Story behind our umbrellas

A perfect gift for someone you care about or for yourself to brighten rainy day – Zontjk creates high quality umbrellas with unique artwork. Gorgeous Zontjk canopies are actual, real art pieces of professional Swedish painter Zlata Jaanimägi, who via sharing her art outside of the gallery wants to improve even the most rainy and gloomy day. This is a story of how art-gallery art became something for everyone.

THE STORY OF ZONTJK UMBRELLAS BEGAN IN 2015. THE PERSON BEHIND THIS STORY IS ZLATA JAANIMÄGI – A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST AND MULTIMEDIA DESIGNER.

Nice to meet you.

For over 10 years I have been participating in art exhibitions and art-projects all around the world. Exposing my work and sharing it with the world has always been enjoyable and gratifying, but over the years I couldn’t shake the feeling of “a-time-and-a-place” attitude towards art. That made me think.

I believe the value of art is not in its exclusivity, but in that it adds beauty to our lives, makes it more interesting. Art evokes emotion. This emotion should not be limited to exhibitions, galleries, and private collections. Art deserves to be a part of our daily lives, to share this emotion not just with the highbrow audience on designated exhibition dates, but to everyone, every passerby on the street.

This reflection produced the idea of an «everyday canvas». A canvas that you can bring along while you go about your business or for a walk in a park.

Typical Scandinavian weather swiftly gave form to this idea – umbrellas with an art canopy.

The idea was followed by a lengthy period of preparation. Print mockups for various canopy types, projecting, planning, choosing the right material for the canopy, a convenient and reliable mechanism. I had to dive deep into the manufacturing side of things, figure out all the different types of umbrella mechanisms, components and materials.

Finding the right manufacturer of the umbrellas proved to be most difficult and time-consuming, as a guarantee of high quality and durability was an absolute must. Zontjk cannot tolerate substandard quality – while art canopies will speak for themselves, the technical side of the product needs to stay out of the conversation altogether by being seamlessly perfect.

Finally, after 2 years Zontjk umbrellas started appearing on the streets of Stockholm.

I’M REALLY GLAD I CAN HELP PEOPLE IMPROVE THEIR DAY EVEN IF IT’S PARTICULARLY RAINY AND GREY. WITH MY ART AND DESIGNER UMBRELLAS, ANYONE CAN CREATE THEIR OWN SKY!