Aleksanteri Karanka
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I’m saska, a digital designer with a web developer background. This site is a showcase of my favourite design works.

Works

Me

My name is Aleksanteri Karanka though people usually call me saska. I was born in 1991 in Tampere, Finland, where I’m still living to this day.

I've worked as a full-time designer for ~year. Before that I worked as a full-stack developer (ranging from WordPress to mobile app development) for ~five years. In 2022 I also became a certified Web Accessibility Specialist .

At the moment (January 2023) I'm happily employed at Vincit as a UI Designer / Accessibility Expert.

Mikko Kesä Oy

Mikko Kesä Oy

Visual identity, web & document designs
2022
Mikko Kesä Oy and mielipiteeni.fi websites shown on desktop and mobile screens respectively.

Background

Mikko Kesä Oy, a small research company, needed a fresh visual look that would unify their brand across all different mediums and materials and also bring mielipiteeni.fi, a service of theirs, under the same unified branding. The new look was implemented on two existing WordPress websites, a Word document template, two different PowerPoint templates, and an email newsletter.

Design process

Based on our initial discussions with the client I created a web design concept with new typography, color palette and Mikko Kesä Oy logo. Using that as a basis we started iterating over details and working on a more comprehensive web design and the document templates. At every step I sketched additional concept images and discussed them with the client, utilising their expertise to make sure everything would be practical in real world use.

A comparison of Mikko Kesä Oy and mielipiteeni.fi logos.

Result

While most of that initial web design concept was changed over the project, the main pillars stayed mostly unchanged from that initial concept: the slanted logo, the color palette, and Readex Pro — a geometric zero-contrast typeface. In addition, the wavy stripes motif quickly emerged as a versatile element to add visual interest when needed. These components, including a similarly slanted speech-bubble logo, were also applied to the visual identity of mielipiteeni.fi service.

Printed pages of a Word document.
Printed pages of a Word document.
Printed pages of a Word document.
Printed pages of a Word document.

Implementation

For the websites I created an ad hoc WordPress plugin that patched in a new coat of paint over an existing theme. In addition to style overrides the plugin also included a few new Gutenberg blocks. For the document templates, achieving the desired look without compromising ease of use involved circumventing the limitations of Microsoft Office products by creating custom font files with tampered metadata.

Both the document templates and websites went through an extensive testing with different devices, screen sizes and operating systems to minimize compatibility problems.

Tools
XD, Illustrator, Photoshop, Word, PowerPoint, FontForge
Typefaces
Readex Pro, Rubik One
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