Welcome to My International Year Abroad blog

To bring out the unusual from every class, I would say that for this one it required 4 different teachers all in different design fields. The course was designed to teach us some general facts on Finnish design in the industrial, graphic, textile, fashion, audiovisual and media fields.

Five different teams were formed and I got to be part of the graphic design group. We would then have to make a presentation on our discoveries of Finnish graphic design, and then create a final product that would solve a problem in Rovaniemi by using our new design knowledge.

My team decided to make it fun for he first task which required us to go to a supermarket and identify the graphic designs from there, be it in the packaging, typography, signage, colours, materials or wayfinding.

We made a game using all the things we found weird as international students, like juice boxes that looked like detergent, the tomato paste found in toothpaste-like tubes, or the premium looking chicken broth, not to mention the hundred different types of milk that could simply not be differentiated. It was a stimulating and interactive way to present it all and most of all fun. The winners got to take home a very lovely mustard tube!

Click here if you want to see the Presentation or the Game!

For the last task, we created a map of Rovaniemi that the new exchange students would find useful as they get here, we knew we would have found it. By being the only graphic design student in the team, as the rest were studying other design fields, I had to take initiative on certain aspects and guide the others to see the purpose and thinking behind visual communication.

It was very fun, it definitely improved my leadership skills, confidence, negotiation and presentation abilities. Viewing and observing what the other teams did was exciting as well since everyone really engaged with the task and was curious to experiment and open their perspective about Finnish design.

VALUABLE LEARNING POINTS FROM THE LECTURES

• Scandinavian design – elegant solutions to the challenge of cold, resource-scarce regions
• simplicity, functionality, superior craftmanship, social welfare, ecological responsibility, honesty, meaning, sustainability, respect, silence, purity
• flowing, folksy, colourful patterns influenced by the great lakes, deep snows, pine-clad hills
• efficient design is essential
• streamlined, fuss-free, simple, yet whimsy
• 1835 “Kalevala” – old Finnish myths and legends
• 1930s – designers like Alvar Aalto broke the organic shapes down to their purest forms
• Villa Mairea – first organic shaped swimming pool designed by Alvar Aalto in 1939 – 70s skateboarding started because of empty pools
• Eero Aarnio – Finnish interior designer, noted for his innovative furniture designs like the ball chair and square toys
• Tapio Wirkkala, Maija Puoskari – Finnish designers
• Veikko Kähkönen – Helsinki based photographer
• Kotiliesi – bimonthly family and women’s magazine published in Helsinki – founded in 1922 – one of the oldest magazines in the country – first Finnish magazine addressing housewives – used to feature beautiful old illustrations on the cover
• grafia.fi – GRAFIA association of visual communication designers – promotes the Finnish visual communication industry
• Marina Veziko – Helsinki-based designer specialized in branding and creative direction
• Silver Birch – Finland’s national tree
• Marika Maijala – children’s books illustrator living in Helsinki
• The Maiden of Finland (Finnish: Suomi-neito) is the national personification of Finland
• Finland is the 1st country in the world to publish its own set of country themed emojis
• Finlayson – Scandinavian Home Textiles and Design Since 1820
• Marimekko – Finnish textiles, clothing, and home furnishings company founded by Viljo and Armi Ratia in Helsinki in 1951

the arctic is not about latitude, it’s about attitude.

The uni of arctic