:: Play creates web site for Kvaerner Eureka, showcasing the Multicoil™ industrial dryer and processing unit. It's a return to heavy industry!

Multicoil

:: Diaz' new album, "Velkommen hjem Andres", is due out in a few weeks. But first comes the single, "Stikking", norwegian slang for f***ing and reportedly about getting cosy with the ladies… Diaz makes a good effort balancing the elegant with the drrrrty.

The single cover

:: We just delivered a video for Tweeterfriendly Musics new singel, Dumdeedeedum, to run on MTV. Always a wonderful experience to work for these guys… Hope to do a lot more music videos in the future :-)

The video…(Warning! 40 Mb)
The promo singel cover…
An earlier album cover…

:: ”Exploring the exceptional visual language and design approaches of Scandinavian creatives, this volume will showcase a careful selection of thriving, unique talent, of designers who have honed their very own style to perfection”

This quote is aimed at the book on Scandinavian graphic design, ”North by north”. (Gestalten Verlag. Edited by R. Klanten, H. Hellige and Måns Nyman).

Hell, even some of our artwork appaers in there!

:: A new magazine aimed at a Scandinavian audience is on its way to the shelves in every good kiosk and bookstore in... Scandinavia! It is called Reflexioner, is based in Copenhagen. It covers cultural and academic topics.

We´ve been happy to contribute to the premier issue by designing one of the articles: "Klick!..."

:: Puhhh! Finished my contribution to the music issue of Localmotives, a cultural webzine located in Norway (and aimed at an norwegian audience...).

The task was to produce visuals to go with two songs from The Chairs on web. Go see how that came out...

:: Finally we got to log some time in the high again. Three days spent climbing in the spectacular mountains in Romsdalen (Norway) with the intimidating Trollveggen (a 1000 meter vertical climb, or drop if you're a basejumper) as the omnipresent backdrop.

It's the perfect cure for the easily bored.

:: Springtime is upon us! Outdoor climbing season is started and we're generally having a great time! (Check out our latest font, look to the right...)

How are you?

OBS! We can only be reached at our cell phones these days:

Marius: +47 922 87 107
Helene: +47 920 24 977
Erik: +47 916 02 434

:: We are on the move again!

As a tiny (3 employees) designstudio we find acting as a plug-in for other companies on larger scale projects an appealing diversion. Lately, we worked with the architects in PropellerZ (and Liquid Frontiers) on some graphics for the Gasometer Town in Vienna. (We'll make a thourough presentation of this as soon as we get the documentation).

Now we're moving into the spaces of Pepper Communication (Oslo) to be effectively close when adding our powers to theirs on selected tasks. (Some trivia for you: We'll have warm lunch every day in the shared kitchen of Pepper and Snøhetta, the highly profilerated architects from Norway! We would never tell you the colour of our socks, though.)

From now our address will be:
Products of Play AS
Christian Kroghsgate 32
0186 Oslo Norway

It seems we'll keep our telephone numbers:
+47 22 33 63 10/11

:: Loads of distractions these days; the Big White is all over the place, except in our office. Some of us have been to Trysil and Hemsedal to get a taste, and guess what: it's just as good as last year and can be used for both ski and boards!

Enough, already, our new address is:

Play AS
Akersgt.7
N-0158 Oslo
Norway

:: Moving our butts to the new Habitat of Play is just about to happen: the 3rd and 4th of December will be days of hard physical labour, carrying our stuff up and down steep stairs.

By the 5th we reckon we'll be 3 happy puppies with tongues hanging out and wide smiles stuck to our faces.

:: The highly original norwegian rapper, Opaque, got himself a brand new spotsite right here to go with his new album: Gourmet garbage.

And make sure to check out fellow rappers (and fishing afficionados!!!) Warlocks latest release: Afterlife.

Thanks to Tee for bringing forth such gifts to mankind.

:: As a respons to Marius' participation in the exhibition, Stealing Eyeballs, in Vienna this spring Play has been invited to work in Austria again.

Gasometer Town:
4 former powerplants are to be converted into a modern urban structure, consisting of shops, offices and habitats, by known architects: Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Manfred Wehdhorn and Wilhelm Holzbauer.

Our friends at Propeller-Z and Liquid frontiers are responsible for interior structures and architecture in one of the buildings, and has come up with an ingenious, but simple, concept for "navigating" in the 360º "landscape"; a circular pictorial frieze, that gives identity and recognizable "landmarks" for users to find their way.

Marius' work with computational visual design seems to fit this project perfectly. In his work, topics, such as the relation between time and form, often results in processes producing potentially endless abstract narratives.

We will defenitely come back with more information about this project. Massive!

Oh, by the way, Alex Tylevitch (Logan, USA) and Mevis & van Deursen (Netherlands) are also invited.

:: After a long search we've finally found what we've been looking for: the perfect office space. A former cigar factory, one large room, in a quiet backyard of an old building in the centre of Oslo. (Not far from the best Italian gelateria in town.)

It'll be ready for us early December.

:: Play has made the identity for the music-label, Afontibus, as well as their website. It is on air from today and on.

Next in line is the site for Multiturn, a management organisation closely connected to Afontibus.

(Congratulations, Helene! Steepest learning-curve I've seen. Now, go home and do not work for some days.)

:: In Halvor Bodin's excellent coloumn, Dezine, in the norwegian magazine, Kreativt Forum (Issue Nr 08.2001), he presents an interview with Play along with samples of our latest work. Pdf-versions of this and earlier issues of Dezine can be seen here. (Make sure to check out ALL of his super site).

Erik were also very happy to speak to the creative forces in Virtual Garden about his type-designs. They turned out to be a very sympathetic (or diciplined?) crowd. (Several of the infamous Nystrom family was there! Fred, Lasse, Ludde and Beate).

:: Long time, no see. We've been busy doing a lot of good, honest work, hence the silence.

Among other things we have finished several CD-covers: Sondre Lerche (Virgin), Anne Grete Preus (Warner), Opaque (Tee Productions), Warlocks (Tee Productions) and a Carl Nielsen-album with Geir Inge Lotsberg (Afontibus).

Thank you all for trusting us to wrap up your music :-)

(Sorry. Only icon-sized previews at the time: brand new web coming up soon.)

:: We have multiplied! Fresh from Central St. Martins School of Design in London comes Helene Gulaker Hansen to work as designer for Play. She's not new to the business, though, having worked as project manager in designcompanies for many years prior to this.

We are happy to be fortified in our quest to play around with design. Welcome!

:: This summer Barcelona has been haunted by the Notorious Happy Clubber, and unlucky trouts swimming the streams of harsh mountains in western Norway has met Mr. Death: We've had a rather long vacation, but now projects are lined up in our offices, and it's time to dig in. Play are back in business!

Oh, and we might have some smart business going on, too!

:: And now Kit has got it's minuscles done. It went down all right. Didn't cry once. Oh, and a new zero has been produced at the request of the King of Zero and Ones.

:: And here is Kit a typeface designed to meet an irrational need for delaying another magazine deadline: When there's too much to do, no time left to do it, design a new typeface! It's the numero uno way to kill all stress - like knitting socks for your grandchildren, know what I mean?

:: Rush job: Biotech illustration for Morgenbladet. Homage to all the geneticists we've met lately. (No, really!)

:: Play put together a TV spot (8 mb) for the norwegian popgeniuses, Tweeterfriendly Music Warner Music Norway.

:: Play on the frontpage of Freshfroot today! We're represented by what we consider our most important work of art this year :-)

Be sure to check out Freshfroot whenever you're suffering from creative fatigue...

:: Vienna has treated us so good! New friends as well as old ones has made our stay the most pleasurable experience. Thanks a lot!

Tracking down the notorious Vienna scene we found relaxed clubs like Jenzeit and the more energetic, Meierei, which held us up until early morning immersed in a very positive vibe, indeed.

Walter Pamminger, the chemist and graphic-designer-par-exellence, very carefully introduced us to the Austrian world of wine, cheese and destillates: a totally hedonistic evening designed by an expert.

Big shout to Vectorama for inventing the perfect virtual grafittiwall and for being the completely amiable swiss guys they are!

More to come (snowboarding in Kaprun, film and pictures from the exhibition and the lecture)

:: Play are going to Vienna on the 20th of April. We will of course meet friends and collegues, and go snowbaording, but more important, we will attend the opening of the exhibition, Stealing Eyeballs in Künstlerhaus, for which Amoeba has dreamt up some fine animations and printwork.

(We'll be back in our offices by the 30th of April.)

:: Bergen Klatreklubb (The Climbing Club of Bergen) has just got back on the net with temporary pages. We're awaiting the reintroduction of their open forum: Sladdersiden (translates as The Gossip Page), which used to host strong opinions from climbers from all of Scandinavia.

:: Today we sent off the artwork for the upcoming CD from Tweeterfriendly Music (Warner Music Norway).

You can see the front now, but will have to wait for the rest.

:: And thank You, Bjørn-Eivind for beautiful lomographs (More about Lomos and The Lomographic Society of here.)

The weather was sparkling, sun shining, fresh wind and the temperature: 24 degrees below zero. Celsius that is.

See lomograph no.1.
See lomograph no.2.

:: Thank You, Subtopia!

Look what we got! Another chapter in the Bionicle-story. But I we think it must be no. 3 or 4, because here is the second.

(The first chapter is here.)

:: Erik worked in the jury for the Grafills Visuelt contest, judging Norwegian illustration. There are some clever students out there!

:: Sone2.no (design by Play) is getting better and better and recieved 700 000 hits last week, more than its "mother" site, tv2.no!

:: Play spemt a great time in Hemsedal together with good friends, Al, Derek and Sindre. In the true spirit of the Play Boarding Team the debutants among us set out to explore the world of going sideways. (Like crabs).

And guess what! We are going back this weekend!

Watch the film, get inspired, go play! (Obs! 8 Mb). And enjoy the music of Kim Hiorthøy from the album, "Hei", released on Smalltown Supersound. Also in concert at Blå, Oslo, tomorrow.

:: It's finally happening! Play are going away for the weekend to do what Play are meant to do: PLAY.

Hemsedal has got a new layer of white powder for Play to surf in.

:: Play went to Amsterdam to meet one of Plays favourit client and their chosen puveyor of communcation services, TBWA.

Erik had some extra time to visit the finest of bookstores, Nijhof & Lee. Respect!

:: Marius returns from Amsterdam where he lectured, and taught some innocent designers to write Postscript™!

And look what he brought home to Play with!