Lena Hautoniemi‘s wallpapers first captured us with their beautifully organic, ethereal, homemade feel. What’s so wonderful about her pattern work is that most of them were indeed created lovingly by hand with paintbrushes and pens before being turned into wallpaper, textiles and other surface designs. Her first love has always been painting, a love which has followed and inspired her throughout her career. She studied industrial design with a specialization in glass and porcelain at College of Design and Applied Arts (HDK) in Göteborg and still happily dabbles in the medium in addition to her other work, frequently combining all of her passions. Living in the countryside of Sweden and the nature that surrounds her is a large inspiration to her pattern-work, but stresses that she finds inspiration everywhere. We love the story she told us about the story of Wingbud, her line of wallpaper:

“My son and I did once see a movie with incredible animations and unique characters, during this movie, I had a weird feeling of familiarity towards the animations. It struck me as the movie ended! The style is related to an English art book, an art book with mythical creatures which happens to be one of the first I ever got.
I find the book among the shelves and put it in Theo’s lap ‘you can have this’ I said. The look in his eyes was priceless. He rushed towards his drawing materials and reached for his sketchbook. Within only a moment ‘Here!’ he proudly cried in English ‘This is a Wingbud!’

Consequently, I ran for the dictionary, as Wingbud is a whole new word for me, however, it’s not there! I try the web, and the word appears in studies of insects’ wings.

The Wingbud drawing hangs on the wall for months and did frequently caught my eye as I sketched patterns for my wallpapers. When I tried to find a name for my collections, I looked up against the wall and glanced at the Wingbud drawing like so many times before, and it became clear, at that moment I knew what I wanted to name my collection; Wingbud Wallpapers!

I asked my son for his permission to use his drawing as my logo. ‘What?’ he said indignant, ‘do you mean to take my idea?’ But he approved, as long as it’s known the idea is truly his and always will be. It’s called copyright and we eternalize our agreement on papers. And as six year olds seldom apply for patent, I did it for him.”