Similarly, the idolized author dissolves in the new paradigm of machine-learned design.

The work is based on 3D-scanned Swedish folk chairs acquired from seven museums throughout the country. These chairs act as inputs for a GAN neural network. GAN networks are distinguished by their ability to generate new data. The generated chair is then manufactured by automating the craftsmanship through CNC milling.

eric-rosmark-press.zip

My grandmother’s brother, Per Rösmark, was born in 1936 in Råneå, Norrbotten, and was active as an artist. Per was extremely productive during his life and left behind a huge amount of art. Although I have never met Per, he has always been present, both in conversations and on the walls.

Rötter is a visual examination and documentary of Per Rösmarks’s art. It is an attempt to get to know a person through a design process, making an artistic collaboration, connecting our related practices.

The story that the project speaks of is the one I have encountered along the way by interviewing my closest connections to Per, documented through an oral history research. The works shown through the project are a selection of all that Per has left behind.

PRESS_Fanny_Axner.zip

The TRANSIT table is a composition of visual elements derived from the city’s various passages: A section of the urban environment is moved into the private sphere.

Platforms and pavements are examples of a so-called ”utility architecture”, with a distinct purpose of leading us from one point to another. The attitude towards these places is often one of indifference—we are just on our way, elsewhere. Yet, as the new everyday life has increasingly been centered around our homes due to the pandemic, I have felt a lack of movement through the city. So, what is it about the city’s movement that I have so far only taken for granted, and that has now left a void? Is it possible to bring it in, and appreciate it in a private sphere?

My goal has been to give form to those parts of the city’s blood circulation that easily disappear in a noise of other impressions: The aesthetics and content of the passages, which are usually designed to function rather than to be noticed, are instead highlighted as the ornamented. The result is a form that you stop at rather than pass by, reminding us of the life outside our four walls.

Table top in tempered, tinted and blasted glass, demountable frame made of structural steel and molded foundations in concrete.

Felicia_Mebus_PRESS_photo_Felicia_Mebus.zip

My work is an exploration of the child's notion of space. The chair, Helga, with its playful base is designed so that the little ones, who are closer to the floor, better can empathise with the piece of furniture.

At the beginning of the project, I visited preschools to study how children relate to their indoor environment. Lunchtime proved to be a particularly agitated moment of the day, that often led to frustration for both educators and children. It made me think about how the environment can provide more focus, enjoyment, and calm at mealtimes.

My reflections and investigations have resulted in an interior design concept for a preschool toddler group, with the Helga highchair at its centre. As a theme through the work, is the desire to view a room as a younger child. Inspired by a 2-year-old's perspective of their surroundings, in combination with studies in neuroaesthetics (the study of how the environment affects our brain), I have created a chair and an applicable concept that includes colour, light and material.

Mats Grennfalk, Caroline Scheler, Niklas Hedin, Stefan Toth, Nora Rydenstam, Fredrik Ireklint and Linnea Remnemark at Swedese who made the project possible.

Elena Kanevsky, Malin Jarbo, Sigrid Strömgren, Marie Dreiman, Isabelle Sjöwall, Samuel Kuhfuss, Kvadrat, Astrid.

LOOKBOOK_Gabriella_Danerlov_photo_Laris_Rasidovic..zip

RUNWAY_Gabriella_Danerlov_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

An examination of the female body’s ability to provoke, offend and disturb the field of vision when deviating from the norm in her way of presenting and exposing her body.

The ambiguity and complex double standards that exist in my own and my future industry’s relationship to the body, arouses both fascination and resistance in me. Design choices I see myself and fellow students make, and that exist in my future industry, lead back to the ideals I saw in my upbringing, and still see in my everyday life.

I therefore want to accentuate the everyday values ​​and references we often overlook in our environment that shape our basic view of the female body and clothing. With looks built on self-formulated fictional comic book villains that represent occasions when the clothes let us down in our pursuit of ideals. Looks that challenges the prevailing ideals of the fashion system; to shape the body according to clothes—and not the other way around.

Through recognisable wardrobe malfunctions that inadvertently expose the body, or as a result of the pursuit of unattainable ideals with too small garments that burst open over the body, I recreate still images in the form of garments. Taken from specific moments, drawn from personal experience, or specific paparazzi photos.

When we are no longer limited to our physical body, what is it that separates us? “RE-CONSTRUCTED— The Real Fake Me” is a commentary on our time where a distorted reality is being constructed. It is an encounter between our physical body and our digital alter-ego.

What is true and false, what is physical and digital is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish. With the help of technological development, our digital self could be shaped to be anything and look any way.

Through image editing, costume and make-up, I have recreated existing images to become a portrait of myself. My selection is based on the books and magazines I have at home, the visual world I surround myself with on a daily basis.

How is our identity affected by the images we consume? What is the essence of the “self” and what is the difference between you and me, in a digital world?

Arkiv.zip

Pleat is a hanging sound absorber whose sculptural design language challenges the perception of what sound absorbers may look like.

The starting point of my degree project was that I wanted to explore my interest in textile crafts, and to apply this to a product context, and in that quest I became fascinated by the field of sound absorption. Sound absorbers are products that have a particular purpose, and that are routinely designed to be as neutral and invisible as possible.

My question has therefore been how I can interpret textile craft methods onto a sculpturally designed sound absorber, in order to make it just as decorative as it is functional. The result is Pleat, a hanging sound absorber for a public environment. 

It is an eye-catcher and decoration in the room, and at the same time, it contributes to a more comfortable sound environment.

Skeleton in the Style of Dolphin examines what it is like to trip yourself up in order  to find something new.

A creative process can be approached in a variety of ways. I have questioned my own process, worked with new tools and methods to investigate if I can find new ways to work.

Inspired by the communication theorist Marshall McLuhan's thoughts on how we are shaped by the technology we use, I have explored three different approaches to digital work—completely digital, completely analogue and a mixture between the two. The result is three digitally created posters in laser cut MDF.

The title of my project alludes to how you write a command to an image-generating AI. This command has generated all motifs in my project, both the ones created by me and the digital image generator.

Harry Woodrow
Minna Sakaria
Aron Kullander-Östling
Stina Löfgren

My dad is a truck driver and when I was little I often joined him at work. It was among the best things I knew. In my degree project, I travel back to my childhood, and to some of the trucks and truck terminals that I have visited. It is an attempt to remember, and to capture these fragmentary memories.

When I was born, both my mother and father were 20 years old. Not at all unusual in Hallstavik, a small working class village in Roslagen, just a short distance from where my maternal grandma and grandpa live. Dad got a job at grandpa’s trucking company, and thus began his long working life as a truck driver. Joining my dad at work quickly becomes my favourite way to spend time together. We bring packed lunches, listen to audio books, and talk. Then we help each other inside the terminal.

In Vad gjorde du Om inte jag fanns, I travel back to these places, to my childhood, and show these fragments of my memory through an illustrated story. I want to convey the feeling of excitement of getting a glimpse of an adult world and express the intense urge to to be a part of, to belong to my dad’s world, to feel grown up, but at the same time also feel so very small.

My degree project is an attempt to see myself from the outside, and to try to understand how these memories may have shaped me as an adult. By building and visualising these environments, I hope to understand myself, and the child in me, even better.

LOOKBOOK_Kevin_Nilsson_photo_Laris_Rasidovic.zip

RUNWAY_Kevin_Nilsson_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

The collection explores form and movement with a 360 ° experience through silhouettes and material combinations.

My degree collection is based on my archive as a designer and stylist, to which I have gone back in order to find a context for a design language and garment types. A large part of the inspiration is also taken from Iittala’s Alvar Aalto vase — its undulating shapes are a recurring theme in the collection, alongside silhouettes from the 70s and 90s.

A balance between wearable and less wearable informs the collection, alongside a combination of 2D and 3D shapes. The accessories are created in 3D printed PLA plastic, a degradable and thermoplastic polyester made from renewable resources. Couture techniques have been used throughout, in the form of duplication of dupion silk and silk organza, together with crystallisation of lace.

A collection for the fearless, who dares and wants to be heard and seen through their style, where authority and self-love are in focus. Garments and accessories for men and women, extravagant, sensual and playful, so as not to lose visibility. A collection that ensures that Zaek Studio’s DNA is introduced correctly and shamelessly.

I have examined the relationship between sound, image and identity.

If you want to release music today, you need to think about how you choose to present yourself physically. Anyone, who in any way wants to reach out to the public must first accept that what they do is filtered by how they look. 

These are conditions that apply to everyone who appears in the media, no matter what they do, and further demands are made on artists, at the same time as artists have a greater freedom to play with identity: You can be a Dua Lipa and constantly change your appearance, or be a Burial and be totally anonymous. But even the anonymous artist is something, and I wanted to try to create an artist who, instead of being something, is nothing. Like God.

The investigation of these subjects has resulted in what is intended to be a series of records under the name Klangfärg.

I have created the graphic identity and the music simultaneously, to see how they affect each other.

Lina Blass_PRESS_photo_Lina_Blass.zip

Assembly is the result of an exploratory work of a historical, so-called self-supported, construction in furniture design. To highlight the fact that screws, adhesives and fittings are not always necessary in quality furniture.

Questions that have driven me in my work are: (1) Can self-supporting design reduce the need for these extra components? (2) Can a self-supporting construction be an option in commercial furniture design? (3) Is it a viable alternative to create flat pack furnitures with quality materials?

With the help of the furniture manufacturer Karl Andersson och Söner, I have had the opportunity to produce prototypes where these principles have been tested and thus gained a deeper understanding of the requirements and standards that are set by the furniture industry.

The shelf Assembly is made of Swedish alder, using the self-supporting principle, and is secured by eccentric rods. The shelf comes as a tool-free kit, and can be assembled and disassembled without screws, glue or other fittings.

PRESS_Linnea_Jakobsson.zip

LIFE TRACKER is an exploration of targeted advertising. The project is a journey 

20 years back in time, with an aim to highlight the change that has taken place in our society. Advertising has gone from mass media to targeted ads based on personal data, and I have asked myself—How would a campaign, for a product that offers to follow every step you take, that sees everything you do, and listens to everything you say— have been received, before the smartphone was such an indisputable part of our everyday life?

We live in a time when the mobile phone seems to know more about us as users and consumers than we do ourselves. It remembers where we have been, can figure out where we are going—and guides us there. However, despite the fact that our mobile phones seem to know every step we take, it is not something that is commonly taken for granted, there is still speculation about how we will be “tracked”. Are we tapped? A question to which a definitive answer cannot be found. And it’s definitely not used as a selling point when you buy your smartphone, instead it’s hidden in the fine print that you get as part of the deal.

I have created LIFE TRACKER—a product whose sole purpose is to track you in order to give you targeted advertising. By placing targeted advertising in a context of the past, I try to highlight its absurdity, and provide an opportunity to reflect on something that we today have had to accept.

PRESS_Maja_Schein.zip

Something handwritten can tell a story, but what story can you tell about something written by hand? This project is about two meetings, one in the present and one in the past. Both have been made possible through handwritten letters.

Today we consume more letters than ever, however the origin of the letter forms and  the handwritten letters has almost completely disappeared. How does this affect our way of remembering? What is lost when all our communication is delivered in the same font, and our handwritten signatures have been replaced by signatures on a screen?

I searched for the meaning of the manuscript and found it in a collection of letters in which the senders and recipients share my surname. The first letters are from 1939 and these letters are the only things that are preserved from the senders. The letters exist so that the recipient could be saved, while the senders remained. The handwritten words in the letters constitute their last meeting, and at the same time they have made possible my first meeting with them.

Even though we never talked about this, it's a part of my story. I wanted to fill the void left by the senders through the manuscript and give form to the story in the same way I took part in it. There was not enough room to talk about everything in the letters and some things could not be spoken of, but I started sending letters that I addressed “Return to sender”.  This is a compilation of what I can make known.

Maria_Nyholm_PRESS_photo_Maria_Nyholm.zip

In my degree project, I have explored and experimented with the sustainable, ancient, architectural material mud and investigated how I can apply the material in a new way spatially.

Unfired clay is overlooked as a material even though it has great potential as a sustainable and circular building material. This fact, in combination with my previous interest in ceramics and pottery clay and its possibilities in expression, are important parts to why I've chosen to work with this project. I want to present clay in a new way, with the aim that more people will discover the material.

The goal of my degree project Lergjord (Clay-made) is to try to find out if I can apply this traditional architectural method and material, in the room. Through learning, exploration and experimentation, I have tried to answer this. The process itself has been part of the goal.

The focus has been to take the traditional method of wattle and daub further, and to make it my own, working with round soft shapes and through experimenting with surface treatments, textures, patterns and colours. I have let the process determine if the end result will be an exhibit of my exploration and/or a finished product.

Ekologiska Byggvaruhuset
Johannes Riesterer

LOOKBOOK_Maya_Sundholm_photo_Laris_Rasidovic..zip

RUNWAY_Maya_Sundholm_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

The slightest provocation is grounds for engagement 

An exploratory work about/on ugliness and beauty, aesthetics and attraction.

My degree project is based on an exploration of the definition of ugliness and beauty, of which the project is about working around, and with, elements that feel challenged both in the practical work and the theoretical, as well as an exploration of the ugliness and the attraction that can occur, based on ugliness and ugly objects. My work intends to raise thoughts about what we express, do, carry and what we value as nice and ugly. 

As a method, I have worked with a kind of rhythm throughout the entirety. To create an attraction by finding elements in the design that interact with each other but at the same time attract attention, and even provide a distraction. With starting points in various components and concepts linked to ugliness, both personal as well as references from Tom Sandqvist, Mary Douglas and Mark Cousins, I have put my focus on the material expression created by material defects and wear, as well as an off balanced fit, that gives a hint of playful seriousness and a chaotic feeling in material combinations, kitsch details and the collection as a whole.

PRESS_Mikaela_Midell.zip

My project is based on curiosity and a wish to explore the meeting between form and function, and has resulted in a sculptural clothes rack for a public environment such as an office, a restaurant or a foyer.

Clothes racks have a distinct purpose, and I saw an opportunity to experiment with form on a large scale. The project landed naturally in an entrance hall, a space that is often overlooked. By working with height and angles, Line-up invites a dynamic interaction between form, user and room.

Line-up is made up of three parts: the components are integrated with each other in such a way that it makes the piece easier to lift and move around. The hangers, shelf and umbrella stand have a common expression that contrasts with the scaffolding’s steel pipes. A large part of the project has been about finding a balance, in how material, colour and shape relate to each other.

I have used different metal industry manufacturing methods to produce the various components. I wanted to learn more about how the industry works, and decided early on in the process to work with bent steel, and I have wanted to find an organic flow in the hard material.

PRESS_Rebecca_Wiik.zip

During the four years I have lived in Rinkeby, I have been amazed by how badly the recycling station at Rinkebysvängen works. With my work I want to show how to make the disposal area a nicer and more sustainable place.

Wherever you go in Rinkeby, you are met by garbage, with litter on the streets and in the parks. The recycling station at Rinkebysvängen is no exception, it works more like a landfill rather than a recycling centre. It is too small for the number of households that use it, and it is poorly planned.

I want to show an alternative to today’s recycling station, a place that is easy to use with the help of clear colour coding and exaggerated shapes. The goal is to appeal to both adults and children, as I believe that sorting waste is a task that children often help their parents with.

I think it is important how a place is being communicated if you want it to be used in a sustainable way, and have therefore put a lot of focus on making the station a nice place to be.

My work is based on conversations with neighbours, research, and my own experience using the recycling station. I have allowed myself to think freely and not relate too much to rules as I want the station to be considered a place encouraging good habits as well as having a playful expression.

RUNWAY_Samuel_Westerberg_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

The collection explores the phenomenon of dressing in your partner’s clothes. With a focus on same-sex relationships and classic men’s fashion, an intimate exchange is shaped through physical garments.

The concept is well known in women’s fashion, for example boyfriend jeans, but has not been presented in men’s fashion yet. In my degree project, the phenomenon of boyfriend dressing is moved to a context where the male body is at the centre.

The exchange of clothes between two men in a relationship usually goes unnoticed as it does not exceed gender codes, so how can the concept be visualised, materialised and ultimately communicated through the garment’s design?

By shifting the wearer’s gender, the obvious markers that shaped the idea disappear and create a space for communicative symbolism. Using references such as; Maja Gunn, Anne Hollander and Helmut Lang, alongside my own experiences, the degree project has taken shape. I have worked associatively with use, sensuality and male codes in order to reformulate the concept into a personally relatable context. A personal, engaging/meaningful context.

Survival of the softest is a norm-creative survival kit that, through design, twists the prepper aesthetic and the collective perception of what we need in a crisis.

Few have probably been able to avoid the discussion about crisis preparedness, which has increased in recent years. Typically emergency readiness concerns food, water and protection. 

With the intention of de-dramatising the subject, I asked myself the question of how I could approach it from another angle – What do we need in a crisis once the urgent needs are met? I wanted to investigate crisis preparedness based on our human needs, such as security, sense of belonging, self-esteem and self-fulfilment, with a more personal twist – Is there room for beauty and cosiness in a crisis?

I have allowed our basic needs to take shape in four alternative symbolic objects associated with them, packaged in a survival kit, with the desire to evoke reflection on the unexpected and more personal, things that are important to us as individuals, for our human well-being.

PRESS_Sara_Solen.zip

Factual Colours: Människan & Vattencykeln

How can graphic design make complex information accessible? Factual Colours provides introductions to research through colour palettes. This example presents research on the human impact on the Earth's water cycle.

There is a gap in how information and data are conveyed today. Many are interested in new research but the findings are not sufficiently accessible to those who do not have advanced knowledge in the field. Therefore, 

I wanted to explore new methods to simplify and visualise information that makes it easier to read and to comprehend. The purpose of this project is to create reflection on how graphic design can make something more tangible and how colour can be a way to convey knowledge in a clear way.

Through a colour scheme and animated infographics, I have created an introduction to new research on how we humans affect the Earth’s water cycle and what the consequences are for the Earth’s system, climate and all living things.

The viewer is invited to interact with a set of colours that individually represents a different stage of water through the water cycle. A summary of problems, causes and brief facts related to each colour is presented, with an aim to provide an increased understanding, and create interest in the subject.

LOOKBOOK_Saveja_Awzel_photo_Laris_Rasidovic..zip

RUNWAY_Saveja_Awzel_photo_Mathias_Nordgren..zip

This collection is a timeline stuck in encounters of textures and colours, modernity and tradition—it is also where the Silk Road tales that I heard as a child meet my Scandinavian everyday life.

At the centre of the Silk Road, the meeting point of different worlds, I have my roots. I have long tried to be a Uighur, a Chinese and a Swede, at the same time. Having a multicultural background is an endless source of inspiration for me, it also means self-criticism and delusion. Who am I and who do I want to be?

My vision is to see my references from the colourful Uighur, the conservative Chinese and the balanced Swedish. Everyone with their differences finds peace in my creation. I see my degree project as an inner journey that reconnects me with my origins, while helping me find a new identity that does not have to be neither or, but both.

In my degree project, I examine my mix of cultures with oriental symbols and subtle tailoring which results in a transcultural fashion collection expressing how details in clothing can reveal one’s life story, origins and future. I draw inspiration from shapes and motifs in Uighur and Chinese architecture and textile heritage, colours from my childhood memories, and put them in a contemporary context.

How are we affected by the feeling of being neither inside nor outside a society, but in an intermediate state? And what significance does that in-betweenness have on our identity, our references and our design language? What exactly is ‘mellanform’?

I have experienced a kind of intermediate existence for a very long time.  A clear feeling of not belonging to a society or a culture. A constant attempt to fit in and navigate between different cultural, linguistic and social references. Not least when it comes to visual references and my own design language. Unfortunately, I have perceived it as a conflict rather than seeing it for what it is—a meeting, a hybrid language, an intermediate form.

What is a hybrid language? And above all, what happens if it occurs within a liminal space? If different references are combined and create something new, what does that look like? What is my Mellanform?

Based on Homi K. Bhabha's postcolonial theories on hybridity and Third Spaces, I have examined my own visual references that are based on my background, identity and my intermediate status. The visual reference library that I have gathered has created the foundation for my Mellanform, a textile work, in which everything from typography to colour, form and material, is informed by my own hybrid language.

PRESS_Simon_Mattisson.zip

Granland is: circular furniture production, a new material, an exploration of form in a new production method, and the use of design as a means of communicating an ongoing environmental problem.

As a symptom of global warming, a half-a-centimeter-sized beetle, the Spruce Bark Beetle, has ravaged European forests in recent years. In Sweden alone, 8.2 million cubic meters of spruce forest died in 2020. The future looks bleak; Sweden is getting increasingly warmer and the Spruce Bark Beetles are multiplying at an alarming rate. At present, there are no effective measures to protect our forests from the damage caused by this beetle.

Some claim that in the near future we may not have any spruce trees left in Sweden at all.

I am developing a wood composite that contains bark beetle damaged spruce wood for 3D printing. With the help of this material, I have designed and produced a collection of furniture, inspired by the patterns that the bark beetles leaves under the surface of the spruce bark. Partly to show alternative uses for this damaged timber, and also to use design as a means of raising awareness, communicating the Spruce Bark Beetle problem.

Circlab, Erik Kihlgren, Johan Brekke, Patrik Karlsson, Boaz Katz, Johannes Wikström.

PRESS_Siri_Boekhout.zip

Dygn is a sundial which also serves as a meeting place, with seats and tables arranged in such a way that they symbolize the hours of the day. The project interprets an antique object to a modern context, where the shadowplay from the sunlight contributes to identity and experience of the meeting place.

The sundial is the world’s first clock and uses sunlight to indicate time by a shadow-casting object. Sundials are still available in different shapes and scales, and have a familiarity through its long history and characteristic shadowplay, which I wanted to work with. The project investigates how the sundial can be useful today and how its qualities can strengthen the experience and identity of my design.

Dygn is a place where people can meet, as it provides outdoor seating and tables for all. The project presents different kinds of city furniture as well as a smaller stage for further activities. The hope is that the project’s form and function invite participation and raise interest.

The horizontal clock has been the starting point for the project, which, with its spatial scale, allows the visitor to move through the sundial, sit by the hours of the clock, and during a longer visit, see the effect of the shadow play in real time.

Janaka Jansson för animation, tid och engagemang 

Kaproco AB för 3D-printing av skalmodell 

Bengtsson Smide AB för tillverkning/materialprov

LOOKBOOK_Teodor_Warpe_photo_Laris_Rasidovic..zip

RUNWAY_Teodor_Warpe_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

Dystopia: from δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; a hypothetical world ora society where people live a miserable, dehumanised, terrible life.

A collection that embodies an idea of ​​a future dystopia, based on references from previous pop cultural phenomena based on futurism.

How do new generations see the future, compared to older generations?

The purpose of Utopia Has Left the Building is to present a contemporary interpretation of our generation’s vision of our future and belief in human development. The collection draws clear inspirations and symbols of the vision and elegance of times past, with elements of depravity, to demonstrate the generational unrest that exists around the world.

The collection presents the idea that a future utopia does not seem to be as defined today. Rather the opposite, the idea of ​​an imminent dystopia seems more certain today than ever.

The collection has been aesthetically influenced by the 1960s way of glorifying the future—with tactile and functional materials, together with geometric cuts and bright colours—this in turn, builds on the futurism of the early 20th century which is based on the idolisation of the urban and the industrial. And to provide an element of contrast, a punk influence has been added, with faded colours, sharp shapes and a worn feeling.

LOOKBOOK_Thomas_Wieser_photo_Laris_Rasidovic.zip

RUNWAY_Thomas_Wieser_photo_Mathias_Nordgren.zip

A personal journey visualised by way of tailoring.

– How can you challenge the rules of tailoring without removing them? 

The strict framework of tailoring does not allow for much change, it is a craft based on a tradition of rules and status symbols.

The collection expresses a personal journey across the craft’s different frameworks, through which various elements of tailoring have been distorted, exaggerated and deconstructed; a reflection of feelings and choices that emerged on the way.

PRESS_Tora_Kirchmeier.zip

Around the turn of the last century, letters with messages about death were sent in envelopes edged in black, so-called mourning edges. My project is based on this tradition and the strange fact that death today is so invisible.

Throughout history, people have surrounded themselves with specific objects and worn special clothes in order to pay thoughtful attention to someone’s death. These visual manifestations of mourning were part of the collective consciousness. Most similar phenomena have now disappeared, and grief has become a private matter, not visible to the outside world.

My work is based on research on historical attitudes and visual traditions around death and grief in Sweden. Many of these were connected to the home thus my degree project centres around the home and borrows its idiom from the sad letter whose strong visual identity was unmistakably associated with death.

My goal has been to create a visual expression that highlights grief, with the hope of opening up to conversations and thoughts regarding death and its place in our society today. The result is an installation with specifically designed utensils. With everyday textiles edged in black, I let death and grief take on a physical form in the home and life.

My Memoirs is an autobiographical publication that explores identity online and memories in the digital age.

By retrieving all data available about myself on the internet, from a total of twelve different third-party services, such as Facebook and Google, I have created a database of my digital footprints and based on that data I have recreated the story of my life. An autobiography in which each spread of the book represents one month of my life, from when I was born until today, using content from my database dated from that month. Some spreads are content-heavy, others more sparse and some are empty.

My aim has been to explore my digital footprints and what version of me emerges through them, to reflect on the difference between data and memories, who my internet persona truly belongs to, and that the online version may live on for longer than my physical self.

In an age of increased online presence and standardised data storage of third-party services on the internet, I have also asked myself the question: How do you take control over your past? Do I still have the opportunity to choose what I want to remember, or do I have to remember everything?

Desirée Bjurinder Fritzon

ABC Ö

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Desirée Bjurinder Fritzon

ABC Ö

Program

Contact

Press images