The Pori Jazz 2025 poster Björn to Jazz designed by graphic designer Markus Viitakoski

Viitakoski approached Pori Jazz already in autumn 2023 with his now selected work Björn to Jazz. The festival has a tradition of choosing a new poster for each year. The poster is commissioned alternately from domestic and international artists. In summer 2024, it was the turn of an international artist and the poster was designed by Ukrainian Yevheniia Vynokurova, so Viitakoski’s bid was put on hold until the next round of selection. In late summer 2024, the festival organisation went back to the accumulated bids and Viitakoski’s work stood out as the clear favourite.

”In the poster, my aim has been to create a visual landscape of Pori’s energetic summer and jazz world, where the rough rootedness meets today’s frenetic ferocity. As Pori Jazz is as much a holistic human experience as it is an artistic firework, the graphic designer has his challenges. The festival moves, challenges and comforts its audience, acting as an interpreter of life itself. My aim is both to honour the spirit and tradition of the festival and to create something new in common. I hope to have given you a glimpse of this.”

The new poster will serve as the basis for each year’s graphic line, which will be reflected on the festival’s website and social media channels, printed matter, decoration, clothing and other products.

”I wanted to create a character that lives, breathes and plays the pulse of human music. Collective heartbeats. The pulse of the city. The player and the instrument are one. The experience when notes are not just sounds, but emotions, stories and moments that linger in the soul long after the last note of the orchestra has carried over the river on a summer night.”

Markus Viitakoski was born in Vantaa. The work of his mother from Isojoenranta and father from Pomarkku brought the family back to their roots in Satakunta, first in Ulvila and then in Harjavalta, which Viitakoski considers an ideal environment for growing up. ”Without (micro)processed hobby opportunities, I had too much time for other things. Guitar playing. Reading. Even homework. And above all, drawing. Nature was close by and it influenced everything I did.”

Viitakoski, who studied at Lybecker in Raahe, ended up in Jyväskylä with his wife Taina Pipinen. Markus Viitakoski has worked for many years as a magazine illustrator and later as a graphic designer. The couple have a graphic design agency PIGME.

Pori Jazz has always been an important festival for Viitakoski. ”Pori Jazz has always been with me. Daring. Relaxed. A dizzy haven of music. A legend. The omnipotent possibility of the deep pulse of Pori filling every nook and cranny of my soul year after year. After the concert, when we cycled on our godfather’s bike on a summer night to our grandmother’s house on Holmintie in Isojoenranta, nothing better mattered anymore.”

The festival’s poster art is close to the graphic designer’s heart. ”The posters on my walls, which I have already admired to the point of being tired, have served as a reminder of all the experiences I have had at Pori Jazz. For me, it was a dream to create one years ago. As a graphic designer, I have found designing a Pori Jazz poster one of the most rewarding tasks. The other day I was living the most intense spring of my youth when someone came up to me and told me that you had already turned 50. I thought it was about time. I got in touch. Pori Jazz responded.”

https://www.pigme.fi
https://www.instagram.com/markus.viitakoski