IIRO A. AHOKAS, founder and design director of ATELIER AHOKAS, is an internationally acclaimed Finnish designer and design professional with almost 30 years of experience in creating consumer products in collaboration with hundreds of leading brands. Recognized by Taschen Publishing as one of the World’s Leading Designers and featured in I.D. The International Design Magazine's Year’s Most Ingenious Products, Ahokas has played a key role in helping clients across the lifestyle industries develop successful, globally retailed designs in around 40 countries.

His extensive list of clients and collaborations includes top industry names such as Audi, Unilever, Nokia, Kohl’s, Orkla, Crate & Barrel, Burda, Texton, Iittala, Marimekko, Sangetsu, Toli, Sincol Interior, Richloom, Design House Stockholm, and Bemz, as well as prestigious institutions like the Berlin University of the Arts, Aalto University, and the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. His partnerships also span a wide range of iconic brands, including Arabia, Hackman Designor, Stockmann, CarpetVista, S Group, Kesko Corporation, 4murs, Eurokangas, Otsu Keori, Leaf, Raisio Group, Texmoda, Lilycolor, Tkano, Ugépa, Sandudd, Image Publishing, Anno Collection, Daigo, Vimmacompany, Frenn, and the Finnish State Art Commission, among many others.

Ahokas works internationally on design and art projects that range from industrial production to handcrafted one-offs. His focus lies in creating bold, alternative, and dynamic lifestyle products, including tableware, rugs, interior textiles, wallpapers, lighting, furniture, paper goods, apparel, shoes, bags, jewellery, and accessories. Renowned for his modern, all-gender surface pattern designs, Ahokas has collaborated with companies across the consumer goods and marketing sectors. Notably, the iconic Finnish lifestyle design house Marimekko has produced over fifty home décor items based on Ahokas' artwork since 2006.

Around 400 publications and media outlets have featured Ahokas’ work internationally, with his creations exhibited across Asia, Europe, and North America. His pieces have been showcased at major design fairs, events, and museums, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Murano Glass Museum, la Casa dell'Architettura Roma, Pitti Immagine Uomo, Notojima Glass Art Museum, Design Museum Gent, Stockholm Furniture Fair, IMM Cologne, Design Museum Helsinki, Habitare, and Messe Frankfurt. Ahokas’ works are also part of esteemed collections such as the Murano Glass Museum in Venice, the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection, and the Collections of SOK and LUOMUS.

Ahokas has been recognized with numerous awards, grants, and scholarships, including the prestigious Europäisches Kolleg der Künste/European Academy of Arts, one of the most distinguished European awards in the field. He has also been honored with the K.E.N.K.Ä. shoe designer of the year prize and the international CarpetVista Design Competition award. In 2020, a product featuring Ahokas' surface artwork was nominated for a product design award at the Sustainable Interior Design Awards Flinders in the Netherlands. In 2022, he was selected as the recipient of a grant from the Ornamo Foundation. Ahokas has also received, among others, the Antti Nurmesniemi scholarship, awarded by the Asko Foundation.

In parallel with his commercial design career, Ahokas has gained recognition as an invited lecturer in Industrial Product Design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki and held a lecturer’s position at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, where he led experimental design education within the MA Degree Programme in Applied Art and Design. (2007-2014.)

Born in 1976, Ahokas obtained his Master of Arts degree from his alma mater, the University of Art and Design Helsinki, in 2001 (now the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture). He is a member of Ornamo Art and Design Finland and Design Migration Association. Currently based in Helsinki, Finland, Ahokas remains open to new possibilities, ideas, and collaborations.

"As an artist and designer, one of the main interests and the thematic content of my work is in the psychological aspects of functionality as a diverse term in design. I see design in general as a study of social epidemic, the changes in our environment and the development of urban culture. This is especially interesting in the relationship between space and objects – how objects interact in space, and how humans interact with objects.

I feel that seeing functionality as an inherent part of the object, independent of the user, was born of industrial constitution and mass production – the idea that everyone will use a certain object the same way. To me this created a linguistic and conceptual perversion, the idea that an object can be impractical. I believe that functionality becomes a part of an object only when the object is used or as a by-product of use. This means that functionality is not an attribute of the object as much as of the person using it."