Tsto

Flow Festival 2011
The identity for Flow Festival builds on the idea of the festival crowd as an urban tribe, united by a metaphorical mantra of a visual wordplay set in the bespoke Flow-typeface influenced by contemporary central European trends of postmodern craftsmanship. Together with the amulet-like illustrations of Santtu Mustonen, the repetition of letters and images resembles the rhythm of music and creates the core visual language and imagery for the project. This arrangement of elements was used across all media platforms, from web and print to motion graphics, and from venue signage to office stationery.

Illustrator Santtu Mustonen, digital agency Byroo, production company Beige/Harmaa and musician Matti Pentikäinen worked as Tsto’s key collaborators on the project.
Minni f. Ronya
Minni f. Ronya is a ready-to-wear women’s label from Helsinki. A mix of functionality and spontaneity, the label pays attention to detail in fit and finish while introducing wild printed patterns and avant-garde shapes to wearable garments.
Vuoden Huiput
With Vuoden Huiput (The Best of the Year in Finnish advertising and design) Tsto wanted to experiment with the relatively dubious and unpredictable nature of crowdsourcing and the visual language of anonymous internet users. Together with a programmer Tsto created an application that transformed any written word or sentence into a rebus, a device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. In English, a rebus often uses homonyms, as seen in the classic IBM logo consisting of a picture of an eye, a picture of a bee and the letter M. However, homonyms are rare in Finnish language, therefore a rebus was constructed from a list of some 5000 words with the most used syllables and matched with an image search result from Google. The combinations of images and letters may seem just a visual gimmick at first glance, but challenged the audience to look beneath the mere surface.
Gaijin
Restaurant Gaijin opened its doors in April 2011. Gaijin focuses on North Asian cuisine, combining the traditional with the contemporary. Tsto stepped in to create the visual identity for this fantastic restaurant.
Basso Magazine
Founded in 2001, Basso Media runs a magazine, a national radio station, online TV and a large online community. In 2010, Basso Magazine broadened their scope from strictly music related content to include all aspects of youth culture, making the magazine a forerunner nationwide. Basso includes reader-generated and interactive content by the online community and is published thematically. The various issues have covered topics such as DIY, Family, Money, Insanity, Emergency and Fantasy… Tsto wanted the look and feel to communicate a new way of thinking and doing, moving towards globally evolving, post-materialistic visual culture. The sources of inspiration varied from the aesthetics of punk, hip-hop and graffiti culture, snapshot photography and the old New Kids On The Block logo. The bespoke Basso Multiweight typeface was created as part of the redesign.
El Camino
Husky Rescue and El Camino are both projects by Marko Nyberg, an artist and a producer. Husky Rescue is a well-known music group with a strong visual language, which Tsto wanted to remain on the foreground throughout the website. El Camino Helsinki is Marko Nyberg’s audio design studio. Tsto based El Camino’s identity around an embossing stamp and a custom typeface, which was used for both projects. The forms of the typeface were shaped from ten geometric modules, resulting in a geometric sans with characteristic faults.
Regina
Regina is a three-piece band consisting of husband and wife duo Mikko and Iisa, and a third wheel also named Mikko. Soita mulle is their fourth album and is heavily influenced by the youth and indie music of the 90′s. Tsto created a new logo and sleeves for the singles and the album. Album photography by Megan McIsaacs.
Too Much Night
Too Much Night is a 386-page publication with a wide range of articles spanning from film, theatre and fashion, to close-ups on artists in peril, conspiracy theories and obituaries. The book was designed for the editor, writer and filmmaker Mr CS Leigh in Paris in early 2010. Since it was published, Mr Leigh has been impossible to reach, leaving behind a stack of unpaid invoices. Searching online results in some very interesting articles written about this ‘Catch Me If You Can’ kind of monomaniac. “I think Too Much Night is about being fed up with all the bullshit and all the fake dazzle that is painted over everything in the culture industries nowadays and the way that most people accept or even protect that.” –CS Leigh in an interview for Qompendium magazine.
We Are Helsinki
We Are Helsinki is a free city magazine. It is published six times a year and distributed to nearly 200 spots in Helsinki. In connection with Tsto's redesign of We Are Helsinki, the magazine grew in content as well. New sections include the Product Placement spread (a conceptual photographic story connected with the different theme of each issue), the Portfolio section, articles by think tank duo OK-Do, and a follow up series on Helsinki World Design Capital.

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Thumbnails / Biography

Tsto is a creative agency founded by six graphic design professionals specialized in visualizing ideas to help clients define and communicate their identity and message. Tsto's approach is thorough and hands-on and combines to-the-point design thinking with a craftsman’s can-do attitude. Tsto works with other proven professionals in whatever media the work requires. Instead of competing with other creatives or agencies, the agency sees them as possible collaborators. Tsto is Johannes Ekholm, Jonatan Eriksson, Inka Järvinen, Matti Kunttu, Jaakko Pietiläinen and Antti Uotila.

Clients

Basso Media
Burton Snowboards
The City of Helsinki
Confederation of Finnish Industries EK
Design Forum Finland
El Camino Helsinki
Flow Festival
Gaijin
Grafia
Helsinki Design Week
Itella
Kiasma
Levi’s
Minna Parikka
Minni f. Ronya
Myspace
Nokia
Sony Music
Taidehalli
The Finnish Museum of Photography
Universal Music
Warner Music
We Are Group
Wad Magazine
Wärtsilä

Our agency represents Tsto worldwide.