Mathias Mikkelsen
Published August 6, 2012

New Career: Full-time Freelance

It’s official! From this day on, I’m a full-time freelance designer, employed by my own company with the highly creative name; Mathias Mikkelsen AS.

I’ll be designing all kinds of digital products; mobile, tablet and web applications, regular websites and everything in between. Shoot me an email if you wanna say hi.

My office at St. Olavs Plass 2, 0165 Oslo. Drop by if you’re in town!

If you’re in town visiting Oslo, don’t hesitate contacting me. I’d love to chat over a good cup of coffee. I’m sharing offices with the newly-founded Notch, a design & development studio founded by my good friends Simen Øian Gjermundsen, Henning Gjerde and their partner Christopher Einarsrud.

Published June 29, 2012

Two Prizes at the WIF 2012 Finals

We managed to snatch two prizes at the WIF (Webdesign International Festival) 2012 Finals in Limoges, France! Our team – Tomato Tomato – won the best innovation prize, as well as the region of Limoges’ intercultural prize.

The finale lasted for 24 hours straight. All teams are given the same brief, and are then required to come up with an idea and concept, create a prototype and presentation. Teams all over the world qualified to the finale, from Brazil and Argentina, Germany, France and all the way over to China og Russia.

Myself, Henning and Simen’s entry was called Spring. Spring is an idea on how we can help students all over the world have a better education. Visit our Spring Presentation Site.

Here’s two articles from the press regarding the victory:

Mathias Mikkelsen

From left to right: Simen Øian Gjermundsen, Mathias Mikkelsen, Henning Gjerde

Published June 24, 2012

Young Lions, in Cannes Lions

Cannes Lions, The 59th International Festival of Creativity, is now officially over. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to go all the way in the finals. The Cyber Lions are fully focused on creating advertisement banners, a stretch from what we normally do. But none-the-less, the festival was an amazing experience I hope to be a part of again.

Myself and Simen qualified by winning the norwegian qualifier earlier this year. At Cannes, we competed against teams of two from over 90 different countries. Our task was to come up with an idea and produce an advertisement banner for The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation within 24 hours. Great fun, and hopefully we’ll get a new shot at the finals next year.

Highlights from the festival included meeting a ton of interesting people, watching a talk by Bill Clinton, being very inspired after hearing amazing speakers each and every day, having highly creative dinner talks, and of course; enjoying the beautiful beaches and partying late into the night. Cannes, we’ll meet again.

The main entrance to the festival.

Published April 11, 2012

Won the WIF 2012 Norwegian Qualifer

This past weekend, after 24 hours straight, my team Tomato Tomato ended up as the winners of the norwegian qualifier for Webdesign International Festival 2012. There were simultaneous qualifiers all over the world, and we placed in the top ten, beating over 200 teams in the process. The finals will be held in Limoges, France later this year on May 28th – 31st.

Our entry was called Me, a service to help people get to know themselves better. You can learn more on our presentation site.

Here are a couple of articles from the press regarding the victory:

Mathias Mikkelsen, Simen Gjermundsen, Henning Gjerde

From left to right: Mathias Mikkelsen, Simen Øian Gjermundsen, Henning Gjerde

Published March 15, 2012

Won the Young Lions Norwegian Qualifer

We’re going to Cannes! This past weekend, at the Gullblyanten 2012 awards show, the results of the Young Lions Norwegian Qualifier were announced. Myself and Simen Øian Gjermundsen managed to snatch the top spot, and now we’re going to participate at the Young Lions finales in Cannes, France later this year.

The competition was held earlier this year. Each team was handed the same brief at 09:00 in the morning, and then we had 48 hours to come up with an idea and create a presentation. The brief was to create and plan a digital campaign for the norwegian non-profit; Natteravnene.

Here’s an article from the press about the victory:

From the awards show, Gullblyanten. Foto: Scanpix

Published February 26, 2012

Unedited Steve Jobs Interview From ’95

This is a very interesting and long interview Steve Jobs did in 1995. Daniel Morrow conducted the interview for Computerworld, in relation to an oral history type of project. It’s pretty remarkable to hear his thoughts at that present, especially about Apple, when we know that only two years later, he would return to change everything once again.

Published February 14, 2012

A Must Watch: Inventing on Principle

Bret Victor invent tools for people. He’s a former Apple-employee, has written a highly praised essay on user interfaces called Magic Ink (which I started reading a couple of weeks ago), created the UI for Hipmunk and done a whole slew of other very interesting things.

His talk from CUSEC 2012, Inventing on Principle, got released on Vimeo today. It’s enlightening, inspiring, thought-provoking, educational and incredibly fascinating. I recommend you take the time to watch it right now.