The best of Finnish graphic design

 

This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Best of the Year. Over the years, works proposed for the contest have been recorded in annuals, which thus form a continuous display of leading Finnish graphic design from the past three decades.

 

This year’s Best of the Year juries awarded 63 works from 943 entries to the contest, divided into 17 categories, and selected 149 works for publication in the 2009 Annual.

 

Some of the jury favourites included Laura Laine’s “Fashion” stamp illustrations for Itella and Taivas Advertising Agency’s advertising “Money and Life” for insurance company Mandatum Life with visuals by Mikko Männistö as creative director. Advertising Agency PHS’s advertising for gaming company Veikkaus continued its year-to-year success with “The Joker Has Returned” campaign with Erkko Mannila as creative director.

 

Head of Juries Rane Tiukkanen comments on this year’s award recipients, “Professional skill and competence, determination and creativity of design, ideas and implementation are evident in the awarded works. Illustrators, designers, graphic designers and all other creative and brave people have created something, despite these hard times, which deserves to be documented in books and bound.”

 

The Best of the Year contests and associated annuals were launched by Grafia in 1980 with a dual mission: to present leading Finnish graphic design and to document the works. The Best of the Year has established itself as the main visual communications programme in Finland.

 

Grafia is currently building an online archive from Best of the Year works of the past. The archive will be launched in the course of this spring season.