Zeynep Falay von Flittner: “Towards a More Inclusive and Impactful Ornamo” 

Designer Zeynep Falay von Flittner finds it inspiring to be part of the Ornamo board, which is actively considering the role of design in society. She calls for a wide range of voices and perspectives to help build the future of design and encourages anyone interested to apply to join the board.

I’m Zeynep Falay von Flittner – a designer and founder of the Falay Transition Design Collective. I wanted to share some reflections from my first months as a new board member – and also as the first non-Finnish-speaking person to serve on the Ornamo Board. This has made the experience both meaningful and full of learning. 

I’ve been warmly welcomed. Our chairperson, Katja Soini, leads the board with clarity and care, which has made it easy to step into this role. It’s inspiring to be part of a group that actively reflects on the role of design in society and strives to act with purpose. 

We’ve also been experimenting with different ways of working multilingually – using both English and Finnish, and allowing everyone to express themselves in the language they feel most comfortable with. We’re doing our best to make diversity work, without losing the richness of native expression. 

In our May meeting, we welcomed our new student member, Lauriina Markkula from Aalto University. I think it’s fantastic that Ornamo reserves a seat each year for a student – offering a unique opportunity to learn from the board’s work while also bringing the voices and needs of the next generation into the conversation. A warm welcome again, Lauriina! And to other students – please don’t hesitate to apply in the future. 

This meeting was also special because we held a workshop on Ornamo’s emerging impact strategy. We explored how to bring our shared vision to life: Design as a force for sustainability and innovation. What kind of impact do we want to have, and how do we turn that into concrete action? 

One key question we explored was: Where should Ornamo’s influence show up to truly support your work? Should we focus more on public procurement? Increasing media visibility? Policy lobbying? Supporting design buyers? Universities? 

From my perspective, the design community often speaks too much from designers to designers. It’s time to open up, build bridges beyond our field, and make the value of design more visible and relevant to society at large. 

We also reviewed the Design Pulse survey results – and sadly, less than 20% of members responded. This is a gentle but urgent call: we need your voice to better understand the real state of our field. Please participate in the future – your perspective truly matters! 

And finally – if you’ve ever considered joining the board, go for it! You don’t have to be “ready” – just willing. We need a broad mix of voices around the table to shape the future of design. 

Warm regards, 

Zeynep Falay von Flittner 
Ornamo Board Member 
Designer, Transition Design Expert