"Instill trust with your work."
Municipal election campaign of Ami Värtö
Environmental influencer Ami Värtö was looking for a graphic designer on her socials to help with her campaign visuals and I volunteered as I figured it would be a great way to gain experience designing for campaigns, and for a good cause. I worked in close cooperation with her and the team with succesful results: Värtö placed in a deputy position as a first time candidate.
The balance with information and clarity had to be carefully considered in the case of each visual depending on the audience, usage and how much time voters had to view them. Värtö’s existing social media brand offered a possibility for recognizibility, so I emulated some of the elements in the campaign visuals: Her brand name was in handwritten cursive, so I chose a similar but more readable font for the similar sounding slogan, and watercolour texture for some backgrounds from the brand image. Main logo was bold sans serif for a modern and clear look. Forest green was a natural choice for the main colour, and Värtö liked the pink from the party guidelines which offered a soft contrast to the dark green and a link to the party. I designed the overall visual look of the campaign and several print and digital materials: flyers, stickers, a beach flag, newspaper and bus ads, a banner, posts and a storybase for socials.
Elämysmuotoilu Pop & Hearts -edition
The aim for the concluding event for the short education pilot of experience design was to get as many visitors as possible with minimal budget to come see and experience the results of the pilot, so I figured it needed bold and eyecatching visuals to get noticed. I was on the communications team, so I took it upon myself to design the visual identity for the event.
The idea of the pilot was to offer experiences, so bright colours and interesting variety in the logo went hand in hand with the idea of bold visuals. Pink was decided among the team to be the refreshing theme colour amidst the gloomy November and the cool greens were used in relation to the pilot previously. I designed the attachments to the email invitations and modified the visual to fit also a Linkedin banner and the background visual in the event.
In addition I organized a photoshoot and edited the images of the participants highlighted in the event.
LY
Lapin Ylioppilaslehti magazine is a magazine from students to students who are interested in current events in society and the university. The topics were complex, so I wanted to convey that also in my illustrations for the essays and cover image. In all these cases I delivered a sketch of my idea for approval and got to proceed to finalizing right away.
The first image is for an essay depicting ideas of the relationships between people, nature and consumption from a philosophical standpoint, so I wanted the illustration to feel a little surrealistic. Light colours balanced the heaviness of the topic. Handmade brush strokes made it seem more approachable and reminded of people’s part in all of it.
The second illustration is a cover image for an issue released in the fall when new students roll in. I asked the chief editor what themes were going to be prevalent, since I wanted the illustration to cover them as well as possible. They were community, points of view, technology and the university itself, which is how I ended up with a recording screen and in it a circle of little humanoid characters all looking from their points of view the tree of knowledge, aka the university and all the different fruits it grows in different directions.
The third illustration was for an essay about trending girl aesthetics, especially the clean girl aesthetic, and consumerism. One must have money to be able to follow trends and fashion trends often target girls as was the focus in the essay, so in the illustration I placed a girl in the traditional place of an older man’s head on bills. The surrounding imagery depicts global influence and means of validation.
LENTO
Layout design, Poster design
The Faculty of art and design staff of the University of Lapland hold an exhibition of their own artistic work every year with a different theme each time. Naturally, the visual side of the poster and the catalogue should complement the theme at hand and fit both applications.
The exhibition’s name and theme was LENTO (FLIGHT), so my approach was with lots of space, light colours and airy typography. These went also hand in hand with letting the artworks shine and visuals not stealing the spotlight.
1½ Astetta
Photography
LoimuSpeksi creates theater plays each year and the visuals differ accordingly – different themes in the play and different crew to make it happen.
1½ Astetta had themes of climate crisis and change – as the photographer of the production, I tried to implement those into the promotional photos as well. Character and production team photos were two-part, and the teams were colour coded. I also documented the play itself.
Sanaseura
Visual identity, Poster design
The poetry and spoken art club Sanaseura’s event theme for spring was “Soidinmenot”, aka courtship. As the word for it in Finnish sounds strangely formal and is largely used in animal context, I went with frogs in the design. They perform their courtship mainly through sound, which was perfect for this club, and bring a fun vibe for the romance theme many might find awkward. For colours it had to be bold romantic reds with the font’s O’s tweaked into wiggly hearts.
In The Name Of The Moon
Animated illustration
The Sailor Moon series is known for its pastels, roses and romance, which leave in their shadow the more grim side of the story: the cosmic powers bring with them an eternal battle against evil. For the iconic transformation this illustration is therefore brutalistic in its style to highlight the often forgotten side of the series.
In a combination the two resulted in a dark colour palette and realism in elements with texture and symmetry.
Merikartta
Visual identity, Illustration, UI Design
The Merikartta project resulted in an ecosystem that was formed to connect professionals of different fields related to seafaring, and the purpose was to tackle environmental challenges of the seas. Purpose of the visuals was to make the project more tangible for everyone involved.
First design was the logo, which then expanded to a graphic guide, website layout design and several illustrations, each showcasing a particular set of environmental problems of seas around the world. Turquoise combines the blue of water and traditional enviromental theme colour green. The compass needle in the logo symbolises going in the right direction and the circle around it alludes to the round Earth and a life ring, which the project was aiming to be for seas.
CICAT2025
The CICAT2025 project already had a theme colour, but was in need of a pictogram set for different factions. The result was a set with uniform style and understandable images.
Ulla Uutela’s doctoral thesis cover
Ulla Uutela wrote in her thesis how coaching leadership style supports well-being and learning at work. I depicted the idea of that positive influence through puzzle pieces spanning across the front and back covers.
"Small joys are the spice of life."
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