Fika: Friday’s dedicated to our teams personal creative projects
After a few years of being with Aetha at one of our designers yearly review one of our team asked for some time out to work on their own personal project. We thought long and hard about how we could ensure our team felt that their personal creative projects were important to us and that we knew how healthy it is to have a side project so we introduced Fika Fridays.
The Aetha Design workshop from the outside looking in
So what is Fika + What does it stand for?
Back in 2017 was the first time we heard of the term Fika and we instantly loved it. It is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider it essential to make time for Fika every day. It means taking time for friends, family and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. While Aetha’s Fika is based around taking time to do something creatively different to our normal studio design work. We still get the coffee on and enjoy the state of mind Fika is about.
Introduced back in September ‘21, Fika runs every second Friday at the studio and is an opportunity for the team to learn something new, work on a side project of their own or design something unrelated to our normal client work.
Phoebe enjoying Fika in the studio
Attracting creative people is one thing, retaining them is another. Running a creative team is all about balance and recognising that means Fika is a no brainer. The time means a lot to our design team and gives them the opportunity to learn something new, stretch the whole teams capabilities and potentially encourage them to design future products or artwork which benefit them and the wider Aetha team. We have been running Fika Fridays a while now and we have had designers who have built retro bikes from scratch, design and make bike bags + accessories some who have chosen to learn new software so it has been really fruitful to the teams development.
We want to empower our team to drive their own development and creativity, whatever that looks like for them. We have quite a passionate and eclectic team at Aetha so it’s important we don’t lose that by everyone turning up working 8 hours a day and going home.
Tom has been learning new skills and software throughout Fika
So what projects have come out of Fika
The team here are avid sportsmen and women. We have cyclists, trail runners, paddle boarders and keen hikers in the studio. Sophie volunteers as a Maverick Run leader every week leading a group of trail runners around the local trails. Tom is often seen at the beach winging and most of the team ride road bikes, gravel bikes and mountain bikes. Josh runs a bike bag business called Ashdown Bags as a side business so we know sports equipment and projects will be central to Fika for our team.
Will used Fika when he joined Aetha to build up and restore a Specialized Rockhopper from 1994 which he now commutes into work.
Will’s Specialized Rockhopper 1994 Fika project
Josh on the sewing machines designing and making products for Ashdown Bags (with Pepa helping)
Michael posing with Poole’s famous backdrop of the Black Wall for Ashdown. Michael is also a keen photographer.