Tomi Leppänen designed breezy, typography-inspired outdoor rugs for Mum’s

Mum’s novelty product comes from designer Tomi Leppänen. Launched in September, the outdoor rug collection will make its makers and users happy for a long time. Helsinki Design Weekly proudly presents the beautiful, sustainable end result of their collaboration: rugs that have been made entirely of recycled material.

Helsinki Design Weekly proudly presents novelties from the design world, highlighting some interesting products Helsinki Design Weekly proudly presents novelties from the design world, highlighting some interesting products whose is in both the design and the quality and sustainability of the making. The Tomi Leppänen x Mum’s rug collection is minimalistic by design and called Typewriter. Leppänen found inspiration for abstract patterns, shapes and views when he was studying the history of Bauhaus and ran into textile designer Anni Albers’s experiments. Illustrating with lines and dots on a typewriter inspired Leppänen to play with modern emojis on the Mum’s rug.

Plastic fibre can be made feel elegant and wool-like under the human foot. **Tomi Leppänen**’s design adds visual playfulness to the rug.

“Particularly these days smileys are good for us!” says Mum’s design founder Outi Puro. She is happy that the design created by Puro adds a breezy vibe to the new rug collection and category of Mum’s. Using typography in design is not new to Leppänen, however. In 2018, the founder of the Japanese Minä Perhonen brand Akira Minagawa chose Leppänen’s Juhannuskruunu (“Midsummer Crown”) illustration the winner of the Nordic Design for New Designers competition in Osaka. The crown was drawn using dashes.

Beautiful, sustainable rugs for the outdoor

A plastic rug does not sound like an attractive or sustainable solution, and at first Puro did not want such an item in the collection. However, the image quickly changes when the re-use of a recycled material enters the equation. The material for the outdoor rug with a fabulous look & feel is PET fibre from recycled plastic bottles. The refining process is challenging and takes time, but the end-result is highly rewarding, appeasing to the eye and comfortable to step on. Manipulating recycled fibre into a textile-type fabric is a completely new technique.

The rug’s minimalistic design adds quality and elegance to an outdoor space. Its pattern is embroidered on top of the fabric based on Leppänen’s design. The artesans working from home or small workshops in North India are compensated fairly with special attention paid to their working conditions.

Tomi Leppänen’s design, hand-made artesan embroidery and a sustainable process translate into a do-not-miss-this novelty for the Mum’s collection.

See more of Mum’s HERE.

Stylist: Iina Kettunen

Photoshoot Art Director: Tomi Leppänen