Daia, Author at Nordic Mum

Hello, again

Apr 27, 2014 | Daily Life | 0 comments

A while ago I decided to change the name for my blog. I’ve been blogging at www.daia.is for a while, with irregular intervals but I felt the name didn’t describe anything that people could relate to, it’s just a part of my nickname. So I registered nordicmum.com and for the last few weeks I’ve been moving things over. If any of you are coming over from there I’d like to welcome you. 🙂

I also made a new twitter account because I’ll be using the other one increasingly for icelandic tweets and I know that can be a drag when people get a language that they don’t understand in their timeline.

I guess it all comes down to content strategy and consistency. This place will have similar focus as my old site; living in the north, my projects as a designer, creating beautiful surroundings and last but not least being a mummy.

Now as we’re expecting our third (we already have a 5 and a 10 year old), the motherhood role will be my focus point as it has been for the past 10 years. I’m looking forward to the times ahead and I hope you’ll stick around.

As we grow – a true classic

Mar 26, 2014 | Design | 2 comments

As I am expecting our third we know too well how clothes travel from one family member to another as the kids grow up. I’ve sent clothes to my nephews that my boys have grown out and received some too, which both saves money and the hassle of going shopping (note, I don’t mind shopping I just live in a town with a very scarce range of clothes) of and I have beautiful items that were worn by me some 30+ years ago that I intend to use for my daughter when that time comes. That’s why I try to choose clothing that has durability and quality fabrics but the thing is nowadays, the majority of clothes is so mass made and lacks both material quality and is harmful to the environment.

That’s why I love the ‘As we grow‘ line of clothes for kids, not only do they focus on durability and quality fabrics but also on that classic look that really never goes out of style. Their whole philosophy evolves around a sweater that went from one family member to another for nine years, maintaining its figure and strength the whole time. Their color palette is so inspiring and their use of wool as well. This is something that I will definitely choose for my daughter – hey, I could even see myself in an adult sized dress like that 🙂

Ps. This is not a sponsored post. I just love it to bits.

Go see As we grow.

The 150 year anniversary of Akureyri

Mar 26, 2014 | Design | 0 comments

At work we often get really interesting projects, or at least projects we like solving in an interesting way. After we had been operating for about a year we were asked to create the identity for our town’s 150 year anniversary. It was a 10 day celebration with various cultural events, from events made by kids at the kindergarten to art exhibitions and outdoor rock concerts. To find something which everyone can relate to was a really exciting idea at first and then incredibly difficult at second and third thought. We dug into the identity and image of our town; its located at the bottom of the fjord, with mountains on both sides and extends into a agriculture rich valley. There are also two islands who belong to our town, one of which the arctic circle goes through. A river runs through the town and each side has their own football club and a landmark church.

We consider our town to be a friendly, nordic/scandinavian (strong danish influence both in architecture and culture) small town. Its the second most populated area after the Reykjavik/capital area and it takes at least 4 hrs to drive there. So its rather remote culturally and shopping here can be a drag. So remote that people in Reykjavik say we have our own accent! But we think that in general people are very proud of their town and never hide where they’re from when asked. So for the inhabitants, this little town is the “Navel of the Universe”!

So from there the idea came, for celebrating the 150 years we made a poster which shows most major landmarks of the town as if its just one globe. We have the old town, the theatre, churches, culture house, shopping centre, ski area and the puffin on the rock represents the islands that belong to the municipality.

The poster that I illustrated for our town’s 150 year anniversary. The plane is writing ‘Navel of the Universe’ in the sky

The advertisements were run in all print mediums as well as on TV, they had to include more text than could fit within the poster so we adjusted the illustration for the advertisements.

We received really great comments on the whole project, people saying it really captured the spirit of the town in an appealing and interesting way. That was the whole idea 🙂

Skiing from top to shore

Mar 16, 2014 | Iceland | 0 comments

I got actual goosebumps watching this video which was shot on my peninsula. Jökull Bergmann runs a Heli-Skiing service, that is takes you to the top of some mountain of your choice where you ski down as far as you can, all the way down to the shore, no tracks or trees in your way. This video was shot by Warren Millen featuring ski stars Julia Mancuso and Jess McMillan along with the model Sierra Quitiquit.

It really reminded me of a trip I took with my aunt some four years ago. Sadly not with a helicopter – I have yet to experience that. The highest mountain by the bay is Kaldbakur, actually right across the bay from the peninsula, approx 1200m tall. My aunt lives in the village Grenivík by the shore right under the mountain, about 30 min drive from our house. We drove half way up by car on a fairly nice gravel road and went the rest of the way to the top on their snowmobile. It was amazing when we got to the top, there was no wind at all. The temperature was actually nice enough just to have a light sweater on. And the view was magical! It was late in the day – the clock was approx 20.00 in the beginning of June, at a season when the sun doesn’t set – only takes a dive in the sky. It took us about 20 min to ski down – I’m not as skilled as those on that video of course and that mountain isn’t as steep as theirs. But it was pure heaven. Can’t wait to go again someday.