I love colors and I live to look at different color combinations. I enjoy observing, composing, drawing and creating something on an empty canvas. I especially enjoy when what I’ve created with my hands spreads around the world and is part of people’s everyday life.
Papu’s prints always start from a story. Together with Anna (Papu’s founder and designer) we take walks in forests or different cities, breathe in the different atmospheres and what’s happening in the world right there in that moment. We think about what we want to communicate next and what the visual world will look like to our customers in a couple of years. Yes, that’s correct, it takes about 1,5 years from the start of our design process to when the products are available to customers. When writing this it’s autumn 2020 and I’m about to start designing prints for spring 2022.
Our design team consists of myself, Anna and Minni. Together we explore colors, textures & surfaces, different phenomenons and thoughts. When the theme of the collection and the visual world is drafted, I begin to draw and paint. I start to explore the most interesting color combinations and how the colors work together. I flip through art books, draw, go run in the forest and when I come back, I might draw the best print ever. Sometimes it feels like I’m constantly doing something else than designing – I clean, organize or just relax, but during the years I have learned that this is part of the process. I let my subconsciousness work for me. Prints and color combinations are always a result of this process. You just need to trust the process. Sometimes I might just sit in a café drinking a glass of bubbles and draw, usually resulting in something great also.
When a print communicates something new to me, I am happy with it. At the same time there is something “Papu-like” about it, but it also has something new that I want to explore further. If I get a great feeling about a print right away, our customers usually love it too.
Hanna-Riikka, Papu’s print designer and art director