FINLAND

Finland, a country between Sweden and Russia, who was a latecomer to industrialization, actually ranks 1st in the world in the 2010 Newsweek survey based on health, economic dynamism, education, political environment and quality of life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Economy). They also rank high in other category such as second most stable country in the world, and a very competitive country in the world at 7th place. So what could Finland be doing that allows their populations to be so successful?

Finland is covered with 304,473 sq km of land, and 33,672 sq km of water, with a total population of around 5.25 million. 92% of the population speaks Finnish with children age 15 and over able to read and write. Finland processes 1.43 million telephones as main lines in use since 2009 and 7.7 million mobile cellular (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fi.html). Their telephone system is a modern system with excellent service. Other ways of communication was broadcast media through publicly-operated TV stations and privately-owned TV stations. The privately-owned station introduced several special-interest pay TV channels. Cable and satellite, just like here in the U.S. 4.393 million Internet users recorded in 2009, along with 4.394 million Internet hosts in 2010 provided the population of Finland to communicate within the country and out of its regions.

It is stated that somewhere around the lines of 200,000 U.S citizens visit Finland annually, and about 5,000 citizens are resident there. They have an educational exchange program in Finland, which was established to pay off a U.S. loan made in the aftermath of World War I (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3238.htm#econ).

What kind of designer am I?

I thought about this header and what the meaning behind it has for quite some time, sitting there sketching up what might be an ideal image of me. But I drew a blank; what is my kind of style? What kind of designer do I see in myself? A debate of which lead me into the realm of minimalist style.

The minimalist style is one where the designer portrays the atmosphere or idea with minimal materials, but yet is still able to show its artistic side. I believe I see myself within this style as of right now, or where I would like to head to in the near future. Therefore, in the header space provided, I have only generate the require text, the main focus point for this header, and left out the drawing part. There are two purpose to this: 1) Minimalist style I'm trying to gain a sense of knowledge for, how much more minimal can I go than this? 2) The blankness, besides the text, represents a blank start, what I learned from last semester, in order to keep my mind open to new ideas and design. At this point, I believe I'm still unsure of what designer I see myself as, but with this start, maybe by the end of the semester I'll know for sure.