Klaus Haapaniemi "Neko"

Klaus Haapaniemi is an illustrator you should have on your radar. Represented by the brilliant Big Active, and having worked for some fantastic clients he’s racked up more than his fair share of fantastic pieces of artwork along the way. Recently he’s finished a long on-going project called Neko, a children’s book written by Rosa Liksom. We’ve got some images and short interview of what we’ve got in store here.

Hi Klaus, can you tell us a little bit about your practice and what you do?

I’m a designer, specialising in to printed materials. I’m working with quite a large variety of clients from design and fashion brands to department stores and animation houses.

How did the ‘Neko’ book come about?

I was visiting Kyoto and I went so see the famous Ni-Jo castle and had an idea to illustrate a story based in historical Japan. Then after that, I spoke with novelist and author Rosa Liksom whose work I really admire and she promised to think about the project. Then after few months I received the full story from her. It then took me another few years to complete the images.

Have you worked on illustrated books before?

Just one. I’ve made a christmas story book for Selfridges with stories written by people like Lourdes Leon, Sarah Duchess of York, David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osborne etc.

Finally, what was your favourite book as a child?

There was quite few of them but the one that stood out over the others was Bröderna Lejonhjärta by the Swedish author Astrid Lingren