The Aalto University Student Union and TOKYO ry are publishing a cooperated design calendar for the year 2018-19. The design work is done by Reetta Vartiala, and it commemorates the AYY Year of Art and the ARTS move to Otaniemi.
TOKYO has traditionally published a design calendar, distributed to members free of charge, from the year 1975. The designer is chosen yearly by competition from amongst the students.
” The calendar offers a well-designed, beautiful option to digital calendars. Many of our students express themselves visually and might for example express their thoughts through drawing. You can tune the print calendar to match your style, and doodle on it during, for example, lectures”, TOKYO chairperson Matti Jänkälä says.
A free calendar for members is also an AYY tradition. Both AYY and TOKYO members place immense value on a calendar and consider it an important service.
” It is awesome that to celebrate the Year of Art we can create something for all students of Aalto together with AYY. We have so many talented students in our school. Thus, we wish to show the entire community what we do, and to familiarize everyone with the culture of ARTS and TOKYO”, Jänkälä continues.
The designer of the calendar was chosen through a contest, open to all students of Aalto University. The jury included, in addition to TOKYO and AYY representatives, the assistant professor of visual communications Arja Karhumaa and the designer of the last year’s calendar for TOKYO, Samu Salovaara.
Reetta Vartiala was chosen as the designer by the jury. She is a master’s degree student of interior design, who has studied package design as a minor subject, along with illustration. She participated in the competition for the first time.
” My calendar is the product of many years’ worth of thinking. In the fall, when the TOKYO calendar has been distributed, I’ve often thought on how it could be further improved”, Vartiala says.
In her plan, the calendar can be used both horizontally and vertically.
” I wanted that the calendar could suit several ways of use. I aim for clarity. All days are divided into three, so you can divide your day into for example morning, the time after lunch and the evening in the calendar.”
The year 2018-19 calendar combines the calendar traditions of TOKYO and AYY. It also binds the ARTS students through the year even more intensely into the Aalto community. The school’s move from Arabia to Otaniemi fills the designers mind with thoughts.
” Arabia feels like home, so it is a bit melancholic to move away. There are good points and parts to the move, though. It is good that the ARTS students will arrive in Otaniemi to rattle the cage. And we’ll have a brand-new wonderful building there, too”, she muses.
Vartiala hopes that the calendar will be taken in well by the entire Aalto community.
” I wish to waken the users of the calendar to think of the possibilities the design brings and how things can be viewed from many different points of view. Creativity can be found in all things, and even everyday things can be completed in more ways than just one.”