Lauri Ahonen
Breaking Patterns and making an impact
Honors & Awards
Most people know me for my world class photoshop skills, but that's just a part of what I do. My work is more than coming up with fancy campaigns and superb images - it's about creating meaningful content for clients I believe in.
My background is almost as colorful as my personality as I became an entrepreneur already at the age of 16. The diversity of challenges I faced fascinated me as my role streched from management to budgeting and marketing. My success taught me to believe in myself and my failures taught me humility and the value of teamwork.
I am now 26-years-old and I live and work mainly in Helsinki, though I travel a lot to keep my thinking fresh. In 2010 I've already been inspired by visits to Santiago, Vina Del Mar, Pichilemu, Mendoza, Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, Rio De Janeiro, Hong Kong, Macau and New York.
My unique ability is to connect the dots and come up with the unexpected and seemingly impossible. I've surrounded myself with a diverse group of brilliant people and together we approach design and business challenges on multiple levels. We make things happen.
Anything is possible, if you want it bad enough and are willing to do the work. I've been told No by three art schools for a total of eight times, but that didn't stop me from becoming a brilliant designer. My work has been featured in blogs around the world and magazines like Advanced photoshop.
I had trouble finding my way to the industry, so I started my own company with 5 friends from HSE. We work for clients, whose businesses inspire us to do better, thus our own business is thriving and we are constantly growing. We are Bolder.
Young Lions Finland 2009:
Shortlist in the Print series
Young Lions Finland 2008:
Honorary Merit in the Print series
Crestock Photoshop Contest 2007:
3rd place on Round 2
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
UU Challenge
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
UU Theory
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
UU Limited
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Bolder Helsinki
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
ADDlife
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Artwork: Garden of Eden
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Nukkula
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Finlandia Hall
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Frozen Rails
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Aalto University Identity Competition
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Young Lions Finland
Every Act should be a threesome
In 2009 I took part again to the Young Lions advertising competition with my old friend Joni Valkonen. It's an annual competition for designers and copywriters under the age 30. This year the timeframe for creating the campaign was 72 hours.
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. After a relaxing bottle of Moët we came up with an overall concept: "Let's make it a Threesome."
Our work 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 we were still unfortunately left without a ticket to Cannes, even though we were once again among the finalists. Who knows, maybe third time is the charm?
For more information visit:
www.youngcreatives.com/finland
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Bar, restaurant & Night club Bangkok
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Laserpoint
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Suunto product chooser
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Helsinki School of Economics
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Neo Festival
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Lasse Männistö
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Young Lions Finland
There are some places dicks shouldn’t visit
In 2008 I decided to participate to the Young Lions advertising competition with my old friend and partner in crime, Joni Valkonen. It is an annual competition for designers and copywriters under the age 30.
The brief was to create a newspaper ad against unsustainable tourism for the Tour Operators Initiative. Our entry 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.
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Artwork: In Motion
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Crestock photoshop contest
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Gatecrasher & Laserpoint
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Artwork: Life is a game of Chess
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282
Thank you
Inspiring words
Inspiring Videos
People I Respect and recommend
"You can live in a small poor country, like me. You can work for a small company, in a boring branch. You can have no budgets, no people, but still you can put your work to the highest possible level.
Everybody can do it.
You just need inspiration, vision and determination. And you need to remember to be good, is not enough."
-Jacek Utko.
Benjamin Zander @ TED Talks
Music and Passion
Jacek Utko @ TED Talks
Can Design Save the Newspaper
Kseniya Simonova @ Talent Ukraine
Sand Drawing
Michael Wesch, Kansas State University
Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/Using us
Rory Sutherland @ TED Talks
Life lessons of an Ad man
Saara Aalto @ Talent Finland
Singing
The Fun Theory by VolksWagen
Piano Stairs
Tony Robbins @ TED Talks
Why we do What we do?
Antti Akonniemi, Entrepreneur
Site /
LinkedIn /
Twitter
Lauri Jutila, Entrepreneur
Site /
LinkedIn /
Twitter
Perttu Murto, Designer & Illustrator
Portfolio /
LinkedIn /
Twitter
Sami Honkonen, IT Consultant
Site /
LinkedIn /
Twitter
Sami Korhonen, Designer
cAPSLOCK /
LinkedIn
Sami Viitamäki, Strategist
Blog /
LinkedIn
Ville Vesterinen, Startup Activist
Artic Startup /
LinkedIn /
Twitter
lauri (at) bolder.fi / +358 40 542 0282