Designer Lotta Nieminen’s, 27, first book Walk This World has just been released on Big Picture Press. We met Lotta in London during a promotional trip for the project.

Walk This World is a colourful lift-flap book, which fascinates both adults and children. The book follows a child’s quest to walk around this world in one single day. From Paris to Brazil and New York to Tokyo, the day slowly shifts from a day to night. Every page is captured with details and lift-flaps engaging the reader through the journey.

“Some people have emailed me asking if it’s ok to purchase the book even if they don’t have children”, she laughs.

Travelling is something the Finnish designer is familiar with herself: she studied at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, the Rhode Island School of Design in the United States and has also spent some childhood years in France.

Four years ago Lotta won the Art Directors Club Young Guns award and left her life in Helsinki, including a job in one of Finland’s biggest women’s magazines, to take a wild leap and moved to New York. It paid off - and now she is working in the Big Apple as a freelancer with clients such as New York Times, Volkswagen, Newsweek and Wired UK, to name a few. When asked about the most important achievement in her own words, she pauses to think.

“Probably it is this moment right now. I could have never imagined that my book could could get a big display in the shop window at Piccadilly Circus.”

Her style is unique and easy to recognise. Lotta works as both a graphic designer and an illustrator. In her own words the minimalism with the fonts and the use of empty spaces in her graphic design work are “very Finnish". In contrast, her illustrations are heavy in detail and color – like in the book, where vivid colors bring the cities alive.

The book was made with a close collaboration together with Big Picture Press editor Jenny Broom and publisher Rachel Williams. She describes Lotta as a ‘hard-working and talented professional’.

“This mentality is probably the outcome of merging the orderliness typical to Finns and the hard-working attitude of New Yorkers” Lotta says.

Walk This Way is a book worth a closer look. One might also recognise some similarities between the character and its designer. At least its lesson is valid for both adults and the children: you never know what it is waiting behind the next door, if you don’t dare to open it.