The Clients
Improving your business is our job
We are marketing and design professionals who work on daily basis with a wide range of problems related to our customers’ businesses.
How we work differs fundamentally from our competitors. Working side-by-side cuts down your costs, allows you more control, eliminates communication latency and delivers results faster.
Our principles, which we stand by, also differ greatly from most of our competitors. For example we said No to Big Tobacco despite the Down-turn.
Bolder Academy
Share and you shall receive
Bolder was found in the corridors of the Aalto University. The school has given us much and without the network our company wouldn’t exist. This is why we feel that we should give something back in return.
In 2008 the entrepreneurial environment in the school needed a spur. Nobody talked about starting one’s own company as a career option and it was considered rather as a burden than a possibility. We wanted to share some of our passion towards entrepreneurship to these young minds.
We came up with the idea of Bolder Academy, a concept that brings students and well-known Finnish entrepreneurs together. To get the best people on board organizig the whole thing, we hooked up with HSE Small Business Center, Aalto Entrepreneurship Society and Helsinki Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Academy.
Our job was to find the right people to speak, get the students to come to see them and arrange the events in practice. We designed the visual identity and created the buzz in Facebook and other like-minded events.
Finally, in the spring of 2009 we arranged four events in which we had a total of nine inspirational visitors making their speeches. The topics surrounded starting a company, life as an entrepreneur, branding oneself and creative business. The speakers were entrepreneurs from different fields of business, including actor Jani Toivola, consultant Juhana Helmenkalajasta, serial entrepreneur Taneli Tikka and Asta Rossi from Great Place to Work Finland.
We were humbled by the success of these events. People really enjoyed the speeches and the events. After every session we had reserved time for networking. It seems that we achieved our goals and people got inspired.
At Bolder, we like to practice the strategy of giving. By doing unselfishly something good for free to the community the price will some day come back. Whether it’s some tomorrow’s entrepreneur that was inspired our event or a corporate guy that loves the way we w0rk. And to tell you the truth, it has already worked.
Finlandia-talo
Illustrations and Brochure designs for a unique event venue
Finlandia Hall is a unique venue for congresses and events located in the heart of Helsinki. It is an architectual classic designed by Alvar Aalto and one of the most known buildings in Finland.
The market they are operating in, is going to change significantly when the new Helsinki Music Centre opens its doors in 2011. This calls for a shift in their market positioning and pushes them to expand into new kinds of events. While doing so, they are also changing their pricing strategy from space-oriented to more solution-oriented to better serve their customers needs.
We were very excited when they contacted us in spring 2009 about updating their sales material and creating cost-effective digital campaigns targeted to selected segments. It is an honor to be working with one of the classiest brands in Finland.
"When you walk around the beutiful corridors flooded with natural light and set foot into one of the atmospheric meeting rooms or the stunning concert hall, it is everything but difficult to grasp what makes it so unique."
E-mail campaigns with an edge
Spam, spam, spam and more Spam - that's what our mailboxes are filled with these days. So how do you make an impact with an e-mail? We faced this challenge when we were designing targeted e-mail campaigns to selected customer segments. We analyzed the competition in each segment and tried to find an angle that would make Finlandia Hall stand out.
For example most exhibition and fashion shows in Finland are arranged in factory-like venues such as the Cable Factory or Helsinki Fair Center. We turned the scenario upside-down and approached the organizers with a fashion/trend statement saying "Factories are so 2005."
Eurooppanuoret
Political Campaign for Young people
EU had the Parliament elections in the spring of 2009. Like in many countries, Finnish youngsters aren’t that interested in politics. This is why the Eurooppanuoret aka Young European Federalists Finland wanted a campaign to arouse interest for the elections among the people. They contacted us to design a compelling and forward-going image. The campaign was titled as The Owners of Europe.
The campaign image was applied to dozens of materials from condoms and balloons to posters and post cards. A crucial part of the whole campaign was the site that introduced all the young candidates and provided fun content about the elections.
ADDlife
New life to an Out-of-home Marketing company
The advertising branch can be very innovative and we love to work with people who try to make the corporate world a bit more fun. A Finnish guerilla marketing company ADDLife wanted to work with us to make their image cool and young as they were. The company is nothing but conservative so we wanted to give it a little wow effect.
The theme of the brand image comes from the name, it adds life. ADDLife has a diverse brand that involves growing green, baby delivery and robots giving birth to electronical eggs. A little crazy, we know. But that’s the whole point.
We have helped ADDLife to design the brand image, visuals, sales material, corporate presentations and the web site.
24tuntia.com
Creating a web service in 24 hours
It is possible to create a web business model and put it running in 24 hours. Together with Kisko Labs we wanted to prove this. We decided the date and reserved the domains but didn’t design anything before the actual sprint.
We designed the service UI and created the visual image while Kisko Labs did all the tech stuff. We also documented the whole process in our blog and crowdsourced a lot on Facebook and Twitter. During the day and night there were 2 000 unique users following what we did on Floobs, Twitter, Facebook and our blog. Not bad for a B2B campaign in a day.
Borenius & Co
Refining an 80-year old brand
Old brands carry a lot on their shoulders. Over the years stories and associations start to take form and a simple logo can become a signature for company standards like quality, customer service and expertise. The chance to breath new life to strong and respected brand, is what made us thrilled about working with BORENIUS & Co’s brand renewal.
The task was to bring the company image to the new century while maintaining its meaning and history. There was a pretty big gap in time as the original logo was designed in the 1920’s.
After getting a grasp of what Borenius and the people who work there were really about, we payed our respects the 80-year old brand and tried to keep everything we loved about it. The logo itself received only minor retouching and reforming, but the new visual outlook was fully redone. It found its core from the old patent drawings and other historical artefacts we came across at Borenius. The end result communicated a fresh and modern brand image accompanied with timeless elegance and class.
The new image is currently being applied to all of the company's materials and everyday interactions from business cards and roll-ups to slideshows and a new website, which will be released later this year. We are even creating a book of the company’s services and philosophy. Now, the grandpa has a new wardrobe for some serious flirt.
Prominent Food GMP
There's a new challenger in the B2B spice sector
In 2008 Prominent Food GMP contacted us about launching a new B2B food brand called Promix. Our goal was to deliver brand guidelines that would reflect the image of easy but premium quality institutional catering products. Based on the guidelines we created printed materials, magazine ads and attractive packaging designs for the brand.
The new Promix website included comprehensive product information and helpful calculators for recipes. As a parallel project we created a complete grinder packaging identity for their spice brand line Capsi.
Young Lions Finland
Every Act should be a Threesome
In 2009 Lauri and Joni took part again to the Young Lions advertising competition, which is an annual competition for designers and copywriters under the age 30. It was their second attempt on getting a ticket to Cannes. Last year they received an honorary merit for their entry, so hopes were high.
The brief was to create a series of newspaper ads for the Finnish Aids Council and Hiv & Aids foundation. The goal was in all its simplicity to get young people feel more comfortable about using condoms. The timeframe for creating the campaign was 72 hours. After a relaxing bottle of Moët Lauri and Joni came up with an overall concept: "Let's make it a Threesome."
The end result received attention and praise in forums, blogs and magazines. It was even spotted by a french blogger as superb condom ad. Some predicted it to be a clear winner and some critized the visual style for being more suitable to adults. One fellow designer even said that the visuals were too stunning and stole focus from the Idea.
Despite all the hype the boys were unfortunately still left without a ticket to Cannes, even though they were once again among the finalists. Who knows, maybe third time is the charm?
Marektoy
Board games with a passion
Marektoy, our very first customer, is a family-run business importing board games and toys like the robotic baby dinosaur Pleo. They also have a second brand called Competo, that's more visible to the consumers.
During the past few years we have created sales materials, online campaigns, television commercials and packaging designs for them. The marektoy identity is also one of our creations.
KY 100
Celebration of a century
KY, the Student Union of Helsinki School of Economics, is celebrating its one hundredth birthday in 2011. They asked us to deliver an identity, visual outlook, web presence and an outdoor campaign in the spirit of their traditions and activities during the past hundred years.
This project project is especially close to us all, as KY has been an important organization in our lives and a key factor in Bolder’s own story as well. It was actually the renewal project of KY's website, that brought us together and lead to founding this company.
KY is the biggest and finest organization of economics students in Finland. Its colourful history includes big international and national projects. Today it is a vital and prospering community of over 3000 students, providing over 800 student apartments and looking after the students' interests.
KY is also known for organizing dozens of cultural and sporting events like the infamous III-kierros and always exciting KY City Challenge. We are proud members of this community, and feel it also as a matter of the heart to make this celebration look and feel unforgettable.
So far only the logo has been published, but more of our work will be displayed in the beginning of the fall term 2010, when the visual outlook will be published.
Helsinki School of Economics
Information Technology Program
ITP, the Information Technology Program at Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), is a summer program that combines business with technology through high-class lecturers on IT business trends, a hands-on –approach to visual and web design as well as a very practical 90-day company project.
We were asked to design an appealing print materials for the marketing of the program. As the program is one of a kind in the course offering of HSE, we aimed to deliver a brochure that was as unique. Most of us have been studying in the program for one or two summers –and three of us have even been involved in running the program, so we were even more passionate about creating a great prints for the program.
The youthful look and design of our work received credit, and the student marketing in 2009 was very successful.
A great example of what is done in the program is a product chooser that was created for Suunto in 2008. Lauri was the Art Director / Graphic designer in the group and Kristian was Coordinating.
You can see the finished application here: Suunto Product Chooser
Lasse Männistö
Successful political Campaign
In fall 2008 Lasse, one of the founders of Bolder, decided to run for a post in the communal elections in Helsinki. It was a challenge to prove our skills with a political campaign that would stand out, arouse interest among young people and still present Lasse as a serious candidate.
The major theme for the campaign was a more metropolitan –like Helsinki. We created the visual outlook, which included a everything from newspaper ads to videos, websites to social media interaction and walking billboards to ads in the public transportation system.
You can say hello to one of the youngest city council members at: www.lassemannisto.fi
Lyyra
Time to rethink a few things
We are always eager to help when the mission is to conquer the world. Lyyra is a service company for students and academy staff. It started out from Helsinki University but in few years it has launched in almost every Finnish university. The idea is to combine a student card, a debit card and benefits under one brand.
Lyyra invited us to solve some problems they were facing as they grew. Lyyra had to redesign their web service again. Facebook had forced Lyyra aside a bit and it was time to rethink the concept. We spent a day with their people and found few future paths for the service. Based on these findings we created the new concept. Our basic message was: focus on the core and forget the nonsense.
Our workshop had a big impact on the future of the service, and it only took a day! You don’t have to crawl to get further. We have also helped Lyyra in creating an annual marketing plan to create buzz among the freshmen. In these workshops we have found that when the time is limited and there is a world to change, people tend to over exceed themselves.
Young Lions Finland
There are some places dicks shouldn’t visit
It was winter 2008 when Lauri, one of our creatives, decided to participate to the Young Lions advertising competition with his old friend and partner in crime, Joni Valkonen. It is an annual competition for designers and copywriters under the age 30.
During that time Bolder had been up an running for only a few months and it was the first time anyone was representing ‘the Bolder Spirit’ in a competition. One could say it was not a bad start.
The brief was to create a newspaper ad against unsustainable tourism for the Tour Operators Initiative. The entry Lauri and Joni created took a stand against sex tourism, which stood out as one of the key themes in the briefing and background material.
The Judges had very mixed feelings about this particular entry and it raised a lot of conversation. Their initial reactions were “You can’t do this” yet somehow they all had it on their shortlist (unlike the winner).
In the end the judges called it “A solid entity. Shocking and icy.” and we received an honorary merit for the work.
