Olavi Linden - Industrial Designer of the Year in Finland
09/28/2005
For almost 25 years the Finnish Association of Designers (Ornamo) member associations have annually chosen one meritorious member to receive an award. The criteria have included topicality, interest-value and length of career. The award winners are named according to their sector: Fashion, Industrial, Textile, and Craft Designer of the Year and in alternate years Furniture Designer or Interior Architect of the Year.
This year, for the first time, these ceremonies were combined into one big Ornamo 2005 Award Winners party. Since this was the culmination of the year in the design field, this party was one of the autumn’s main events of the Finnish Design Year. The celebration was held in Helsinki, Finland, Friday, September 23.
Olavi Lindén is well known by the general public for his product designs for Fiskars in which design, ergonomics and innovation meet in an admirable and powerful way. Even if the basis for the products has been a technical insight, it has not hindered their product design and brand loyalty. The functional and aesthetic tools designed by Lindén and his design team, are used by many people in their everyday life. Thus, TKO wanted to demonstrate to the general public and the consumers the vital characteristics of a designer’s work as a whole.
“The best reward is to see the product in use.” -Olavi Lindén
Lindén’s designs have been internationally awarded. This year, the long reach pruners received the Fennia Prize honorary mention as well as the German Red Dot design award. Earlier awarded products include, for example, the telescopic spade range, the weed puller, the Power Gear loppers and the Power Lever range. In 2002 Lindén was awarded the Finnish State Prize for Crafts and Design for his design work.
“An award is a confirmation that we at Fiskars are on the right track. For me, the reward is to see the product in use and to make a consumer satisfied.”
“The product must be functional and have a new feature that benefits the user. Production technology and materials also need to be considered. Apart from this, the design of the product must communicate the Fiskars quality and tradition”, says Lindén.
Olavi Lindén is a designer but also an engineer and a musician. In addition to designing Fiskars tools, he has also built 50 stringed instruments and worked on an instrument which has remained largely unknown, the Stroh violin. Olavi and the Stroh Violin the a
“The violin and the garden tool have surprisingly many things in common”, says Lindén. “The violin is a musician’s tool, it needs to fit the hand perfectly, perform well and also look good. The same applies to garden tools.”
Olavi Lindén has been with Fiskars since 1971.
Congratulations, Olavi!
