Not Illustration but Decoration!

19 Jun 2006 Category: Features, Illustration, Worldwide

“I’m not an illustrator, I’m a decorator!” insists Klaus Haapaniemi, when I meet him at his East London studio. Which is kind of strange for someone who has been described as ‘one of Britain’s leading fashion illustrators,’ not to mention ‘Finland’s most gifted and luxurious illustrator.’ But Klaus has his reasons, as he explains later after showing some of his latest work.

Written by Matt Sinclair

Despite the address (just off the ultra-trendy Brick Lane), Klaus doesn’t come across as someone who is very affected by the notion of what an East London designer should be. For one thing his workspace is full of the cute-ugly-kitsch toys he and his girlfriend have collected on their travels, many from Russia or the former Eastern Europe; for another his cat insists on walking across the table, sitting on the computer keyboard, and generally demanding to be the centre of attention. But what Klaus is, is incredibly enthusiastic, and almost from the moment we meet he starts showing one of his latest projects.

It’s a theatre book, an adaptation, or interpretation, of the Robin Hood story, but turning it into a feudal Japanese ninja adventure. I’m really into samurai stuff - I like to use the patterns and imagery from the costumes in my work. I hope I don’t offend anyone Japanese by saying this! I have visited Kyoto once, and also last year there was an exhibition of samurai costumes and swords at the British Museum; the decoration is amazing, really beautiful stuff.

Initially the story will appear as a children’s book, probably next year, but I’m also interested in turning it into an animation. Actually I’ve just been in Los Angeles discussing the possibility.

So will it be a Toy Story style blockbuster?

No! I want it to be in the old East European style paper-cut animation, or even puppet animation, but using old techniques. I don’t like plastic looking 3D stuff, I like it in print but in moving image it’s too artificial for my taste. And these days you see it everywhere, I’m much more interested in the more traditional way of doing things.

This love of ‘old school’ animation techniques is explained when Klaus begins to show some of his inspirations, many of which go back to his childhood growing up in Finland.

A lot of them are coming from Russia and Czechoslovakia and were shown on TV when I was a child. I really like the style of the character animations and decorations, these quite Slavic environments.

I also get inspiration from these old toys, some of them are quite strange, they feel like rubber but are ‘furry’ at the same time. A lot of them I’ve found in Russia when I have visited, I also really like the old Christmas decorations you can find there. Somehow they are quite similar to the kind of character toys you find in Japan - cute, but a bit weird or peculiar.

And then Ivan Bilibin, do you know him? These are amazing, they’re gorgeous. He was designing stage backdrops for the theatre and opera in St Petersburg, as well as books and theatrical posters. They are very different to the children’s TV animations, but I find the style and the use of colour really interesting.

I’ve seen it written that your work has deep roots in Finnish culture, in the Finnish countryside, a strong Finnish heritage. Is that true? It seems to me that actually Russia has been a bigger influence.

Eastern Europe and Finland are really connected, even if Finns don’t always like to admit it. They are trying to forget, but so much of the culture is based on Russia, and the border is quite artificial - it’s a line on the map - whereas the border with Sweden or the rest of Europe is real - the sea. I don’t know how you define the difference between the Finnish and the Russian. I’m sure if I hadn’t grown up in Finland the Russian influence wouldn’t have been so strong.

So from growing up in Finland watching cartoons, how did you get to where you are today?

Well, as a child I was always interested in drawing, in creating characters. And that continued when I was studying graphics at the Lahti Institute of Design. The school has a good reputation for graphic design, but I was never very interested in the latest ‘style’. After school I worked as a freelancer for a while, one of my clients was Drop Coffee (a Finnish coffee shop chain), where I created characters as part of their corporate branding.

Then I worked for Hel, which was a sub-department of the advertising agency Taivas [just to explain, in Finnish Taivas means heaven, Hel (as well as being short for Helsinki) means, well, you get the picture]. There I did projects for MTV and Diesel, which led to me taking a job with Diesel Style Lab and moving to Italy.

So I worked for Diesel for a few years, and actually while I was there I was working with Jo Lynch, who now has started a company called [Bela’s Dead](http://www.belasdead.com/0. I’ve just been doing some work with her for a lingerie collection. And then about two years ago I moved to London and began working for myself.

And who have some of your clients been?

One of the biggest is Cacharel. I made characters and illustrations that were used for the female catwalk collection for Spring 2006, they were used on the garments and also for the stage set.

Then Selfridges is another client. They created a children’s book called Christmas Stories, it was a limited edition and had a number of stories written by ‘celebrity’ authors, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. I was asked to illustrate the stories, but after they had seen them Selfridges also decided to use them as their window decoration.

And one of my latest clients is Levi’s. I’ve just finished a signature collection for them, for a range of t-shirts.

Could you tell us something about your working process, how you go about creating one of your designs.

Sometimes I start with sketches, but not often, and they can be very rough! I don’t really use them to begin a design, what I mean is I don’t scan them and then draw over them. I use sketches more as inspiration, to create a feeling or atmosphere. That means clients have to trust me a lot! Sometimes I’ll send them a sketch and the final design will be completely different. These are from some work I’ve been doing for My Ass, an Italian jeans company. When I sent the sketch I just told them I was basing the character designs on the textile patterns of the train seats on the London Underground…

I draw directly in Freehand, I find it’s best for creating patterns and repeats, and I know it really well. Then if I want to make 3D characters I use this really old school software program called Infini-D. It’s really childlike! But you can easily make simple shapes and environments, and it works well for my style. I used it quite a lot when I was creating the work for my book Giants.

Yes, how did that book come about?

I made the characters and the designs first, and then it was turned into a story by Rosa Liksom, she’s quite a famous Finnish author. 

It’s the same way I’m working with the samurai Robin Hood story - I create the scene and atmosphere and characters through my drawings, and someone else writes the story based on those drawings. That’s why I have difficulty knowing what to call myself. Obviously I’m not a graphic designer, I’m not doing layout work etc. Then again I’m not really doing illustration either because I’m creating characters or patterns or motifs but I’m not illustrating a theme. In fact when I have done that kind of work I really haven’t enjoyed it so much. It’s important for me to have control of the narrative - an illustrator is someone who draws according to other people’s stories, I want to do it the other way round.

So what do you call yourself then?

A pattern creator, a print designer, a decorator… a decoration designer. I’m not sure!

I saw that recently you were speaking at the Visuelt Conference in Oslo.

That’s right. And actually when I was there I went to see one of my favourite bands - Satyricon - they’re really one of the best black metal bands. It’s amazing because culturally in Norway black metal is so strong, lots of people at the concert were designers and gallery owners… Here’s another one you should check out - Turbonegro. They are the most famous in Norway, it’s maybe not exactly black metal, but they are taking lots of the same imagery. Satyricon. If you came from Norway you’d understand!

Okay, now I start to realise where some of your darker imagery comes from, like the work for Levi’s…

You should also see what I’ve done for Bantam, and for Top Shop.

Bantam are actually owned by the same company that own My Ass, and I have been creative director for them for several years, since I was living in Italy. They’ve used my work in catalogues and advertising, and I’ve also worked directly with the fashion designers on designs for garments.

Then Top Shop saw some of the work I had done and asked me to create some designs in a similar style.

And so how about the future, what direction would you like your work to take?

Well, like I said I’m really trying to enter the animation world, that’s something I’d like to see in the future, living versions of my creations rather than just printed. There have been some commercials where my characters have been animated but it’s not artistic work. I’m more interested in the story. The other thing is licensing. I’ve had some success there, but I’d like it to happen more. That’s the way for my characters to spread, and to appear in different situations.

Thanks Klaus, for introducing us to your work and to Norwegian black metal!

68 Comments

1. The ‘unknown programme’ is Chapi Chapo: http://www.youtube.com/results?related=chapi%20chapo

   Posted by: Brakhage on June 20th, 2006 at 1:35 am

2. Fantabulous! :)

   Posted by: Riddle on June 20th, 2006 at 4:12 am

3. Incredible. Whow! Never seen this before.
   How much and detailrich work!

   Posted by: Thomas Schürmann on June 20th, 2006 at 12:34 pm

4. Thanks for the great article!

   Posted by: Adasc on June 20th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

5. Very Innovative Cool Design!!

   –
   Balakumar Muthu
   http://i5bala.blogspot.com

   Posted by: Balakumar Muthu on June 20th, 2006 at 3:18 pm

6. This is fantastic. I liked the ‘decorator’ work a lot.

   Posted by: Paavani on June 20th, 2006 at 3:39 pm

7. He is my favorite artist!

   Posted by: Charlotte on June 20th, 2006 at 7:58 pm

8. I’m loving the Pink Riding Hood & Ninja Wolf!

   Posted by: Geekette on June 20th, 2006 at 11:30 pm

9. Sick design, That’s a great idea

   Posted by: JC on June 21st, 2006 at 1:33 am

10. I’d love to see an animation of Robin Hood. Skilled director is needed and I’m assured it’ll be a fantastic movie, especially if the animated scenes will look the same as the static pictures presented in the article.

    Posted by: GK on June 21st, 2006 at 8:27 pm

11. everything is for love

    Posted by: x-noise on June 21st, 2006 at 9:35 pm

12. wow this stuff is awesome tytytyt for helping me learn about it

    Posted by: sadie on June 22nd, 2006 at 6:11 am

13. So glad I stumbled on this - top notch work, sah. Inspirational.
    I saw that samurai sword exhibition too, which was overwhelming. I couldnt believe how brand-spanking immaculate-looking they all were despite many being from mediaeval times!
    I grew up in Portugal and we got plenty of Russian cartoons there. I definitely share the love for that East European old skool stylised less is more approach. Tho sometimes some of them were just like that parody they did on The Simpsons entitled ‘Worker And Parasite’ which leaves Bart and Lisa asking ‘What the hell was that about?!’ eheh

    Posted by: SweetPete on July 22nd, 2006 at 10:59 pm

14. Wonderful inspiring work! Very happy to see fellow designer.
    Greetings from Finland, by the way. Summer is cool, even too cool here.

    Posted by: ヤーッコ on August 2nd, 2006 at 5:52 am

15. He is my new hero! Great stuff!

    Posted by: Anonymous on August 18th, 2006 at 11:01 pm

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20. really great work, klaus! my favourite decorator right now.

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22. i’m in awe. very inspiring!!

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