Who is Mikael?
A graphic designer, that is to say. I'm one of those self learned multi talents and today I can proudly say I have pretty solid experience from the field of media. With my curiosity I've ended up doing writing, programming, leading projects, teaching, organizing events and of course - plenty of graphic design in various styles and mediums. I'm also hugely interested about the world; of all its cultures and its nature. Traveling is my dearest hobby.I've been successful in many things, but my core competence is in graphic design for digital media. I want to be known as a graphic designer because to me that's the height of my profession. I do what I do with passion and wisdom. I love my work, and I love my life.
Currently I'm hands on in co-establishing a cultural café and also many other smaller personal projects keep my mind fresh.
What do I do?
"Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary."Graphic design
My greatest passion. Many designers have their easily recognizable style; what many lack, is to be able to vary their style depending on requirements of work. I know my own style, but I'm not afraid to try new ways of doing.I'm very familiar with both, print and web. I've been working with so many huge, big and small brands of this world I've lost count. My designs are award winning. This is a subject, I'm talking proudly about. Every day I feel I can do better, I can learn more and most of all; be humble. More I learn, better I know there's so much more in it. You can trust me.
My toolbox
- Photoshop
- Indesign
- Illustrator
- Acrobat Pro
- Flash
Sometimes I've found myself using
- Blender
- Discreet 3DS Max (5-6)
Internet
I'm still young, but when I started to learn about making websites, I was very young. Had Interned even grown into a bit of what it is today, or merely first proper browsers been published. It was beautiful and annoying 90's back then.I've never lost my curiosity upon subject and I've kept myself on the cutting edge of this technology. Nowadays I'm especially interested in single-page applications, HTML5 with CSS3 and mapping technologies. I've recently done complicated webpages for iPhone and iPad.
I know very well what it takes to bring a psd file into a working user- and search engine friendly webpage. In my work I usually use jQuery javascript framework, but I'm very agile to adopt new tools.
Social media, blogs for example, are familiar for me also from the marketing point of view. I use these services daily. I'm native.
Most of all, I know how to make websites look damn good.
Programming
I can do awfully lot with PHP+MySQL, and I like programming, but I don't consider myself as a high professional on it. What I can do best, is to build small custom apps (eg. in Facebook) and campaign sites. I can do customizations for Wordpress and other popular CMS's very easily. My biggest personal project can be found from GitHub, have a look!I've always kept security issues very well in my mind; it's lots of terribly done programming out there. I would be ashamed not to care.
Nice thing about this talent is, that even if I'd be doing only design - I can talk geek. I know what those guys require.
APIs and tools I'm familiar with (just some to mention)
- jQuery (+UI)
- OpenLayers
- Wordpress (+BuddyPress)
- Facebook API
- Google Maps API
- Google Latitude API
- Google Gadgets API
- Mediawiki
- Joomla
- iPhone/OSX Widgets (Dashcode)
- Git
- Unix
- Apache
Flash
I started with Flash in year 2000 and lots have been happening since. I still do mostly with AS2, since that's what banners are required to be done with.Lately I've been moving more into HTML5+JS+CSS3 combo with my cool looking campaign websites, but Flash still has a well deserved place in my toolbox.
Writing
I've always been writing a lot and kept a public internet diary since 90's. During my studies I always ended up writing for school magazines. Later on I worked as an editor of a small culture magazine called Kulkuri. Its distribution was 5000 / 2 weeks.I can do my own photography for my stories.
One day I will write a book.