Interview with HAPPYsthlm

Posted by Tiffany on April 30th, 2010    Add your comment »

We are very happy to welcome the ladies of HAPPYsthlm as our featured designers for May!

One look at their idyllic studio on the island of Södermalm in Stockholm, and I wanted to move right in. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible, but at least we can give you a glimpse inside, in an exclusive interview where Katarina Anderson, Kajsa Aronsson, and Caroline Lindholm discuss their design inspiration and winning collaboration.

HAPPYsthlm’s courtyard studio.

FS: Each of you have been working in your fields for a long time. How did you decide to come together to form HAPPYsthlm?

HS: We shared a courtyard studio in Stockholm for many years and followed each others work at close quarters. Using regular development appraisals, we’d open up the often lonely creative process.

One day a friend on maternity leave visited the studio. She’s an economist and talked about structure, business plans, formulating goals and above all how useful it can be to put activities into words.

A few days later we sat down together and the first seed of HAPPYsthlm was planted.

We decided that HAPPYsthlm should create its own design products in close collaboration with our manufacturers.

FS: How would you describe what makes HAPPYsthlm unique?

HS: We focus on designs that can be enlarged, reduced, changed, and used to create different objects in various materials. Quality and attention to details and materials are an important part of all HAPPYsthlm products.

HAPPYsthlm translates its cheery patterns onto a range of products from cushions to jewelry. photo: karin bjorkquist

FS: How do you make sure that high level of quality is maintained?

HS: We are very lucky to be in Scandinavia where there is a tradition of industry in applied arts that sits between the craftsman and consumer-targeted mass marketing. It’s a niche that requires profound skill and a strong interest in the final product.

It’s a lost era that many designers can only romanticize about, but in Sweden several smaller manufacturing industries still exist. It’s in this space between crafts and commercial mass production that we work.

Hamla mug and bowl in black contrast nicely with HAPPYsthlm’s Orangeriet pattern in green. photo: karin bjorkquist

FS: What is your biggest inspiration?

HS: We have a very close collaboration. Sharing each other’s materials and know-how really opens us up to new ideas.

There are a few designers that have influenced us since childhood such as Viola Gråsten for her patterns and use of colors, Stig Lindberg for his playfulness, Timo Sarpaneva for his sense for form, and Wiwen Nilsson for his small animal brooches that are wearable small sculptures.

Work in progress in the HAPPYsthlm studio

FS: What’s your studio workspace like?

HS: We work quite a lot on paper, painting the patterns by hand, building the models. We create all the jewelry by hand before we finally cast them. The workspace is as much a workshop as a studio; a creative mess…

FS: Your biggest challenge?

HS: How to stand firm in the enormous range of products welling over us… How to find the retailers and manufacturers that have the same approach to design and material as us… that’s a couple of them anyway.

Caroline’s hand tools always ready

FS: What are your different creative styles?

HS: Caroline’s design has a natural sense for elegance and her passion in architecture and urban nature is often visible in her works. She is the inventor who always has smart solutions for complicated structures.

Caroline hard at work making jewelry.

HS: Katarina sees her objects as small sculptures. Her aim is to create objects that are individual, can stand for themselves, and are contemporary, but with a long lifespan.

Kajsa has a sense for colors and a strong wish to bring patterns to surfaces. Her distinct way of putting stories and images together, combined with her great interest in details, makes her textile designs characteristic and animated.

Kajsa’s paints.

FS: What inspired the PARK pattern?

HS: “Park”, an urban environment for growing, is the name of HAPPYsthlm’s first design for textiles.

The idea was to create an all-over pattern with an air of traditional Swedish folk art.

Close-up of Kajsa’s “Park” pattern. photo: www.fromsthlm.com

FS: How about another of our products this month, the BLAD trivet?

HS: The austere leaf shapes used in the cast iron trivet are inspired by leaf shapes in the textile pattern “Park”. It is also a reworking of the same plant detail found in the earrings “Ranka”, part of HAPPYsthlm’s jewelry collection.

Blad is manufactured at a small ironworks in Sweden.

Blad trivet. photo: www.fromsthlm.com

FS: How did the design of the HAMLA mug come about?

HS: “Hamla” is Swedish and means to prune branches. We were interested in finding an alternative to the handle of the mug, and by simplifying the form of a branch on a trunk we found an expression for the simplicity we aimed for. It is also very comfortable to hold, with the “twig” between your fingers.

Hamla mug. photo: www.fromsthlm.com

FS: And finally, what inspired the MAITO vase?

HS: “MAITO” is the Finnish word for milk, and the idea is based on Katarina’s childhood memories of brown glass bottles filled with milk. We made small adjustments to the classical form to suit bouquets of garden or wild flowers. Last summer we visited the Skruf Glassworks in Småland and developed the vase in hand-blown glass.

Maito vase. photo: fromsthlm.com

(Thanks Katarina, Kajsa & Caroline!)

This month only… Buy the springtime patterns of HAPPYsthlm on kitchen towels, mugs, trivets and vases at From Sthlm!

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