My first ever photo published on Instagram June 11th, 2011
I’d like to use todays blogpost to thank the team behind Instagram. I posted my first photo on Instagram June 11th, 2011 about a year after they launched the service. I had taken a look at it earlier but didn’t really have the energy to start posting at the time. Little did I know at that time that Instagram soon would change how I thought about photography.
When I first started using Instagram I did what most people would do, I started to follow people and posted a couple of images. But soon people started to follow me back and suddenly something changed how I thought about [click to continue…]
I’m a ‘challenge-me-kinda-guy’. In 2011 year you might have read my blog post on my Enduro adventure on Gotland. (in English via Google Translate here) It was a blast. Frightening but a blast. It was definitely one of my biggest challenge in my life. Then last year passed without any extreme physical adventures, except for some sweet surfing a couple of times to Ireland, France, a couple of sessions in Sweden and a beautiful hike in the Swedish mountains. This year however I’ve decided to take on a new project, this time it involves running…a lot of running.
Fjällräven Classic takes place in some of the most beautiful terrain in the world
(The photos by the way comes from my Instagram feed. Feel free to follow me on @ronnestam on Instagram)
Fjällräven Classic is a fantastic hike that takes place in the north of Sweden. Fjällräven is a clothing and apparel brand from Sweden that every year arranges a 110 km hike between Nikkalaukta and Abisko. The hike takes place [click to continue…]
Self portrait from Easky, Ireland in october 2012.
More than 20 years ago my good friend Mathias Wiberg asked me if I wanted to tag along to Easky, Ireland and learn how to surf. I was in the middle of my snowboard career and surfing felt like something I really wanted to learn how to do so I of course said yes. We drove there in Mathias funky SAAB together with two other guys and after almost 24 hours of driving through Sweden, England and Ireland we ended up in this little village with nothing but bars where the farmers got their daily Guinness and a world class break to match that scene.
There and then I learned how to surf. I consider myself a fast learner but still it took 7 days of paddling and falling before I got my first real wave. I’m not talking one of those mushy beach breaks, but a solid 6-foot wave that made love to me in a way so that I would never ever forget the feeling of riding a wave. Back then I was snowboarding for the swedish national team which made it possible for me to spend quite a lot of time during the summers on my surfboard. Then years later when an injury stopped my [click to continue…]
Me looking into the camera on the top of Valluga before heading down an extrem run.
Right now I’m spending four days in heaven. Together with some friends and I’m St Anton skiing some of Europe’s best powder. We got our two mountain guides with us and we’re exploring every part of the [click to continue…]
If you’ve followed this blog and me for a while you know I’ve been heading the work of making one of Sweden’s newest brands come to life – The Marginalen Bank.
It’s a fantastic assignment where I’ve together with Caroline Karlström have been given the honor of both creating the actual brand as well as establish it and building it on the Swedish market. Read more about that here and here.
Today another chapter in the Marginalen Bank branding story was written.
This morning our latest move to continue differentiating the bank from it’s competitors went live. And I’m damn proud of the results. The challenge was to create a concept that continues to build the Marginalen Bank brand in a positive way and emotional way. We felt we needed to innovate the creative concept we had previously worked with and move beyond illustrations but still stay within the areas of art and creativity. With this in mind we created a new communication platform that truly emotionalizes the brand, creates awareness and hopefully creates positive results.
The idea: Have creative people within the cultural industry interpret different key aspects of Marginalen Bank’s business areas.
We teamed up with the fantastic dancer, and great personality Fredrik ‘Benke’ Rydman, more known to some of you for being one of the founders and creative leaders behind the dance group Bounce. (If you don’t know of Bounce chances are that you probably know about the Flashmob tribute Bounce performed when Michael Jackson died.) Today [click to continue…]
It is Saturday morning. The summer is slowly coming to an end even though I’m still waking up way to early due to the light. I’ve had the privilege to have quite some time off with my family. Only one project has been running over the summer.
My youngest daughter Linn trying out her new fishing rod in the evening light
What’s up, that’s the question I’m asking myself right now. What’s the next big thing. What comes after Facebook and Twitter, when will YouTube be challenged, what’s the next hype after the iPhone, we’ve lived for quite some time now with Playstation, XBOX and WII. And what ever comes next, how will that change the way we communicate and sell brands and their products.
I’m searching deep inside myself to find something that shows me the way. Some spark of energy that I can nurture to bring it out in the open. Something that will light the fire that will guides me.
Whatever it is I’m sure it will be as easy to adapt to as the iPhone, it will be as social as Facebook, it will be as entertaining as the first Halo was, it will be as real as a piece of wood and it will be as eco-friendly as something we’ve never seen before.
I hope it hits the car industry cause to be honest, nothing has really transformed that business the last 50 years. I do hope it hits the home appliances industry cause things seems to be standing still there too. I’d love for the tourism industry to change. Not to mention the toy industry, please give me something that makes me and my kids have super fun. Oh please give me a new favorite restaurant. Hmm, beverages. Isn’t it time we found something that truly challenged Coca Cola. Just give me something new!
I think I can see the light…somewhere deep inside.
On monday morning I’m slowly getting back to work. I’m really looking forward to that. See you soon!
Last summer I got on a train leaving Stockholm for Gothenburg. Together with freelancing project manager, planner and colleague Caroline Karlström I had a meeting set up with diving brand Poseidon. This was the start of a project where I truly had the opportunity to work with all aspects of branding and creative communication.
A dream project.
Ingvar Elfström, the founder of Poseidon back in 1958.
The Background
Back in 1958 this brand was founded by a young Swedish diver, Ingvar Elfström. Since then the brand has become famous for unique, different and great products. However over the last couple of years they’ve lost speed when it comes to innovation and marketing initiatives.
But then something happened. The company was bought by a small group of investors three years back. Headed by visionaire Kurt Sjöblom they set out on a journey – to develop the first ever automated rebreather for recreational divers.
This was why we were there. About a year from launch Kurt and his team felt they needed to do something about the brand. And after a successful meeting that actually started with me diving [click to continue…]
Later this day the river was flooding food from the main land. The sharks ended up chasing me to the beach
That is me up there. About to cut back into the white water and sitting on the right, after surf. Below shows me right after dropping in on Uluwatu, one of the worlds finest left handers.
The other day I was backing up some old paper prints and these two shots got me thinking.
This was taken one of the first days surfing Uluwatu. I forgot my rash guard in our bungalow and got sunburned bad
The photos are taken some time back in 1990 when I first visited Bali. I had the greatest time and hooked up with guys like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado that I’ve learned to know via snowboarding buddies.
At this time Internet wasn’t anything I was thinking about. It didn’t exist, at least not in my mind. I had a mobile but bringing it to Bali was out of the question. You called back home every 14 days to say you were ok. People didn’t expect you to communicate more often than that if you were on the other side of the globe. A postcard did just fine!
These were days that defined my life. Internet just came along and swept me of my feets.
