soundtrack | Hope of The States: The Red The White The Black The Blue

Still no life signs. Void mind.

I finally got the layouts for ArsLab3 + logo's sent to Jari.


Aalto sitereneval project has been on stand by mode today.
Small updates: Gallery Becker and Aino-K. Pajari.

soundtrack | Cradle of Filth: Devil Woman

Work'a'holic weekend + some days after.


On Saturday I first updated all the small(ish) updates, some Muhi project adjustments + the rest of Kirsi's corrections (all of which I hadn't coded before). Then I started coding national dresses project and it took about 2/7 with only a few hours sleep and some mind emptying moments with reality television (and chicken fajitas - I will never eat again).
Then I started coding new Aalto foundation site which will propably be THE project for the couple of few weeks.


And a card from Teija from Florence (how come I remembered that she was going to Venice?) - my contact to outside world. Well, not totally: today (...as: yesterday) I met Mirkka from Aalto Museum and we discussed something about the new Aalto site soon to be opened...


No life signs here. Move away, there's nothing to see here.

soundtrack | The Secret Machines: Road Leads Where It's Led

I've got the Art + Architecture 2005 registration pdf finally online. The site has been online since February but all the important pieces are now together - so I guess the site is finally published. The visual design + layout are based on the print material designed by Teemu Taskinen.



Work'a'holica day.

The Craft Museum of Finland Swedish and German pages will open soon - several small adjustments made.
Alvar Aalto Foundation redesign is due to open in few weeks time. Unfortunately, the first stage is only slight make-over, renewal of the few most important pages. Those projects done with one piece at time are always hard for me, I easily lose the logic... But thumbs up now.

And of course some time spent with Muhi project (colour codes for Hannes, searching for old layouts for re-designing, some info for Petteri).

Ups - look, it's already tomorrow. Time travelling.

soundtrack | Hard-Fi: Tied Up Too Tight

So, most of the time with Muhi project. Nothing to show yet, some small adjustments again. It's annoying how making some small changes can take the whole day. But the strange thing is that I actually like making the graphs for that one. Sometimes it feels like the project is in the never-ending mode - but so are many other projects too and in more disturbing way. In this one I have only graphs to deal with, nothing else. Maybe that's the reason why it's still on the good side of the planet...
Recent updates: Alvar Aalto Foundation, The Craft Museum of Finland, The Arts Council of Central Finland>, ArsLab...


I've been a bit ill so all so I'm a bit late with everything. The work doesn't end soon: basic updates awaiting, Muhi layouts unfinished, Kirsi's site renewal unfinished, Aalto Foundation site renewal coding not even started (well, some ground work is done), some layouts for ArsLab3 unfinished (new logo based on the old one is already finished), Webgalleria texts to be written and Väripaletti site to be updated. And I should've get the national dresses finished last weekend but as I hit the zombie mode so totally, I'll just have to try to finish the project ASAP. Which just might be too much right now.


I've tried to spy on Teija's blog (sorry, only in Finnish) now and then to find out is she already in Venezia or still in Norway - or where? But nothing new yet. I've got some good news to her: our five-year architectural online project is now finally working. I'll code the front page as soon as possible and we can finally rest...


Yesterday I was practically in all-day-coma (except of the little must-be-done-updates) and watched four first episodes of Buffy S4. Maybe today I'll have four more to medicate myself. I've missed all the buffynism in this busy busy world.

soundtrack | Magyar Posse: 6

General tiredness. Fluish feelings. Rudolphian nose.
A few long lasting projects have dominated my days - no end is near. (And so I won't face the final curtain...) ¬_¬


My week'o'rama: a few meetings, Sibelius Academy Muhi project, Kirsi's web site renovation, small updates: Gallery Becker, Alvar Aalto Foundation, The Craft Museum of Finland, The Arts Council of Central Finland, European Cultural Foundation / Finland. And: after heavy work session with Matti on Thursday, I finished a small Sixty Files site + got it online on Friday (layout + content by Matti Reivi, I just coded the page).


Some freetime this week: it's a 60 year celebration of the Jyväskylä Artists' Society, so all kinds of festitive things are on, above mentioned Sixty Files being one of them. Something sort of free-timish too: Artists' Society annual exhibition opening in The Jyväskylä Art Museum was on Friday. I met a lot of people and some of them even chatted about reality television with me. Time not lost.
AND: Jani send some The Online Gallery Henkevä Silakka / Spirited Herring layouts for me a few days ago. I'm absolutely stunned. And amazed. Now it's starting to be my turn to make some content thingies. And it's starting to feel a bit too real. We've had a few panic calls but the situation is still quite not out of our hands. O_o


Nothing else. My life is boring as... I can't even think of anything else so boring.
Maybe it's better to enter to a pause mode for the rest of the night.
(I do it my waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.)

soundtrack | The Dears: 22 The Death of All The Romance

Friday's first work hour: active update renewal of my virus blocker. WHY was it so hard? First I didn't understand what was the VAT tax-number the program asked and after trying several vartiations of that number series I finally got through. Then I got the bank account information and refeernce numbers which weren't recognizable by e-bank. I finally got the thing paid but now I'm waiting the final renewal day in fear. I really should find some person to do this all for me.


Second project: there are still some strange problems with our architecture teaching project Tee itsellesi tilaa (Make some room for youself). Made in shockwave, it has some strange looping problems in destination/final server when the same project still works fine in the testing server. Problem still unsolved. But I finally mailed to get some help.


I also brought some papers for my accountant who kindly reminded me that I had forgot to sign my tax papers... Hopefully they won't get any extra charges because of that. When I returned home my back ache started again (wind, cold, wet) and my shopping for food didn't go so well. I bought all kinds of sweets but nothing to eat. So pizza and kebap it was - again. The whole morning I felt an urge to go somewhere and to meet people but after getting home, it was very clear to me: I'm not a people person right now. There should've been an exhibition opening in Galleria Becker on Friday but I was too apathic to use my feet to get there or my mouth to chat with anyone, so... I guess it was better to stay home than be the party downer of the year.


Yesterday I woke up at half past twelve and started working right away. Well, working and working. Actually: I first started making things nobody is paying for me, Webgalleria Spirited Herring things and all. Tomorrow same work flow continued (well, not really - it's like walking in tar).
Some updates: exhibition changed in Gallery Becker, Alvar Aalto Foundation, The Craft Museum of Finland, Värjärikilta, The Arts Council of Central Finland and Papiina's moving (new products were updated last week). And of course - rest of the Riiminka proucts updated.


I should have updated Kirsi Neuvonen's updates and start the site renewal - but it seems that it's already tomorrow and I'm not getting any smarter - only sleepy. Should propably get some sleep first.

soundtrack | Radiohead: Subterranean Homesick Alien

Back on duty.

Last weekend was quite hectic. I had to finish Värillä-zine before last weekend but it was Saturday I finally got it finished. Basicly it isn't so hard to make but Mr. Murphy had his almost final words in many small things and the project took a LOT of time.


On Friday I had a meeting with Kirsi Neuvonen who's website is under heavy renewal. Last week I made a new front page but the site is going to be changed during this spring. Then I met Riiminka's two owners. We had set the meetings originally at the beginning of March but with me being sick it finally was about a mont later. So, the Riiminka's web page reneval was the next job. All products etc. were to be replaced. I started on Saturday, continued through Sunday until 5 o'clock Monday morning. At that time I had managed to put product information for babies, girls and boys clothing online but others (adults + accessories) didn't make it yet... I promised to get rest of the stuff online at the end of this week. Same thing with other stuff I was going to update last weekend...

On Monday I updated Alvar Aalto Foundation and The Craft Museum of Finland + a couple of small fixes here and there before I left to Helsinki. The rest of the Monday was off-time for me - and I totally needed it. On Tuesday I held a 9-5 lecture about Colours in UIAH / Continuing Education and Development centre. I actually was amazed that I wasn't tired at all (after surviving weekend at total sleep amount of 10 hours and then reading sophisticated literature (...eh, refreshing musical memoirs of Mötley Crüe...) still after midnight at the night before) and I had fun. I think the students had too. At least not a one of them started to cry which is always a good sign.


Yesterday I had a meeting in Sibelius Academy. I'm a bit ashamed about my slow working mode with that. I can't understand why the small things like icons have been so hard for me to make. But the meeting was good+energetic and I actually gained some faith on myself. I just started this morning by making a clearifying list of all the things to make with that project. The list is long but it's not so terrifying as I thought it would be.


After getting the return ticket I sort of collapsed mentally+physically. There were no free benches to sit on in Helsinki Railway Station, the weight of my bag was killing me and my back was hurting after getting some cold seawind. So, after half an hour waiting when I finally got to train and to my seat, I swicthed on zombie mood. I had some mags (Image + Metal Hammer) with me but I actually just sat and stared voidly straight ahead of me the whole trip. The usual trains sessions that is.
After a good night sleep some kind of mental cleaness is now achieved... Some though patterns are still missing but I'm getting there.

soundtrack | Pulp: Feeling Called Love

It's very relieving to know that there are some non-variables in this world: coffee tastes good even if it didn't taste good. ...You know what I mean. Right now I'm helding my Nightmare-Before-X-mas-Jack-mug on the other hand (christmas present from my brother, which I received after a long and complicated journey just about one week ago - the mug's journey, not mine) and write with another. Not very comfortable. But there is no space in my work desk for my mug and the floor is filled with papers, cds and all...


I had a few holidays during Easter. On Friday I visited my parents and practically sleeping through the whole day. On Saturday evening (after a good day's work) I went to visit my parents again and left yesterday. Two whole days without doing anything work-related. Odd!


Reality check today: many smaller updates and some bigger ones. Alvar Aalto Society, Alvar Aalto Foundation, The Craft Museum of Finland and Kirsi Neuvonen's website.


Kirsi has made an introduction to her present exhibition in Becker (only in Finnish) and when I coded the page I had this strange flashback. I've always considered the moment I first called Kirsi about her web pages as a turning point of my professional career: it was after that call I decided to concentrate on making sites for cultural projects, artists, artisans and such trying to stay away from big firms and projects that don't give me anything. There was one text in Kirsi's text that brought that moment back to me very powerfully. Somehow it also gave me some extra power for other work projects - I've actually managed to stay away from strongly commercial projects.


So that's about it. Värillä colour-zine for Värjärikilta is still unfinished (deadline last week), some small icons for Sibelius Academy project made but still offline, Papiina updates are still unfinished... Jani will come tomorrow so the situation will be propably the same tomorrow... Still no rest for the wicked.

soundtrack | Eliot Smith: Waltz #2 (XO)

Yesterday, after three hour trip to visit a doctor (waiting, waiting, waiting...) I went to The Arts Council of Central Finland hoping to collect some ultimate pity-points (read: to get some coffee) - and the plan worked well. I actually had a couple of work things there: I had a meeting with Jari about ArsLab3 project and then I printed out some MediaDesk application forms for Spirited Herring projects. I walked home with Seija via Gallery Becker and the writer's house (where I have never visited before), then visited Aalto Museum/Teija shortly and we set some lunch plans for today.


Today I managed to make some small updates before we left to thai restaurant for lunch. After lunch Teija and I talked a bit about Aalto site renewing - Teija will be leaving Aalto museum at the end of this month. For good. Our co-work has been so close that I'm a bit worried about the change Teija's absence will make... But we'll see.


I'm living in some kind of updating continuum. Everytime I update something and consider the job done a new update awaits and I'm updating the same page. Bigger projects are on stand-by-mode as I can't concentrate well enough to finish them.
Maybe tomorrow.

soundtrack | Rufus Wainwright: The One You Love

Working working. The usual ones updated again: Gallery Becker and Alvar Aalto Foundation, The Craft Museum of Finland.
Last week Kirsi Neuvonen got finally a new front page - although it's still the temporary one.


We'll meet soon with Kirsi and take the site renewal to a next level.

Värjärikilta's dyeing-zine Värillä is under it's way but right now I'm having small problems with it. I should have finished it last weekend but I'm running late with every project possible. ...So what's new in this world? Nothing.

At the beginning of April I'm about to lecture about colours in Helsinki (TAIK/Continuing Education and Development centre). Everything is ok otherwise but I still have to check some material... I'm quite excited actually.

...I just made some chicken wings: emptied the vacuumed package and put it in the owen, that is. Only I read the instructions wrong: it was 20 mins instead of 1 hour and 20 mins... ¬_¬ Well, they are quite crispy now. O_o Hmph. Better to stick with my job. Luckily I had coffee with Teija today at university. Some energy still left inside.

soundtrack | Head Automatica: Brooklyn Is Burning

Total designer's block here. Void mind - thoughless head - brainless brain. Angst-fest at its best.

I'm actually trying to have some free time to heal my foot but somehow I found myself working. Work-a-holic? Arctic & Fabulous Film Festival announced new competition for Finnish film makers - I updated the page. Small adjustments to new Aalto site. Several small updates to many sites.

Kirsi Neuvonen came by to pick up her image cd's. Her exhibition opening will be in Becker next Saturday and I promised to try to make a new front page for her website. It's been already over five years when we first started making her site - it hasn't been changed after opening, so it's about time...

And of course working with Muhi - and I wont mention this again before I really get something done. My recent layouts + graphics have been so horrifying that I'm really ashamed.

I haven't been out for almost a week because of my foot. It starts to show. Last week I found myself watching football, on Saturday evening I watched Sweden's selections for Eurovision song contest and today I *almost* watched Dr.Phil.

Somebody please get me a coffee and life.

soundtrack | Kyuss: Green

Grrrr.... I've been so frustrated with this c-ter half of the time that I don't feel I have any energy left on my body at all. I've managed to make some small updates but nothing big, nothing finished. Last weekend I stole some time from my work projects and made some Coloria updates.

Yesterday Sari called me and asked if I wanted to go to eat something and then to go with her to exhibition opening - and I did. First of all: I hadn't seen Sari for a couple of weeks. Secondly: it was so refreshing to get out after almost one week (true nerd here - fresh air just might kill one) although it propably wasn't the most wisest thing on earth - now it feels like my foot was in fire. It's *so* beautiful winter day outside, the sun is shining and all, but maybe I'll stay inside this day and try to recover.

Now back to Sibelius Academy Muhi -project...

soundtrack | Louis XIV: Finding Out True Love Is Blind

Nothing.

I'm not dead yet, thank you for asking.

At the beginning of this week I got one project finished and after that I've been zombiezed. Totally. There are only small updates I've been able to make but everything else is standing still.

Plus: my email is refusing connection and all that &/%/&¤¤¤### - all emails are not coming through right now (only those who are wondering if I'm ok...?) and I'm not in the mood for reason-for-malfunction-hunting. I have to leave it for tomorrow.
Well, I really haven't had a holiday for a long time...

soundtrack | Bloc Party: Helicopter

I've propably told about this but I say it again: I work usually listening to BBC Radio 6. Good music - and not to mention the English accent... A couple of days ago I realized one more good thing: it's so refreshing to have others living same time as I - to hear some one saying 'Good Morning' when my computer clock shows 1pm. Physically I might be in Finland but mentally I'm not near the not CET+1 (or CET+2) Helsinki timeline. True Londoner I am...


I've spent a LOT of time with Muhi -project slicing finished images and saving them to web usable format. But still there are few layouts unsure and unfinished. And of course: when I try to transfer them to a temp directory to Coloria - the whole site is down.


Some other updates: The Craft Museum of Finland, The Arts Council of Central Finland, Väripaletti... + demo site for Architecture+Art2005, soon to be published.


I just made some Dalai Lama personality test Teija send me. Well: my priorities are: pride, love, home, money and career; I'm considering myself alerted, my loved one sleepy, my enemies fast... Please, stop sending me those tests. I usually trash them right away but sometimes when there is hurry and I really don't have time, I find myself answering questionnaires. Oh, and I consider my life to be fluffy.


I'm a bit tired, my foot hurts and - Oscars are live on television. I use them all as an excuse and leave my c-ter right now.

soundtrack | Disco Ensemble: We Might Fall Apart

Outburst coming up:
Some small updates yesterday: Riiminka, Aino-K. Pajari + Kirsi Neuvonen's press photos and other press stuff prepared. I tried to concentrate on some bigger projects but...


There are two big projects I'm working daily with and feeling that I'm getting nowhere: Muhi-project for Sibelius Academy and some new layouts for Aalto Foundation. Plus one project about national costumes which, at this point, is pure copy-pasting - if I try too much my head explodes and I propably end up putting wrong information somewhere. With all these small updates and some of these large projects I sometimes feel so not-accomplishish (uh, I know you can't find that word on official dictionaries but I'm for buffynism... Create your own words if you don't know the right ones.) And because I basicly like of what I'm doing and like the idea of seeing the *finished* sites, it makes the whole situation worse.


So luckily I'm got something done and proved that some projects CAN end - eventually:


I finished www.coloria.net/salekivi yesterday. The site is propably temporary (eh, slight usability problems maybe) but it's easier to handle now since it's made with css. The old site was over four years old, so it was about time to make some changes.

soundtrack | Led Zeppelin: Immigrant Song

Day started with some office working - bills and invoices, sending letters etc. I *never* seem to learn how much time it really takes to handle these small things. It was actually already afternoon when I got to do updates. So much work undone that I don't know how to continue. Blogger is a good place for pausing work.


A while ago I was chatting about desk top images and promised to make a pinkish one with flowers. Promises must always be kept. So...



Want one? Get one: 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024.

Other desk top images might be following: so far I have promised to make a 10-image flower series (this is the first) and 10-image ugly series...

soundtrack | Placebo: Twenty Years

I had thought that I could spend some quality time with Coloria this week... That's not going to happen. Instead of working non-stop during the weekend I ended up playing with Photoshop and made some images. View dig.art / right column.

Lot's of little boring things: last few days have been dotting and lashing uncorrect html-files (that is: adding dot to nameoffilehtm and slashes to directoryfile.htm). I haven't really bothered reading error reports from statistics site so when I finally did... There is still some work to be done. I updated Aino's webpage to work-o-matic but left some small sites out, I'll add them later. I should put my cv online (there has been some requests) but I think the one in dig.art page is enough. If people want more information, they can always mail and ask.

Websites of artists has been a topic here: I found unsent letter about Piitu's dollmaker website on my drafts - and I was wondering why she won't answer to me... Virpi's first layouts are *finally* finished. Hopefully there is the one we can work on. Timppa's new page will be propably online soon.

I have to start working with Art+Architecture2005 layout and finishing new Colour Association page (I started coding that one a month ago - - - I'm getting slow).

soundtrack | The Killers: Mr. Brightside

Nice. Yesterday I tried to keep one holiday but then I decided to try finishing Virpi's layouts for once and all (for some reason this has been really hard for me...) However, a couple of hours later I found myself making new layout for Timppa while I was downloading large press image to one work stuff. I actually finished the layout and started coding it - - - Noticing that dreamweaver had lost the sites AGAIN. This has happened to me once before. Now again. Only this time I didn't lose them all, only the one's alphabetically after k. I was just wondering if the site info still exists there somewhere. I couldn't find one to import to DW but when I installed Timppa's site again, it noted me about changing old settings... Someone wise - bring me the magic words with this.


I made some small code adjustments to Aino's page. It's now online and ready for viewing: personal.inet.fi/taide/aino-k.pajari.




Something almost fun happening on the working site. This could be THE best easter egg of my work history: I was so not in the work mood when I opened the Aalto Light Fittings envelope with image cd in it. There was no CD in it! One less work for this weekend! Ha!

soundtrack | My Chemical Romance: I'm Not Okay

Nothing has really happened in two days - just work. My life includes no life.

I got something finished though: the website for printmaker Aino-K. Pajari is online. Only in Finnish (English section is not finished yet) - but images work in any languages.

I've tried to make some layouts for Virpi Lehto, but my brain has like...freezed. No ideas, everything is either too wild or too sterile. It's hard to make web pages for artists - you can't really party with unconventional decoration etc because the web graphics should not remove the focus from the paintings. And I'm finding it difficult to make new minimalistic layouts without repeating myself. Anyway, Virpi's first layouts should be ready by tomorrow evening.

The biggest session of the last few days has been the Sibelius Academy Muhi-project. I'm finishing the article layout but there is something still not right. I'm not happy. grrrr The other thing I'm doing: I'm saving all the graphics to ready-to-use format which is slightly bigger job than I had thought. I've been working with that for TWO days.

Yesterday I had to take some time off and I spent some moments searching different kind of sentence generators. I was hoping to find something that should elevate my interviews with good artistic jargon but instead I found many others, like Ruåtsinkielisten lauseiden generaattori (makes random Swedish sentences - and you can even select if you want to use grammar right or do you want it to make mistakes...? Why not in my school time - perfect cheating machine). And the other one: Stupid translator (translates a sentence first to one language - badly - and then back or forward to another one. The results are hidious. If you have as lifeless life as I have, go and knock yourselves out with these. And the same translated with ST: If you it will have as the life liveless, as I have, goes mit_dieseno_yourselves_to beats for is.

Right now I'm waiting for some press photos Alvar Aalto Foundation to download. I'll propably fall into a sleep any moment now. ...Uh, here they are. Back to work.

soundtrack | Radiohead: Paranoid Android

Last Saturday I met Jani in Tampere. We set some plans for our net art festival, ate ourselves to near-to-death condition in Chinese restaurant and then headed to ex-TTVO multimedia student meeting. Next morning I took a train to Jyväskylä after three hour sleep. I got some good ideas in the train but now when I read my notes... The reality is harsh. The final conclusion is this: we really are not 24-hour party people. We are 24-hour megalomaniacs who have no life.

Some ancient projects are haunting me. Today I've called and mailed to some old ghosts that should already be over but which aren't - and not because of me. Irritating. I'd really like to move on to something new already.

Ryo just mailed me; there is a story of him in a local newspaper, Keskisuomalainen (in Finnish). It's been so great to see how the project has started and how he has managed to start his business in spite of the Finnish officers (nobody gave confirming answers to anything and always asked to call somewhere else - until we were at the same point where we started the whole thing). I made the original layout for Ryo's Muotoilu.com site but it wasn't commercial enough (today's layout is not mine).

I'm planning to work with the Sibelius Academy Muhi-project for the rest of today. I have to make a few adjustments and then I'll start to save images for Petteri who'll code the site. I'll propably make some kind of draft html page just to show how the elements should behave when using different resolutions. The project is quite demanding and I'm having temporary horror-momentums expecially with creating icons and buttons but still it's a saviour amongst other projects: they really want their graphics to be *something else* - in safe limits but anyways...