Mari starts each design process by familiarising herself with the company, it’s history, values and production. Sometimes the process can start with an idea or a space where, for example, better acoustics are needed. The Silent Trees installation was born in this way. Her design thinking starts with materials and techniques and continues by combining them in a new and surprising way, she feels that she is a kind of inventor, sometimes an innovative and inventive solution to a problem may be the most interesting feature in a product.

Mari graduated with an MA from Aalto University in 2002 and has since worked extensively with product and graphic design and the visual arts, as well as scenography. The last eleven years as an entrepreneur at Mifuko have brought an own addition to her design work, making it easier to understand a company’s resources and its commercial standpoint, and incorporating these factors into the design work. With her work, Mari wants to support environmental awareness, the circular economy and biodiversity. But she also sees the making of people’s living environments more comfortble as a valuable goal. In her opinion, values should be visible throughout the production chain.