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OLAVI LINDÉN
Finnish toolmaker
For more than 350 years, Fiskars has forged, hammered, bent and welded iron into refined tools sold all over the world. In the United States alone, the firm's largest market, millions of Americans bought a pair of Fiskars scissors last year. The company also produces a line of garden tools including pruners, loppers and shears. Whatever their intended use, Fiskars utensils are designed for functionality. "A spade should look like a spade," says chief designer Olavi Lindén. "An exaggerated avant-garde look makes a product so strange that nobody wants it. A successful product should be simple and honest." That design philosophy has won the company numerous awards over the years.
Fiskars was founded in the town of the same name in 1649 as an iron works and hammer mill producing nails, wire, knives, hoes and reinforced wheels. In the 1830s, the company established Finland's first fine forging workshop. The fine forgers, each of whom trained for eight years, guarded their professional secrets carefully. Any unfinished work was securely locked up at the end of the day's labors. Today, Fiskars craftsmen use computer simulations to measure the impact of various designs on the muscles of the hand and arm.
As Finland's oldest industrial company and one of the oldest companies in the world, Fiskars has managed to show that sticking with what you are good at — and refining the craft in step with new technology — is the best way to stay in business. Although materials, shapes and production methods may change, Fiskars has shown that carefully designed tools will always be in fashion — and in demand.
—ULLA PLON