Ronny Carlson, Jönköping, Sweden.

I grew up with my two brothers, Roland and Raul and my sister, Katherine in Jönköping, Sweden. Our house was close to the border of the neighboring town Huskvarna which made us feel that we lived in a larger city. Huskvarna is known for the town's major company; Huskvarna AB. Jönköping is known for inventing the match.

My perception of my childhood is that I had two different homes; one in the city (at the top of the arrow) and one in the countryside at our summer place.

We had a summer house that was far from any neighbors. We did not have any electricity, telephone or water system. The house was located right by a lake and we had a barn to play in. Our summer life was full of fun activities, fishing, swimming, berry picking and various nature explorations. It was a good place to develop lasting family ties.

Our city life was dominated by school and friends. As we lived so close to Lake Vättern, our playground was the beach and the nature areas surrounding the water. During the winters, we used to skate on the lake. In the summer, we played on the beach and in the water.

The house we lived in was built in 1836. Throughout my youth, there was always a room in the process of being renovated. Interesting tools were easy to find. I developed an interest for wood working and made some wood sculptures that I am still proud of.

My school was 4 blocks from where I grew up. My class was very small. I spent nine years together with these kids and learned to know them well. Today, they have all done very well for themselves.

Throughout my entire childhood and youth, I was always drawing. Each year I took some art class to forward my skills.

At age 16, I talked my father into helping me buy a Honda CB 125. My life in and around our house expanded and suddenly both towns of Jönköping and Huskvarna were my playground. My friends and I used to meet at our old school yard and act as if we were cool adults. We wore jeans and black leather jackets. We thought we looked like James Dean.

When I turned eighteen, one of my father's friends offered to sell me his old car, a 1963 Dodge 440. It was a huge and powerful American car with the lowest possible miles-per-gallon performance. As I had economical resources of a student, I did not add many miles to the speedometer but it did look good at the school parking lot.

After finishing my Natural Science Degree (Premed and Pre-engineering degrees), I started to look for a summer job. I showed my employment coordinator an illustration of a Huskvarna motorcycle (seen here). She connected me with an advertising agency in Jönköping, Ljungs Annonsbyrå. They hired me as a graphic designer and illustrator because they thought my detailed ink drawings suited their client's needs.

Leaving Jönköping to study advertising in the USA.

I did well at this advertising agency and put off my university applications for a while. The firm had a library of books and magazines about American advertisements and I looked through them carefully in hopes of learning how to do better work.

The agency had some clients who had tried to develop a market for themselves in the USA. At the coffee table, they explained their efforts and their thoughts about the American market. While listening to their stories and how difficult it seemed to be to break through in the USA, I came up with an idea; why not continue my studies in the USA and research the solutions to these problems from Americans themselves.

A year later, I started at Drury College in Springfield Missouri. Drury was then a liberal arts college ranked as one of USA's top colleges. Today, Drury has developed into a University. If you want to learn more about Drury University, click on their logo.

Drury was for me a fantastic experience. The academic standards were very high. As a foreign student, I had to study harder than my fellow American classmates. Reading the homework took a longer time in a second language. My teachers understood the goals that I had with my studies and supplied me with the resources that I needed. However, the more I learned, the greater my questions became. It came to the point that my academic adviser recommended that I apply to another school for more specialized studies.

I transferred to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communications, and later, my Master of Fine Arts In Visual Communications. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is considered one of the world's best art schools. To learn more about the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, click on their logo.

After my MFA degree, I got a job at Grant/Jacoby Advertising Agency. Grant/Jacoby was then one of Chicago's top advertising agencies.

I was hired during the recession of 1991 to fill a hole in the production department. During the recovery from this recession, I earned the opportunity to work in all of the agency's departments and learned every aspect of the business. Experienced top level professionals tutored me to ensure that I kept up with the rest of the agency's work. My strategic skills and my creative work developed rapidly.

In 1997, I left Grant/Jacoby and started to work directly with clients supplying them with marketing and advertising services. This business developed and I have now done this for ten years. As I am from Sweden, I am constantly working to find Scandinavian clients who are in the USA or are planning to establish a market here.

During my twenty years here in the USA, I have consistently researched the American advertising business and it's impact on the culture and have found that American buyers respond to different marketing materials than what people from Scandinavia do. Unfortunately, Scandinavian advertising does not attract and engage American readers in such a way that they develop a preference for the brand or the product. The reason for this difference is not to be found in marketing or advertising studies but rather in deep cultural insights. It is this insight that I offer my clients. I make their American customers interested in their products and their company.

As I have been visiting Jönköping frequently, my perception of the town has slowly changed. When I grew up, my reference point to the world was Jönköping. What I considered "normal" before has turned "unique". Jönköping is a very unique town. What a luxury to have grown up there!