Conference room of Perfect White, a graphic design agency specializing in fashion, is brilliant white with some modern art on the walls. The space is like the name of the agency – Perfect White.

Sara Bengts, the founder of the agency, puts her hands in a new project the same way. “The name is about always starting a new project with an empty table”, she explains.

Perfect White is a Helsinki-based agency, established in July 2007. The agency mainly aims in working with Finnish fashion companies, but it also has clients in the UK, for example, thanks to Sara Bengts’ years in London.

”It’s very important, especially in fashion, that there is a graphic design agency that is familiar with the fashion world – trends turn into another very fast, and there is hard tempo and tight schedules”, Bengts gives reasons for establishing an agency specialized in fashion.

“My aim is not to have recognisable style of my own. Instead, I want to find a style that’s appropriate to a client’s needs and current project.”

Taken by a flood of fashion

Sara Bengts started studying graphic design in Finland, but quickly moved to Milan to continue. She returned to Finland after graduating and working in Milan for a couple of years. Her six-month visit in Helsinki turned into four years, when she decided to do her MA in graphic design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. She also worked in a small graphic design in Helsinki during her MA studies.

”I still haven’t graduated from the UIAH due to moving to London just before the final work. That’s all I have left – maybe I’ll do it this autumn?”, she says.

While studying in Milan, Sara Bengts, 30, also worked for watch company Swatch. “The company was hilarious to work for”, she says. “People there were really international and new people came in from all over the world. I first designed watches but was then moved to the communications, where I designed websites, catalogues, advertisements and so on. All the designers had a deal to work six months for the company, but many stayed there for a year, because the team became like a family to us. I ended up working for Swatch for two years.”

“When I was in London, I worked for an advertisement agency House&Holme. The agency makes large campaigns for the fashion industry. It was great to work with top-quality images, photographers and professionals”, Bengts continues. Her clients in London consisted of companies such as Mulberry, Comme des Garçons, Lanvin, Topshop and Zac Posen.

“When I was at a job interview for House&Holme, the owner Ronnie Cooke Newhouse told me that if I once ended up doing fashion, I will always do fashion.” Cooke Newhouse seemed to be right; when Bengts’ first child announced its coming to the world, she realized that she wouldn’t have time for a peaceful maternity leave in London. She came back to Finland a year ago – and established a graphic design agency, specialised in fashion, in Helsinki.

Best results with several meetings

”There are several negotiations in terms of visual image in the fashion business – maybe even more than in other fields because a client usually already has one designer with a strong vision of what the visual image of the company should be. The original idea is also often changed, because the client’s budget isn’t always big enough to make the idea come true.”

”House&Holme had only three graphic designers, so I made new packaging to [the French fashion house] Lanvin right after starting working for the company. I had done plenty of that kind of packages in Finland, so I was well aware of what I was doing.”

“That project was also the hardest one, because I was new in the office. Designing the packaging was a long process and also a wrangle over challenges – for example, we first order the right shade of blue paper from Japan. This soon turned out to be too expensive and we had to find exactly the same colour somewhere with less expenses”, Sara Bengts recalls.

“Working in the international market is quite much the same than working in Finland. Everybody says there isn’t any money to use. For example, it wasn’t allowed to use any money to direct marketing of Comme des Garçons, so we had to be really creative.”

The blue forget-me-not shade Lanvin packaging has caused many sighs of enchantment in international magazines and also at Lanvin stores, of course. Sara Bengts’ work known among Finnish fashion people are visual image of Kaleidoskooppi (Caleidoscope) fashion show of the University of Art and Design Helsinki two years ago and the visual image of the fashion talk show Fashion Talks.

Also the visual image of Tekstiili- ja muotialat TMA (Textile and Fashion Industries Association), published in the mid-October, is designed by Perfect White.