Typography is the selection and use of typefaces (or fonts). It’s not by writing by hand that you produce typography but by employing pre-prepared letters (typefaces). For the general public, typography is still mostly a closed book, even though we live surrounded by it. Nevertheless, it does arouse interest and provoke opinions.

Sometimes I am offered other assignments connected to my profession – writing an article, giving a lecture, teaching. I usually accept because their purpose is the same as my work: to visually improve our environment. They all involve rearranging information in a form that is more logical, more interesting, and easier to absorb. They include selecting the most illustrative examples and removing imprecise expressions. There is and will be an inexhaustible demand for that.

During my first two academic years I was studying concurrently at the University of Helsinki and Mainosgraafikkojen koulu, a traditional school for graphic design. This combination resulted in long, fragmented days which often kept me up around the clock. I spent most of my third academic year in the army, and it was only in the fourth year that was I able to dedicate myself full time to the University.

After a fifteen-year break, I returned to academia to start my doctoral studies at the University of Industrial Arts and Design. I was annoyed when in the middle of my studies its name changed to Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Today, there must be at least 200,000 different typefaces in the world. If I had to choose, from all of them, one single letter to represent both elegant and practical design, or as a sample to an alien civilization, I would nominate the lowercase a of Gill Sans.