Parvati Pillai

The new designer of the Moomin mugs

Background

Parvati Pillai was born in India, but lives currently in Finland. She is a designer and an illustrator. She is the founder of Puru design studio, which she founded in 2016. She studied in Maharashtra Institute of Technology and Aalto University.

Work with Moomin

She started working for Fiskars Group in 2022 when the old Moomin mug designer Tove Slotted, who has designed most of the Moomin mugs, retired.

She first became aware of the Moomins while in Finland as a 26 year old student. She saw Moomin products all over in the stores in Finland and became fascinated by the cute characters.

Journey Moomin mug is the first one designed by Pillai. Friendship mug is her personal favorite Moomin mug.

Designing Moomin mugs

Despite being the main designer of the new Moomin mugs, she has to approve all the designs with Moomin characters. And no matter how many times you ask her, unfortunately she is not allowed to tell anything about the future releases, Pillai told Helsingin Sanomat on their interview with her.

However, she did mention that she especially likes the Inspector Moomin character. She does get a lot of requests for the new mugs from the Moomin collectors.

Future designs

Even though Parvati Pillai is mainly responsible for designing Moomin mugs, we will most likely see her illustrations in other Moomin items by Arabia in the future as well. Often plates, bowls and other ceramic items share similar designs.

All the designs are based on the original works of Tove Jansson. Did you know that besides her and Tove Slotte, Camilla Moberg has also designed some of the Moomin mugs? For example Moomin mug Green.