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a.virtanen

Personal site · est. 2018

Quiet things, made slowly and on purpose.

I'm Aleksi — a photographer and product designer based in Helsinki. This is where I keep my work, my collections, and the things that keep me curious.

Scroll to wander

01 — About

A short note about who I am.

I design calm, considered software during the day and chase light with a camera on the weekends. I like the spaces between things — the pause before a sentence, the breath before a photo.

Most of what I make starts on paper, lives a while in notebooks, and only reaches a screen when it's almost ready. I work best in small teams, shipping carefully, and revising often.

When I'm not at my desk I'm usually outdoors, somewhere damp, with cold hands and a thermos.

Based in
Helsinki, FI
Currently
Senior Designer, Reaktor
Speaks
Finnish, English, a little Swedish
Open to
Print collaborations
Portrait of Aleksi, looking off-camera under soft teal light.

02 — Photos

Frames from quiet places.

A small, rotating selection of recent work. Mostly shot on a Fujifilm X-T4 and an old Pentax K1000 my father gave me.

Foggy forest path at dawn.
Foggy forest path at dawn.
Rain-slick city street with reflected neon.
Rain-slick city street with reflected neon.
Ocean waves under a starry night sky.
Ocean waves under a starry night sky.
Lamplit desk with notebook and vintage camera.
Lamplit desk with notebook and vintage camera.

03 — Collections

Things kept on purpose.

  • Field notebooks

    42 volumes

    Hand-stitched Midori and Leuchtturm books, filled since 2014.

  • Vinyl, mostly jazz

    210 records

    ECM, Blue Note, and the occasional Finnish folk pressing.

  • Vintage cameras

    11 bodies

    Pentax, Yashica, Olympus. Some work, some are shelf company.

  • Ceramic mugs

    27 mugs

    From small Nordic potters. One per morning, in rotation.

04 — Interests

What keeps me curious.

Slow photography

Long walks, one roll of film, no plan. The kind of shooting where the looking matters more than the picture.

Essays & long reading

Currently: John Berger, Maggie Nelson, and back issues of Apartamento.

Hiking, mostly Lapland

Two weeks a year above the Arctic Circle. Snow, silence, and bad coffee.

Quiet interfaces

Design that whispers. Software that respects your attention and gets out of the way.

05 — Skills

Things I'm fluent in.

Design

  • Product design
  • Design systems
  • Typography
  • Editorial layout

Build

  • HTML & CSS
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Tailwind
  • Framer Motion

Craft

  • Film & digital photography
  • Darkroom basics
  • Letterpress
  • Bookbinding

Tools

  • Figma
  • Linear
  • Obsidian
  • Lightroom
  • VS Code

06 — Other stuff

A few small, current things.

Updated when I remember to update it. Treat as approximate.

Now playing
Arvo Pärt — Tabula Rasa
Reading
The Outermost House, Henry Beston
Drinking
Kyoto-style cold brew, very slow
Side project
A small letter-press zine, issue 03 in spring
Last walk
Nuuksio, 11km, two thermoses
Wishlist
A Hasselblad 500 C/M, eventually