Finally got around to finish my mate Stian Sørlie’s website, and here’s my reward. A brand new Arai GP5K from his shop. Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted one of these. After all, it is more or less the one most F1 drivers use.

I remember watching the older go-kart racers using GP2’s back in the early 90’s. They where so cool! Not that I didn’t have cool helmets myself. Back then I had a Simpson Bandit 5 and later a custom painted Simpson Super Shark. They where both badass, and I still love them to death. Still, never having owned an Arai has kind of bugged me - until today…

As with most wannabe/has-been racers, my personal helmet is the only thing that sets me apart from most trackday racers these days. It’s a statement that I used to be a “real” racingdriver. A reminder that I used to be serious about the sport and had ambitions. Allthough my long gone dreams of becoming a F1 driver never came through, at least I have my own helmet design!

Back in 1996 I got the Super Shark painted with my own design for the first time, and boy did it look awsome! I made the design myself, with pointers from automotive photographer Erik Nordlien. The helmet was painted by a guy in the UK who apparantly used to paint Johnny Herbert’s helmets. And he did a very good job with it, choosing nice colors and effects for the time.

10 years later my trusted old Super Shark had been through a lot, and paint had chipped several places. As I couldn’t afford a proper new helmet at the time, I decided to repaint it. Together with helmet painting guru Stian Paulsen, I did some major changes to the design, incorporating a lot of silver. The design turned out pretty cool, but the distinct features of my old design got a bit lost in the process. I just seem to prefer the old school helmet style with simple colors and design.

So my new Arai will get an updated version of my original design. Black and grey will replace some of the blue colors, and the red will become more orange. Just to make it stand out a bit more. But this time I will make sure that the white areas are kept clean, so that the distinct diagonal line at the front and the “F” on the side stay as visible as possible. It will be a high contrast, classic design and one that is truly my own.

If it weren’t for the plugins, WordPress would’ve be dropped in my trash can pretty much right away. However, thanks to several great developers all over the world, I was able to transform this blogging tool into a pretty awsome CMS. It did take some testing, and sometimes even some modding, but the result is almost worth the effort. By sharing my chosen plugins with the world, I might save some of you the trouble of trying out bad plugins, thus making my effort worthwhile :)

Here are the plugins that power my site:

• Advanced Excerpt
  Several improvements over WP’s default excerpt. The size of the excerpt can be limited using character or word count, and HTML markup is not removed.
• Akismet
  Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
• Category Selector Back to the Sidebar (MOD)
  Puts the category selector section back to the sidebar of the Post page.
• Google XML Sitemaps
  This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.
• Last.Fm Records
  The Last.Fm Records plugin lets you show what you are listening to, with a little help from our friends at last.fm.
• Lightbox 2
  Used to overlay images on the current page.
• PictureGrid
  Picturegrid - Add flickr to your blog, no mess, no fuss.
• PJW Page Excerpt
  Allows you to edit excerpts for Pages.
• Post-Plugin Library
  Does nothing by itself but supplies common code for the Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts, and Recent Comments plugins.
• Post Thumb Revisited
  Thumbnails images from your posts. Useful for listing popular posts, post list, etc.
• Recent Comments
  Displays a highly configurable list of the most recent comments.
• Reveal IDs for WP Admin
  Reveals hidden IDs in Admin interface that have been removed with WordPress 2.5 (formerly known as Entry IDs in Manage Posts/Pages View for WP 2.5).
• Sociable
  Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites.
• Twitter for Wordpress
  Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read.
• WP-DBManager
  Manages your Wordpress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries.
• WP Super Cache
  Very fast caching module for WordPress.

Earlier this summer, my father and I decided to get a vinyl cutter and set up a small workshop at my parents place. I borrowed one of these awesome machines for a few months last year, and although I don’t want to make it my living, it’s a nice break from digital design. With vinyl I actually produce a product I can smell and touch. For some reason I find that fascinating.

So far I’ve only printed a few test stickers, but I’ve already got a few orders from friends. Not really surprising, as basically all my friends are involved in motor sports in someway or another. Apparently stickers make a car faster and handle better, so who am I to tell them that Santa doesn’t exist :D

Luckily for me I’ve been collecting vectorized logos and graphics for a few years now, and so far I have ~700 or so. Most of them car related, but also most famous brands.

So if you need stickers for your car, or whatever else you would like to put stickers on, just let me know and I will cut you some.

Allthough my old site was less than one year old, I felt it was about time to do some upgrades. As I’ve been using WordPress for a while now it was really about time I threw CuteNews out the window. The new site will be more interactive as visitors may leave comments on both my work and my blog, as well as subscribe to my newsletter and RSS feed.

There are still a few features left before the site is complete, so don’t worry if it doesn’t behave as expected. It soon will :)

Fredrik

Whether you’re my client or my friend, you probably know at least a few things about me. If you are a client, you probably know that I’m not your stereotype designer. I don’t wear trendy clothes, and I don’t really like computers. If you’re my friend, you probably know that allthough I race and drift cars, I hate getting dirty working on them. Not exactly your avarage designer or car buff I guess…

But it’s not that I’m afraid to fit a stereotype. Rather the opposite actually. I wish I could be a bit more like other designers. I wish that I actually cared about the iPhone and Nintendo Wii. And everytime my car brakes down (which it does a lot) I really wish that I was the kind of car enthusiast that would enjoy fixing it myself. But I don’t…

Anyway, here are the 8 facts that you probably don’t know:

1. I read my first book at the age of four
According to my mother I could read words and simple sentences at the age of three and read my first book just after I turned four…

2. I buildt my own Optimus Prime - with Lego
When I was about 11 or 12 my parents wouldn’t let me have action figures or Transformers. So I buildt my own Optimus Prime with Lego, and it could actually transform!

3. I graduated from the Rudolf Steiner School in Bærum
In third grade my parents took me out of public school and sent me to the private Rudolf Steiner School where I completed my education in 1996.

4. I won my international racing debut at Brands Hatch at the age of 17
Apparantly there are three racingdrivers in history that made their international racing debut at Brands hatch - and won. Emerson Fittipaldi, Jodi Scheckter and Fredrik Sørlie.

5. I once had a full page story about me in Norways largest tabloid
After my success at Brands Hatch I got a full page in VG, the largest newspaper in Norway.

6. My final paper in school was about Formula 1
At the Rudolf Steiner School, each student have to choose a subject and write a rather major paper about that subject in their final year. I wrote about Formula 1 and got a B+.

7. I love milk
I drink at least one litre of skimmed milk every day. Way more than I should I suppose, but I am addicted. The worst part about travelling is the absence of proper, Norwegian milk.

8. I love “Beat for Beat”
Watching the Norwegian version of the Irish TV-show “The Lyrics Board” is not exactly the “coolest” thing to do on a friday night, but there’s nothing more relaxing than a nice dinner with my girlfriend, followed by an episode of “Beat for Beat”.

As we entered 2008, I launched two projects that I’ve been working on lately. One is a brand new site for the norwegian racing driver, Kim Kristian Humborstad. The other is a redesign of a personal project, Norsk-Racing.com. The latter being a news/blog site with a forum, dedicated to norwegian circuit racing.

Now I will take a day or two off, as I’ve been sick for the last days. Need to get better soon, as I have lots of stuff to do in January.

Happy new year!!!