Three brothers. A hen house. A motorcycle engine. A few decades later, an airline, a factory and a whole community. The brothers Niilo, Valto, and Uuno Karhumäki were certainly not your common idle fellows. At first they built kites, then model planes and later on real airplanes: Karhu I, Karhu II and Karhu III. Not […]
Take a deep breath. Because now we have reached the very essence of these cheerful greetings from Finland. We’re talking about this masterpiece by Helge Mether-Borgström’s, where a ship sails into the land of thousand lakes from the west. So simple, but oh how mesmerizing. Mether-Borgström isn’t any old graphic designer. It was he who […]
Take a deep breath. Because now we have reached the very essence of these cheerful greetings from Finland. We’re talking about this masterpiece by Helge Mether-Borgström’s, where a ship sails into the land of thousand lakes from the west. So simple, but oh how mesmerizing. Mether-Borgström isn’t any old graphic designer. It was he who […]
Erik Bruun (born 1926) is a merry rascal whom everyone gets along with. He is the grand old man of poster art in Finland and the question is if anyone else has done more than he has to attract travelers to Finland. In Bruun’s posters one can always sense his typical tongue in cheek attitude. […]
When the poster artist Erik Bruun (born 1926) was given the job to attract passengers to the ferry traffic between Stockholm and Helsinki/Turku he put on his thinking cap. What about the trip is so appealing? He soon realizes the answer: A day of luxury. And what could be more luxurious that the smorgasbord? Salmon […]
When the poster artist Erik Bruun (born 1926) was given the job to attract passengers to the ferry traffic between Stockholm and Helsinki/Turku he put on his thinking cap. What about the trip is so appealing? He soon realizes the answer: A day of luxury. And what could be more luxurious that the smorgasbord? Salmon […]
Erik Bruun (born 1926) is a merry rascal whom everyone gets along with. He is the grand old man of poster art in Finland and the question is if anyone else has done more than he has to attract travelers to Finland. In Bruun’s posters one can always sense his typical tongue in cheek attitude. […]
Erik Bruun (born 1926) is a merry rascal whom everyone gets along with. He is the grand old man of poster art in Finland and the question is if anyone else has done more than he has to attract travelers to Finland. In Bruun’s posters one can always sense his typical tongue in cheek attitude, […]
Ilmari Sysimetsä’s Olympics poster featuring Paavo Nurmi – the Flying Finn – is most likely the most famous Finnish poster ever. The poster is also a great example of recycling. For the Olympic Games which were to take place in 1940 a big travel poster contest was held. The price was shared by three contestants, […]
Sigh… What if one could fly back in time, put on those skies with a bunch of friends and catch the sun on Pyhätunturi – belonging to the southernmost fell range in Finland. But you can! The fells are still there, the sun is still there, so just do it! The national park of Pyhätunturi […]
What was new to the poster art of the 1950’s was the happy mood – a clear counter reaction to the war and the years of hardship during the end of the 1940’s … Finally they even took their kids with them! We love this poster since this is among the very first Finnish travel […]
In this poster the glorious (international) travelers are just arriving to the hotel at Pallastunturi. Strangely enough the poster doesn’t reveal that they still have an hour or so in the bus before they reach the hotel. Well, what the heck, that’s only a detail… What was new to the poster art of the 1950’s […]
In this poster the glorious (international) travelers are just arriving to the hotel at Pallastunturi. Strangely enough the poster doesn’t reveal that they still have an hour or so in the bus before they reach the hotel. Well, what the heck, that’s only a detail… What was new to the poster art of the 1950’s […]
Forget about the summer, it’s still the winter which is Finland’s trump card. Apart from ski competitions in for example Lahti and Kuopio it was mainly the State Railways that promoted the Finnish winter, with new travel posters every season. The tourists were to make no mistake: if they were going to Lapland they were […]
We believe this little fellow is the most travelled boy in the world. In the shop we already have a winter version of the same poster, but here he is about to conquer the world with his umbrella (better safe than sorry, aye?). And of course he chooses to travel by train, the best way […]
Heikki Ahtiala’s funny fellow will always have a special place in our heart. While researching for the book we found the English version of this poster (”To Finland with me”) in Washington and we where taken by it straight away. A year later a French collector who had this version in French contacted us. Needless […]
Heikki Ahtiala’s funny fellow will always have a special place in our heart. While researching for the book we found the English version of this poster (”To Finland with me”) in Washington and we where taken by it straight away. A year later a French collector who had this version contacted us. Needless to say […]
This poster was long The Big Mystery to us. The little sensual mermaid wants us to travel from Stockholm to Helsinki (and vice versa, too). For many years we tried to figure out who the artist behind the ABBE signature was. We tried everything, we called up old-timers in the business, contacted museums, scanned the […]
The poster was commissioned by the Finnish State Railways. Artist Osmo K. Oksanen asked his daughter to pose in front of the family house drive way. There she was given Ms Oksanen’s make-up bag to hold and suddenly a little boy with a suitcase was created. Note the labels on the suitcase: Inari, Kuopio, Ivalo […]
