LIBRARY OF THE YEAR is a competition held by Finnish Library Association and Kuntaliitto, the association of Finnish Municipalities.

We created a visually and aurally stimulating animated experience to both celebrate the incredible societal impact of libraries and invite people to learn more about the competition, nominate their library and vote for a winner.

CLIENT
FLA - KUNTALIITTO
YEAR
2022
SERVICES
ANIMATION -  MUSIC
DIRECTED
HILDÈN- KAIRA
MUSIC
AARNI HILDÈN
Concept
Hildén & Kaira
Animation
Matti Kaira
Music
Aarni Hildén
”From our first contact it was apparent that Matti and Aarni approach film with passion, which is bound to reflect on the work. Their strengths are in idea-rich creativity and eloquent communication.”
VILLE VAARNE FINNISH LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Libraries are a central part of the Finnish life: in fact, the average Finn makes 9 visits a year to some of our more than 700 libraries.

Really, the quality of library services is an important indicator of a sophisticated welfare-state.

Libraries are a central part of the Finnish life: in fact, the average Finn makes 9 visits a year to some of our more than 700 libraries.

Really, the quality of library services is an important indicator of a sophisticated welfare-state.

We chose to raise the stage for our work to a level of abstraction where the incredible societal impact of libraries could be discussed in a clear, unhindered way.

This meant transforming data and meaning to their abstract, symbolic counterparts. A clear, 3-dimensional space as our playground, we compose a world from a set of artistic floral designs, dots, lines, text and symbolism.

The plant illustrations are a signature element of Finnish Library Association's brand, so we decided to heavily incorporate them into the animation.

Above is a board illustrating a few of the plants after we had recoloured them to fit the collaborative competition's visual style, along with some motion sketches and the working names we used for animating each plant.

We focused on using symbolism so topics of immense magnitudes could be discussed in the frame of one's screen size.

The story begins with only a book—the most basic building block of a library—which transforms into a tiny dot, thousands of which we see throughout the entire animation.

Even the shafts of the plants we follow to the eventual reveal of Finland's floral silhouette are composed of numerous tiny dots one after another.

For the music, we wanted something fun. The voice-over too is quite enthusiastic and youthful. However, it was also extremely important to create a feeling of greatness, of historical significance which viewers would associate with libraries.

To start off strong and catch the viewer's interest, we wanted the feeling to be mystical and anticipatory. To achieve this, we recorded a choir (all singers were Aarni) as well as a peculiar but cool, piano-like instrument playing A major in arpeggio.

CHOIR
PIANO

To deliver on that anticipation, we made an acoustic, groovy beat to which the piano, added bass and other instruments jam to.

GROOVY BEAT
INSTRUMENTS