Happy new year to everyone! January is already steaming ahead and the Archives have been busy from the moment we opened our doors again after the holiday period. Just before we broke off, there was a lot of activity around an exhibition entitled ‘The Incredible Lightness of Being – Jiří Pelcl – Czech Design’ that opened here at the Grand Parade Gallery on the 6th of January. To go alongside this major exhibition, Professor Jonathan Woodham (co-curator of the exhibition) also came down to the Archives to choose Czech posters from the ICOGRADA collection to be exhibited alongside the main exhibition. Seventeen of these are now on show in the main corridor and reception area of Grand Parade for the duration of the Jiří Pelcl exhibition.

In other news, this year marks Helsinki’s appointment as the third city to carry the title of World Design Capital. Here in the Archives, we are at the beginning stages of building a digital resource to celebrate the Finnish materials we have in our collections. This is especially exciting for me personally as it gives me a chance to familiarise, research and get nostalgic about these materials from my country of origin! It also ties in nicely with the WDC initiative as we hold in our collections the ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) archive. ICSID are the organisation the World Design Capital event operates under, deciding which city gets awarded with the title every two years. In 2012, Helsinki is not only the Design Capital of the World but has many other reasons to celebrate; it has been the capital of Finland for 200 years this year, Helsinki-Vantaa airport turns 60, the National Theatre celebrates its 140th and the National Ballet its 90th.

And to add to the celebrations, my blog turned a somewhat more modest 1 this week. Perhaps it really is time to bake a cake and pop open the champagne!