Mika
Launis

Mika Launis began working as an illustrator while still in school, when he created illustrations for the Teinileihti and Ylioppilaslehti magazines, as well as for the columns of Helsingin Sanomat.

– When I was still in high school, I thought I would become a doctor. Somehow, school didn’t appeal to me. I was involved in social movements and left both school and home. However, the truth soon dawned on me that I had to make a living somewhere, and I found help in illustration work for magazines.

Launis says that he admired Kari Suomalainen , even though he didn’t always agree with him on things.

– I was convinced that I would be the heir to Kari’s mantle and I went to Henrik Tikkanen to offer my work. After we had talked for a while, I realized that maybe I wasn’t as good as I had imagined, laughs Mika Launis.

However, he found work in magazine illustration and layout, and in addition to that, Launis made posters, brochures for travel agencies, and graphic design for companies.

One of his most famous posters is For Peace, which has been accepted as an international peace poster. While in the army, Launis decided to apply to the University of Art and Design Helsinki – and was accepted.

The key work in the Golden Grove production

As his final project at the University of Art and Design, Launis illustrated the Sámi fairy tale book The Girl Who Became a Golden Pond (1982). It is an old folk tale told by Annukka and Samuli Aikio .

– I knew Samuli already, and I also had acquaintances in Utsjoki. When I went to get to know the Sámi for my work, I had guides of my own. It was only when I was there that I learned that my great-uncle Armas Launis had traveled to the same regions and places when he was collecting Sámi yoik poetry.

Mika Launis says that writing the Sámi book was also a way of breaking away from political activity and that the book is the key work of his entire production.

– This project took the longest of all my work. I worked on it long and hard, but all the work I’ve done since then is based on that work in one way or another. Only the way I approach it may have changed.

The book was published in several different Sámi languages, as well as in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. All the illustrations in the book have been sold to Norway, the artist only has a few sketches of his own. The illustrations in the book were published as the subject of the Finnish Post’s Europe stamp series in 1997.

Mika Launis considers the highly publicized cover illustrations for the Harry Potter books to be just one of his many works. He was given a rough translation of the book to read when he was already starting to create the illustrations.

– For me, it is a coherent series of illustrations, if you compare it to the international versions. My Harry is a sad-looking, scrawny nerd and wizard. He has glasses fixed with tape, a lot of hair and a lightning bolt on his forehead. The character was created quickly, even though the book only describes his appearance in a few words, says Mika Launis.

The book was apparently not expected to be particularly successful in the book market. It was only sought to attract support from small-circulation translated literature.

Launis says he has only seen the first of the Harry Potter films.

– It’s an action movie for young people and children, which contains some fun. The characters in the movie are quite different from my views.

However, his influences came from Renaissance painting. They are visible , for example, in the Harry Potter  book series, for which Launis did all the covers. JK Rowling’s series is a typical huge success, coming unsolicited and as a surprise. It was only with the third book that we really began to realize what a goldmine the author had struck. It is telling that the Finnish translation of the first Potter book received support from translated literature with low circulation. So Launis did his Potter cover according to the usual lump-sum agreement – ​​3,000 marks for the first books, or just under 700 euros in today’s money. On the other hand, he had greater freedom than is usually the case with billion-dollar brands.    

“In illustration and cover jobs, a professional tries to determine as soon as possible how long it will take. The fee is small, so the effort has to be measured so that something is left over from the cleaner’s salary  ,” Launis reflects on the constraints of the profession. On his most productive days, he could even complete two covers. 

However, Potter seemed like a different kind of gig. He didn’t want to spend just one day on the work. The text seemed more compelling than usual, and the publisher also thought that Potter might sell a bit. The illustrator was enthusiastic. Finnish translator  Jaana Kapari-Jatta  had not wanted to give Launis a rough translation of the first book, but had to give in. 

“I read the text in bits and pieces and then drew the illustrations for the front and back covers. In the end, it took about a week to complete one book, plus sketching and preliminary work.”  

Due to the slow start of the Potter phenomenon, each country had time to publish its own books. The films accelerated the phenomenon, but no longer influenced the appearance of Finnish publications.  

“The original cover image of the first Potter was dominated by the English signs at the train station. That’s why each country ended up making its own cover, and the original wasn’t used,” says Launis, who particularly appreciates the professional execution of the Potter covers from Sweden and the United States. 

Launis’s illustrations have a special atmosphere. He considered it important that the book did not feel like one of a dozen other works, but rather like a children’s book aimed at slightly older readers  , one that respects the reader with its restrained execution. Instead of action, Launis emphasizes the relationships between the characters and the essential tensions of the series. The plot must not be revealed too much, but the spirit of the book must be captured. Thus,  the cover of the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone  (Tammi, 1998) depicts a chess match in which Harry and his new friends participate as pieces.    

“I liked the absurd space Rowling created, where the action only begins when outsiders enter, and stops when they leave.” 

Initially, the typography of the series was also restrained, but Tammi’s studio “drew it up” in later editions. However, the restrained but immersive color scale of Launis’s illustrations was retained. Its special feature is its painterly multi-layeredness.  

Launis utilizes the so-called aerial perspective so that the colors in the foreground are warm and cool down as they move into the background. The contrasting colors create a ghostly atmosphere, which is emphasized by the transparency of the execution. There seems to be different levels, different realities in the same image. The final part of the Harry Potter series,  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  (Tammi, 2008), is downright church-like in spirit and symbolism. 

This is where the essence of the book series lies. What we perceive with our eyes is not everything, behind this there is another reality and behind that there are others. Times and places are present in an overlapping manner.