I ALMOST DIDN'T BECOME A DESIGNER

When people look at Kukka today, it’s easy to assume I’ve always known I wanted to be a designer. But the truth is, for a long time, I wasn’t even allowed to imagine it. Marking Kukka’s 15th anniversary feels like the right moment to not only reflect on what did unfold, but also on what almost didn’t.

To mark Kukka’s 15th anniversary, I’m sharing a series of blog posts that reflect on the unexpected turns, milestones, and personal discoveries that shaped my design practice. Looking back is not so much about nostalgia, but about tracing the lines that still surface in my work today.

When the Safe Path Isn't So Safe

My creative path was far from linear. It began in a place shaped by convention. A decision rooted in my family’s longing for security.

There were no creative professionals in my family. Creativity was admired and encouraged, but not as a career. Like many of us, I grew up with the idea that creative work was fragile, unstable, something extra. Not a foundation to build a life on. In highschool I had to let go of the subjects I loved most: drawing, art history. Instead, I had to choose what was considered sensible: economics, biology, geography. Art school disappeared from view before it ever became a real option. 

So I followed the more conventional route. But creativity found other ways to stay with me. Quietly at first. In my love for music, for art and imagination. I was good with language, so I enrolled in European Studies for one year. Then I switched to Creative Communication, because creativity kept calling. I graduated, but ended up in unfulfilling and underpaid administrative jobs, working just to pay the bills. It was proof that the so-called safe choice was never really safe at all.

That realisation cracked something open.

Learning by observing and doing

During my communication studies, I interned at places where design played a central role. First with graphic designers at a marketing and communication agency, later at an interior architecture studio. I was surrounded by designers and contributed mostly on the strategic and conceptual side, helping shape visual communication. In group projects, I naturally gravitated towards the design aspect, always taking care of the layout and working with design software to visualise concepts. Slowly, the urge to create something of my own started to grow. With a degree in hand, I allowed myself to start again.

Moving into fashion, and moving away from it

I enrolled in Fashion Styling where design became more hands-on. Later, working in fashion opened my eyes to how the industry often works behind the scenes. Within many fashion companies, creative direction is not always the driving force. Sales, merchandising and product development departments tend to steer decisions, often prioritising commercial trends over innovation or sustainability, if a sustainability department even exists. I became increasingly aware of how much is copied, recycled or watered down in the name of marketability. That tension made me realise I didn’t want to work within that system. I wanted to design on my own terms, guided by research, values and long-term thinking.

Becoming a designer on my own terms

Slowly, I carved out space. First as a freelance textile designer. Then through self-initiated projects. Researching, experimenting, collaborating until my practice became an atelier where colour has purpose. Where design tells layered stories.

The shift happened gradually, as I began to follow my curiosity more deliberately. I’ve always had a curious, investigative and analytical mind. Concept development quickly became a core strength, and something I genuinely enjoyed. I started experimenting with colour, material and pattern in a way that felt intuitively right, taking small steps that slowly influenced a more defined practice.

Kukka, a name and a mindset

Soon, the name Kukka emerged, not just as an atelier, but as a way of working. Kukka means ‘flower’ (in Finnish ), a natural metaphor for growth, transformation and colour. Colour became the connecting thread, not just aesthetically, but also conceptually, linking thought and emotion, material and meaning. Designing no longer felt like something external I had to reach for. It became a natural extension of how I interpret and organise the world around me.

Cultivating a vision

For me, being a designer is less about having a fixed style and more about cultivating a vision. That approach naturally grew from my background in communication and fashion styling, disciplines that are rooted in concept, curation, selection, and the ability to recognise what resonates.

Designing feels like navigating an endless flow of ideas, some take shape, many stay in the sketchbook, or often in my case digital design files with numerous artboards, elements and colourways. It’s an ongoing process of refining, combining, and distilling until only what feels essential remains.

That vision isn’t bound to one medium or discipline. It can move fluently across industries, materials, and scales, from textiles to spatial design, from small crafted objects to large-scale installations. To me, that fluidity is what keeps my practice alive, relevant and connected to culture.

From the outside, that might make my work harder to categorise. It is not defined by a singular visual language of recurring patterns or fixed colour palettes. My love for expressive colour, graphic clarity and geometric forms is unmistakably present. But what truly drives my work is the concept, the research, and the story that unfolds through material and colour. I am not interested in doing the same thing over and over. I thrive on curiosity and experimentation. Often, clients approach me with ideas I would not have thought of myself, like developing a new colour concept for automotive surfaces. I love the challenge of translating my ideas into unfamiliar contexts.

What I Always Bring Along

The early uncertainty made me more sensitive to the process of becoming, rather than chasing a style, role or title. It taught me to move at my own pace, to listen carefully, and to build something that truly fits, on my own terms. Keeping the design process close, rathing than delegating it to a team.

During a recent talk organised by the Dutch Design Foundation, I was asked: if you could bring one aspect of your practice into a new endeavour, what would it be? I answered without hesitation: concept development. It’s my strong suit, and something that translates across industries.

In my own time

Looking back, I can appreciate that the path wasn’t obvious. That hesitation gave me a kind of clarity I might not have found otherwise. A clarity formed by observation, patience, and a commitment to doing things differently. It nourished the way I work now: with intention, with curiosity, with care for materials and their origin.

Persistence, for me, is a daily practice. A rhythm of research and design. To get better at the business aspects of the design profession. Of tweaking and refining. A love for process, even when no one is watching.

I’m still not always grateful. Sometimes it feels like things are moving too slowly. But the experience of starting in communication, then working in in-house fashion design, learning the ins and outs of the industry, and eventually breaking away from it, moulded me into the purposeful designer I am today. If any part of this story resonates, you’re likely navigating your own version of becoming too, and there’s something quietly powerful in that.