One of the pleasures

of a warm summer evening is leaving Helsinki by ship. Strolling on the deck, looking at the horizon, eating a watermelon slice, taking pictures, smoking a cigarette, enjoyig the lovely breeze...

Cold rain, sweet pain, rocky roads and happy moments!

Photo © Paula Hietaranta

This smiling couple dit it! Two years ago Kaisa and Christoffer Leka bicycled all way through Europe from Porvoo to Nice, and now we couch potatoes can read how all the thousands of kilometres went both in reality and in mind, in rain and shine. The brand new Tour d´Europe - The Yoga of Road Cycling is a lovely comic book, hilariously funny and deeply touching at the same time. ”When Leka takes off his shoes, Kaisa takes off her feet.”
Buy the book at http://www.pitkamies.net/ or directly from Kaisa kaisa@kaisaleka.net. It costs 20 euros + mailing 5 euros.
After reading this book you are surely hungry for more. Only wait - soon Kaisa and Leka are going to bicycle round Iceland. Let´s hope the volcanoes understand stay silent...

Even a flower knows how to benefit from the sun

Photo © Paula Hietaranta 

Yesterday afternoon American professor Barbara L. Fredrickson, the author of the book Positivity, was giving a lecture on the power of positive emotions at Aalto University in Otaniemi.
Positivity surely is something we Finns need desperately and the event showed to be so attractive that the organizers had to get a bigger auditorium than planned.
In one hour we got quite many lab-tested tools how to transform our life to an emotionally better state for example by Loving Kindness meditation. The miracle does not happen overnight but in 6-8 weeks you should see some results.
”Increase your daily diet of positive emotions and you will become a better version of yourself”, Barbara says. Feel free to score how you are doing by taking a daily test on her website www.positivityratio.com for two weeks!

Welcome to the new open-air portrait gallery

Until September the Lilla Teatern building in Yrjönkatu street is under renovation and surrounded by a fence which normally would have attracted to graffiti artists like honey to bees.
Yes, it did now, too, but this time graffiti artist Jani Tolin worked with kids from Helsinki Upper Secondary School of Visual Arts to decorate the fence with a lovely portrait gallery of Lillan´s most famous actors, writers and directors. There you can see for example Birgitta Ulfsson bigger than life, but wait – isn´t she bigger than life on stage as well?
Photo © Paula Hietaranta

How to fall in love with a radio

Photo © Paula Hietaranta

Go to Design Forum Finland, Erottajankatu 7 (open Mon-Fri 10 am – 7 pm, Sat 10 am – 6 pm, Sun noon - 5 pm).

Go through the shop without looking at the tempting Kakkugalleria cakes to the very end of the next room until you face the wall with text aivan!.

Turn.

There on the table is - no, I´m sorry, not the radio, but the picture of the radio I fell in love instantly with – even if I do listen to the radio pretty seldom. (But it is an another story.) Mikael Silvanto, one of The Young Designer of the Year 2010 prize winners and a member of design collective Aivan! is the proud father of this new amazing piece, that until the autumn is only a prototype, not a product – even if it has already been widely published in international design magazines as Wallpaper and Viewpoint. He got the idea to his AM/FM radio 08 from a digital calliper. It is beautiful, visual, clean, funny, and simple to tune.

”Even my grandmother can use it”, Mikael says.

Now you can wear Marimekko from head to toe

The Marimekko fashion show in Esplanadi park means always (the first time it was exactly 50 years ago!) the beginning of the Finnish summer. It brings summer to our wardrobes, too. On sunny Wednesday afternoon this week there was a huge amount of color and happiness (and accessory mess, not so nice), cute little dresses for every body and age, and the new Mari shoes by Julia Lundsten... The prints were beautiful, and even the old Unikko (Poppy) looked fresh, which was really amazing. It shows that the designer Maija Isola was a genius and that it is possible to create something with a lasting value. But back to basics. Sheets are meant for the bed, not to be worn. We want quality clothes which make us happy, confident and good-looking. I am sure that Mr. Marimekko Mika Ihamuotila gets a generous amount of advice how to direct Marimekko so one opinion more doesn´t hurt. I would like to see a slim luxury collection of Jokatyttö silk shirts and also more generous Jokatäti cotton shirts in their lovely Piccolo stripe combinations.

Do we really need more things just for decoration?

I must say that I was not too happy when I saw Vitriini collection, the new glass/wood/aluminum boxes by Anu Penttinen in Iittala Pohjois-Esplanadi shop in Helsinki. Tiny colorful storage boxes for tiny things - what is the idea? Ok, they might be nice presents to people who have everything, but are they really something we need? Please, Iittala, let´s return to those days when the idea of good and lasting design was to produce things which made our each day not only more beautiful but also solved some daily problems! Where is for example your glass or ceramic butter box with the lid? Kaj Franck did design one 53 years ago, where did it go?