The instant Anika Reuterswärd left University College of Arts Crafts and Design as a freshly minted interior decorator, she switched careers. Instead of decorating offices and public spaces like her fellow graduates, she picked up her pen and went to work covering the design beat for Femina magazine. "I was interested in the home, and wanted to do something about the home environment, which I felt was sorely neglected" she says. " All new thinking and ideas about how to live were exciting. And if you wanted to change the way people live, there was more opportunity fot do so as a design journalist than as an interior decorator".

And thus Anika came to Femina, which in the seventies was a lifestyle magazine full of practical tips, ideas and inspiration - none of the glossy distance of many of today’s interior design magazines. English design guru Terence Conran reputedly called Femina the best interior design magazine in the world, with just one single fault - it wasn't in English. During this preiod, Anika devoted most of her time to journalism, but also designed a few pieces, including glass and porcelain for IKEA, and fabric and wallpaper for Tampella and Duro.

"At the time, I didn't think there was a demand for more furniture models- the market seemed to be saturated," says Anika. But in 1986 , she did an installation for style magazine Sköna Hem at a trade show. When she began sketching her ideas, she realised that the sofa she wanted didn't exist. So she designed it herself.
A couple of years before that Anika had met Hans Rosander, one of the founders of Fogia. She was commissioned to design the chair Anika, still one of Fogias most popular models.

"When I had the idea for a new sofa, I asked Hans if he didn't want to try making it. Ok, he said. Fogia started producing the Greta sofa and thus they got into the upholstered furniture business. Hans was always open to new ideas, says Anika.
Today, Fogia produces some fifty of Anika's designs.

"My favourite way of working is to first come up with a good basic concept and then vary it", she says. The Anika chair, for example, she developed into Fanni and Filippa. The design idiom and ideas that grew up around the Gustav table could be developed into coffee tables, side tables, desks, cabinets and chairs. "I approach decorating the same way. The basic building blocks can be combined many different ways."

We asked Anika what she wants to do in the future.
"Retire", she says, laughing. She is joking, though. While her laughter still echoes, she tells us about a long list of new projects. "There's so much to do", she says. "If I where still thirty years old I would get involved with theatre scenography. Or film! And I've just discovered gardening. It's just like interior designs - you start with the walls, floor and ceiling…."
No, Anika Reuterswärd won't be retiring any time soon. There's always another building block that can be shifted to create something brand new.