Finland is one of the leading nations within the creative economies in the world. Today, Finnish design is more vital than ever, combining the best from the heritage of the 50s and 60s with the skills and innovativeness of the promising young design talents.

Finland’s global reputation for design spread during the international design fairs of the 1940s and 1950s, in particular the Milan Triennials. Back then, it was glass and ceramics, wood sculpture and ryijy rug wall hangings, and Finnish designers were primal, original artists who took inspiration from nature and the changing seasons. Spare, clean-lined, functional, and honest were the adjectives used to describe Finnish design.

Finnish design continues to remain faithful to its roots and traditions, but it has also developed. More and more often Finnish design means service design, new media, or design management. Design is a part of everyday life. It belongs to and is intended for everyone – and is often so taken for granted as to be almost unnoticeable. It is door handles and cutlery, billboards and bus seats. Finland is a design society – and it shows.

The design field in Finland has plenty of proponents. Design Forum Finland promotes Finnish design. It arranges exhibitions, produces publications, runs the Design Forum Shop, awards several design prizes and communicates extensively about design news. Design Forum Finland is run by the Finnish Society of Crafts and Design. Established in 1875, it is the second-oldest design-industry organization in the world.

The Design Museum, previously the Museum of Applied Arts, is a specialist museum for the design field in Finland. It is responsible for recording the history of Finnish design, maintaining collections and arranging exhibitions. The roots of the museum also reach back to the 1800s: the first objects were obtained in 1873, when the collection played an educational role as a repository of models for the industrial arts. Currently the collection comprises 35,000 objects, 40,000 drawings and 100,000 pictures.

Helsinki Design Week is a week-long event for the creative industries, to be held during autumn 2007 for the third time. The event takes place in venues around the city, opening both designer studios and installations staged in private homes to the public. Helsinki Design Week aims at promoting know-how and new ideas and generating discussion.

Design District Helsinki is a cluster of creative businesses in the heart of Helsinki. Over 150 design-related boutiques, studios, restaurants, and galleries as well as the design hotel Klaus K. are located in the neighbourhood. Everything from baubles to benches and from skirts to sculpture can be found in the Design District, where walking tours are organised during the summer months.

Finland boasts a large number of design-related educational institutions. The University of Art and Design Helsinki, originally established in 1871, is one of the best in Europe and one of the most respected in the world. The largest such school in the Nordic countries, it offers up to doctoral level programmes in design, art, audiovisual communication and art education. The Masters of Arts or MoA festival brings the works of graduating art professionals to the streets and squares of Helsinki each spring. Designium, the Centre of Innovation in Design, and the Media Centre Lume both function under the auspices of the University of Art and Design. The International Design Business Management (IDBM) curriculum is a joint education and research programme of the Helsinki School of Economics, the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology.

There are also numerous educational institutions at the polytechnic level; the Institute of Design at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences is probably the best-known. The web portal www.finnishdesign.fi offers a comprehensive list of links to educational institutions as well as museums and organisations in the field.

The documenting of Finnish handicrafts and industrial arts takes place not only at the Design Museum, but also in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä, at the Craft Museum of Finland. The Conservation Centre and the National Costume Centre both function as part of this museum. Specialist museums in the field of design include Helsinki’s Arabia Museum, which focuses on ceramics, the Finnish Glass Museum in Riihimäki, and the Iittala and Nuutajärvi glass museums.

Jyväskylä is also home to the Alvar Aalto Museum, which supports preservation of and research into the life work of architect and designer Alvar Aalto. The Aalto studio and house, on the other hand, are located in Helsinki. Both are open to the public. The Museum of Finnish Architecture, located next to the Design Museum in Helsinki, acts as the national architecture museum.

Design is a profession, and the interests of designers are promoted by the Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo, established already in 1911. About 1,700 design professionals belong to Ornamo, including industrial and interior designers, craft and textile artists and fashion designers. Graphic designers have their own association, Grafia, established in 1933.

An important element of Finnish national culture, design is supported with public funding. In 2000, the Council of State published the Design 2005! Government Decision-in-Principle on Finnish Design Policy. The goal was to create a dynamic design system which would take Finland to the forefront in the utilisation of design. Design has also been targeted as a focus area for Finnish cultural exports in the near future.