Young Designer of the Year 2007

published Oct 14, 2007
Young Designer of the Year 2007
This year's Design Forum Finland's Young Designer of the Year Prize goes to shoe designer Julia Lundsten and industrial designer Janne Kytt�nen.

The recipients will share the prize sum of € 5000.

They have trained and achieved professional merit abroad - Julia Lundsten in London and Janne Kytt�nen in Barcelona and Amsterdam.

Lundsten established her shoe-design company FINSK in London in 2004, and Kytt�nen founded his Freedom of Creation (FOC) company in Helsinki in 2000 and is currently based in Amsterdam.

Based on the designers' solid personal conceptions of design and their innovative methods of design and manufacturing, these companies are now internationally recognized in both concept-related and commercial skills.

Julia Lundsten specialized in footwear while studying fashion design at the Royal College of Art in London.

Having grown up in Finland in a family environment of architecture and interior design, Julia often finds inspiration in the forms of nature, but no less in the details of buildings and furniture.

Her shoe collections have been awarded the coveted Manolo Blahnik Prize in 2002 and 2003.

In those prize-winning products she used dyed wood developed at the Lappeenranta University of Technology with funding from the Tekes Agency for Technology and Innovation.

Her FINSK brand is highly regarded internationally from Great Britain to Japan.