“For me, this journey has felt like something I’ve been walking toward my entire life. As a child, I couldn’t have understood what design would come to mean to me, but even then, I had an eye for detail. I found myself drawn to the patterns on a stone’s surface and the wear marks on furniture. That was the trait that foretold what was to come.

My products have an organic form and are made from natural materials. I often work with wood. Wood became my material of choice already in childhood, long before I knew anything about design. Perhaps it was wood that chose me.

My personality found its stage already in kindergarten. I challenged authority from day one. I refused to follow a single rule. When angry, I might have expressed it with a curse — which was then met with a mouthful of soap. Though my rough edges have softened, I still refuse to swallow everything that’s handed to me without question. Those were the first signs of a designer."

All my insights can, without exception, be traced back to the Finnish way of life — to peace, to nature, and to silence. I am proud to continue the legacy of Finnish design icons. One of them, my former teacher Ilmari Tapiovaara, taught me that one’s own tradition is the foundation to build from. So I have done — and always will.

There is something unique in being Finnish that shows through in our design. We create products for their time: built to last, to rise above trends, and to quiet the ever-changing whims of style.

Education and experience have taught me that design is a process of constant learning and renewal. Creativity is born where the mind is allowed to play — to immerse itself completely in the work. Sometimes, sitting at my desk, I find myself in the same state of flow I knew as a child at play. Time disappears, and the coffee grows cold. That’s how I know I’m in the right field.

I’ve been walking this path for forty years now. Not a single boring day. If you’d like to know more about my journey, my resume tells the story.”

– Tapio

ANSSI