by Edo Smitshuijzen

Finland's capital Helsinki lays on the same latitude as Anchorage in Alaska. The Polar Circle runs roughly through the middle of the country. There are lakes everywhere, almost 190.000 of them equally spread over the land. The Finns say that these two conditions were the basis of their two favorite activities. The many hours of daylight during summertime allow for endless fishing and eating, the short nights for making love. Horrible, dark winters ? No, only less time for fishing.

About 130 AGI members including company, coming from 20 different countries, have intensely enjoyed the many events the Helsinki conference had to offer, including a relaxing sauna at the end or the beginning of a full day's program.

Following a tradition initiated by Ken Cato, the first day was the AGI Student Symposium. Six AGI members presented themselves and their work to the students of the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.
The first speaker was Robert Appleton (USA). Nowadays, affluent western societies allow people to live in the course of their lifetime two different lives instead of a single one. Robert has managed to live already five or so. He had five different professions starting in Scotland, then England, before arriving in the US. He is currently in his third marriage and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Minnesota where he teaches the students to be better than he is himself. The major part of his presentation was dedicated to students projects, which expressed student's concerns: the world order and that of their own.

The second presentation was by a design group called Cyan (Germany) headed by two AGI members, Daniella Haufe and Detlef Fiedler. They are based in the former East-Berlin and claim to suffer from a constant shortage of money. It did not prevent them from putting the audience under a rather heavy shower of various traditional print and multimedia productions, all piled up to the edge with a plethora of illustrations and photographs. It left one wondering were all that came from - being under such severe budget constraints - even contemplating 'image bank robbery' as a possible solution. Quite an impressive show, that conveyed abundant wealth rather than a shortage of anything. They also proudly showed a 'book with no covers' they designed, apparently pursuing a further limitlessness. For those interested in design style developments, it was quite striking to observe that the design style of the 'meager' fifties have returned practically unchanged. At least in Berlin.

Third was Ruedi Baur, living and working in France, but a fine example of a successful Swiss export product; graphic designers. Ruedi wonders if the Modernist ideal of creating a universal visual language to enhance mutual understanding is still a sensible goal. In his view, the world is now suffering from visual uniformity. Local identities have become like endangered species. The remaining visual diversity need stimulant at the risk of becoming extinct.
Ruedi showed 12 projects, mainly visual identity in relation to signage, expanding the boundaries of the latter dramatically. Ruedi employs enormous (and smaller) cast concrete signage elements instead of modest sign panels and frames. Indications rely less on a system of formal categories as on creating a 'sense of place'. The modern technology of 'Supers Graphics' allows for changing the visual appearance of the interior of entire floors, replacing 'bleak' formal floor numbers as indications.
For the 'young' German airport of Köln he created a comprehensive 'type- pictogram-face' as one consistent script. A very convincing and sensible undertaking. Understandably, Ruedi's studio is called 'Intégral' (being the French word for Total Design). His strife for (local) visual diversity remained somewhat nebulous.
Forth in line was Jean-Benoit Lévy. He is Swiss too, speaks French, teaches a lot, works and lives in both Switzerland and California. He fancies the similarities of the landscape of these two places, and accepts to be forced to commute by plane for 12 hours straight to enjoy both. Jean produces very tasteful and balanced graphic designs. Watching his products is a visual delight, the way he speaks English is also a delight to listen to. French speakers seem to be the only ones capable to give ordinary speech the flavor of music. Whereas native spea-
kers, like Americans for instance, seem to find in their language an opportunity to express the differences in human gender in a rather astonishing manner, and some Brits manage to retreat in a preferred splendid isolation by pronouncing our only universal language in such an extravagant way that nobody has a clue as to what they're actually talking about, unless one is an insider.

Number five, Bruno Monguzzi, is also Swiss but was introduced as coming from Italy. With his presentation, Bruno
proved that design is ultimately about the development of ideas, and that an entertaining presentation relies entirely on the personality of the speaker. Bruno has plenty of both. He only showed two or three examples of his own work, but engaged everyone with his intensive and sincere stories about his family, his background and his professional interest in the meaning of visual matter, rather than in the creation of aesthetic pleasure or wit.
A few days later, Bruno showed that his 62 years of age and an impressive 'embonpoint' were not in the way of making a stunning acrobatic act on a table, where he put his whole body in a strict and straight horizontal position, parallel with the table top while only resting on his two arms. So, he was rightfully introduced as being Italian after all.

The last speaker of the day, Uwe Loesch, is not Swiss. He's quite German really, and has designed a poster or two during his career. Some call him the 'Gutenberg' of German poster design. He's unlikely to disagree with such a statement. Most of us will be familiar with some of his excellent work. Perhaps his genius is even more striking in his typography than in the images he creates.
His latest interest also includes the development of visual identities. Here he shows his roots in the true minimalist Modernist tradition. A black square -with two unsharp sides - serves as a logo. He showed wonderful ani
mations on these concepts. It took some time to get the animations running. Uwe (Mr. Black and White Shoe) used this opportunity to show his talents as a standup comedian. Also not too bad.

The day ended with dinner in a restaurant with a magnificent view over the Helsinki harbor.

The program for the next morning was called 'The Finnish
Design Morning'.
It started with a short introduction of the history of Finland told by Asko Karttunen, a former trade commissioner for Finland in Los Angeles. This man must have done an excellent job over there. Finland's endless struggles with its two powerful neighbours Sweden and Russia and the mysterious decent of its population from Balkan tribes could have hardly been explained in a more entertaining and humourous way. Hereafter, Ulla Aartomaa, curator at Lahti Art Museum took us very carefully through the recent history of Finnish graphic design.
Design (and art) usually flourish in a wealthy and commercially active environment. That is why Denmark and Sweden have had the most influence on Scandinavian design,which is specially known for its product design and architecture. Its famous style matches the predominant religion in the region; austere, simple, egalitarian and functional with a preference for the use of natural materials. No frivolities or exuberance are allowed other than on the price tags of the products. Finland fits seamlessly in this tradition, and brings it further to an even more extreme level. The worship of nature has almost Japanese
proportions. The public nudity in Finnish saunas is comparable to the Japanese public baths.

Finland got four world famous design brands: Marimekko (fashion), Arabia (porcelain table ware), Ittalla (glass table ware and house hold products and metal kitchen utensils) and -of course- Nokia. The last company being by far the most important one for the Finnish economy. Nokia is still the world leader in personal telecom devices. An extremely impressive achievement.
Representatives of two companies gave a talk. The product manager of Ittalla and a combined presentation of a graphic designer and the director of industrial design at Nokia.

Ittalla manages to keep its Finnish design integrity almost completely intact. Its pans are considered to be the most sexy kitchen ware around by the well off living on Manhattan Island, for instance. A potential snag might
only be that its pricing strategy hardly matches with today's 'fun-shopping' marketing habits. Fins are used to buying their products for life and not for kicks.
Nokia has its product development perfectly organized. It is the result of an elaborate team work. The stakes are very high when one serves the world mass market. The design results have no connection whatsoever with Finnish design tradition. The designs could have been produced anywhere on this globe. With the invention of changeable phone jackets Nokia aims to serve anybody's taste.

The remains of the day's programs was spent on a mix of social and cultural events. The afternoon was reserved for playing games, like shooting and ski-jumping, in the Sports Museum. All in electronic booths of course, mimicking reality, while the real professionals were prac
ticing next to us outdoors, even without real snow present.
A visit to the charming concert hall that bears the name of Jean Sibelius, the best known Finnish composer, while musicians were practicing. Munching, drinking and babbling at the Lathi Poster Museum surrounded by the results of the Lathi Poster Biennial 2003; graphic designers in their best known environment, so to speak.

The next day in the morning, four more presentations of AGI members took place.
Reza Abedini, our member from Iran was the first. Both Arabic and Persian type and typography still have deep roots in an immensely strong calligraphic tradition. Reza referred in his talk to still relevant letter proportions in Iranian type design that were conceived in the 9th century ! It is very hard to compare this situation with the development of our Latin type. The use of images in the designs is close related to Western design, yet, it retains the sensuality of the 1001 nights atmosphere. Suddenly, the Finnish lakes were very far away.

The second, Keith Goddard, takes you by both your ears and doesn't let go until he's done with you. He is originally educated in the good British tradition of patient craftsmanship. It's quite amazing where that still gets him. He showed wonderfully made exhibition pieces, illustrative floor indicators showing consecutive images from the earth core -for the basement- to the environment in the stratosphere for the highest floor. Mozaic hats on the walls of a tube station positioned just above the heads of the travelers. Keith gives functionality a total different dimension, encouraging close inspection of his design pieces to reveal interesting side information and to discover that it is all so well crafted.

The third, Jelle van der Toorn (the Netherlands) showed an unusual assignment he received from the Dutch Government. He was assigned to be design director for the National Archeological Museum of Yemen. A job that required for an
important part his management skills. The Yemenis are living in the mountainous part of the Arabian peninsula, a part that doesn't have any oil. The nature is breathtaking, but there is no money, so also no architects or designers. The built environment is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world. People still live the way we did in the Middle Ages. The general possession of weapons by the Yemeni males make the Americans look like sissies. Hand grenades might be used as firecrackers. Jelle took us all on a visual trip to a hallucinating world.

The forth, Catherine Zask is undeniably French and quite charismatic. Her approach to design is that of an artist. A designer does a job employing visual means, an artist creates a personal visual universe. That's what Catherine does. A grant for the Prix the Rome some time ago was spent in cutting traditional letter strokes apart and rearrange the loose elements in a different order. The results are very intriguing, like messages coming from a different civilization. However the function is rather limited, nobody understands the meaning of this script, except Catherine perhaps. Her letter experiments got 'wings' when a young computer wizard became her personal assistant. Handcraft was replaced by digital speed and efficiency. Her output exploded. Catherine was also invited to become part of the poster-crowd. Her artist approach paid off handsomely when applied to this medium. She showed very fresh and personal typographic work.

Lunch was at the Helsinki City Hall. A big, traditionally build space, that suited very well the show of the large collection of designs AGI members made on the back and seat panels for a chair designed by a well known Finnish furniture designer Yrjö Kukkapuro. The AGI project was an extension of an already existing 'Chairs with Tattoos' project.
A representative of the Mayor's Office welcomed us with a speech. He was glad that a cultural event took place in the building, there had been far too little of that. Seventy-six AGI members participated in the project. It was a fine opportunity to take photos, to nibble and drink wine.

In the evening we all took a ferry to the 'impregnable' Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, situated on one of the many islands before the Finnish coast. The place is huge, there are still impressive ship docks, originally used to built ships for the Russians as repayment for war damages. The fortress has the reputation to be impossible to conquer because of the way in is designed. At one time the whole population of Helsinki was gathered at this place to watch a peculiar sea battle. The fight was a show, like American wrestlers do. The participants carefully watched as to not hurt anyone or damage anything. It was considered the only solution to solve the many problems the Finns had with the Russians.
The air of the sea builds up a healthy appetite. All accounted for, a delicious dinner was served in a restaurant called 'Walhalla'.

The AGI General Assembly was held the next morning in the Designmuseo.

In the afternoon, three busses took us for sightseeing of the architectural developments around the city. Helsinki had comparable stages of development as a lot of other European cities. Architect Alvar Aalto is the well known representative of the 'modern building' period. His office designed many buildings in the city.
We visited a church that was very memorable. From the outside it looked like an amorphous heap of rocks. But just like an oyster, the inside was stunning. The major part of the space was carved out of the granite rock and left untouched thereafter. One felt very close to mother earth. The roof consisted of a huge circular element in copper, held in its place by radial metal beams with glass panels in between, like a huge graphical sun. An appropriate place to celebrate the ultimate creator, if there is one.
The bus tour ended at the former residence of another famous Finnish architect; Eliel Saarinen who is responsible for the splendid railway station in Helsinki. (Will airports ever become famous ?) Like most Fins, Saarinen liked to live away from other people in the middle of nature. He convinced his family and those of his two other partner architects in his practice to work and live together. They built three villas as one superb mansion on a hill near a lake. The villas are now functioning as a museum and a restaurant. It is a dreamy place and very well kept. One turns back to the second decade of the nineteenth century. There is a working space for the three architects with two open fireplaces, one on each end. A step outside on the balcony and you feel the soft cool wind of the evening and see the surrounding trees changing colour and a lake in the distance. Working hours were long back then, we were told, after work there was mutual dinner followed by lots of drinks and discussions. A guide showed us two metal rings attaches to a pole near the fire place. The rule was that as long as one could stand up straight with the help of one of the rings, you were allowed to participate in the drinking and discussions. If not, you had to go to bed and sleep. Drink until you drop, as opposed to the modern marketing dream of 'shop until you drop'.
This was without a doubt a very romantic way to work and live, but not a very secure one to keep three separate families together, each in its original piece. As to be expected, that didn't happen and the professional partnership collapsed with it. Saarinnen moved to Michigan in the US. (Lot of Finns emigrated to Michigan because of the similarities in landscape). His most important client there became George and Ellen Booth, for whom he built various educational buildings. Saarinen himself became
first head and teacher of the Cranbrook Art Academy which he also designed.

While wandering in the silent and majestic nature surrounding the estate, just before sunset, one could hear Finnish women singing, playing harp and flute standing solitary in the woods and near the lake, like Odysseyian Sirens. These fair haired and long dressed fairies created a real twilight zone just before dinner started. We got an excellent meal and a book with our 'chair-project'.
Some of us had to leave with a bus right after dinner to have a few hours of sleep before catching the early plane for the trip to St Petersburg, some stayed for further exercises on the dance floor.

Our Finnish colleagues and the Finnish organization did a more than splendid job and were almost embarrassing in their modest behaviour. Thank you very, very much Kari & Paula Piipo, Kyösti & Kirsti Varis, Tapani & Ulla Aartomaa and all others who contributed.