Sofi Arnholm

It was through her love of colour and form, and of telling stories through beautiful objects, that Sofi Arnholm eventually found her way to her interior design studio, So Fine Design. The road there was a slightly winding one, with detours via San Francisco for studies and several formative years at an advertising agency. Sofi has held many different roles at the agency, including graphic designer, designer, project manager and agency director. Every one of those roles would prove truly valuable experience to carry with her when she finally closed the door on the advertising world and decided to invest in her dream: her own interior design studio.

As commissions began to come in and the studio grew organically, Sofi realised she needed to get out into the world to find inspiration, knowledge and suppliers. Her travels took her to favourite cities such as Paris, London, Milan and New York, where she studied everything from trade fairs and hotels to private homes.

The style and aesthetic expression that define Sofi Arnholm’s design are very much rooted in her colour combinations and the way she mixes patterns, but also in the attention she gives to detail. Sofi’s design is far removed from what is commonly referred to as Scandinavian, and white and grey palettes are notable above all for their absence. Sofi’s design is bold and warm-hearted, with generously applied hues that lean towards burnt tones. Patterns from different worlds meet, and details that make people raise an eyebrow, pause and reflect are Sofi’s signature.

“I’ve always had a playful streak, and it feels so natural that it’s part of what I create. Adding humour to every home I design is not something I’ve ever had to think about — it’s simply something that feels missing if I’m not allowed to do it. When I see design that is beautiful while also being cleverly fun, I get this thrill through my whole body.”

An interest in interiors and creating has always been very present in Sofi’s life. As a child, she grew up in a very elegant home. It was white, with design classics and the occasional patterned piece of furniture or detail. But it wasn’t until Sofi moved to San Francisco to study graphic design that the door she had previously only left ajar was thrown open.

“When I was studying in San Francisco, I met a British guy I moved in with. We were so young that he was still living with his mother, and she was the one who truly opened my eyes to design that could be felt deep in the soul. Seeing her yellow sponge-painted walls and large solrosor in the living room, and bright red cocktail tomatoes arranged as a still life in the kitchen — I had never experienced anything like it. Their house in Provence was as far from white walls in Kungälv as you could possibly get. It became another dimension of pleasure, where lifestyle and aesthetics flowed together seamlessly.”

The home as a place simply to be, to rest and to find new inspiration is important, says Sofi, and that becomes clearer with every home she designs. A home is not a showroom, nor is it a place that should only be beautiful to look at. Taking on a project and creating someone else’s home is a great responsibility; it is the place where life will be lived and big things will happen — it is not a display case.

“To me, a home should be a map of memories and experiences that together tell a story. It should show personality! I often bring home a detail from a trip or an occasion when I’m out with my family, and then place it in the home — it becomes like little footprints from our life in some way. I like the idea of a home unfolding for the people who visit it, of it being discovered gradually the further into a room you go. If everything is served up all at once, the room becomes so predictable, and then some of the playfulness disappears and it becomes unnecessarily flat. That’s when the mix of old, new, subtle, and bold becomes especially important.

It’s not entirely easy to create a home for someone else where those kinds of details can find their place and coexist with the aesthetics. Sometimes it’s the unique or unusual quality of a particular object that becomes the thing. I want to create something beautiful without it becoming a museum. A home should reflect the people who live there, and within that there is room for lots of things that stand out, which often makes it all very fun.”

When Sofi and her interior designer take on projects, it always starts with meeting the family to see whether they are talking about the same world.

“We always meet new clients in our design studio in Stockholm, where they step straight into our world and the conversation naturally flows into design and different references.

A strength I carry with me from my childhood in a large, far-flung family is that my antennae are always out. It’s important to me to read the room, and a big part of my work with the families I design for is making sure everyone’s voice is heard, and that they meet each other in the decisions that are made — and I almost always do that with humour. Sometimes it really is about hearing what they are not saying as well. I almost become the therapist they didn’t know they had.”

Sofi starts her design process with the walls and then works her way inward through the room. She often talks about dressing the room in colour, and preferably with wallpaper.

“My inspiration almost always comes from England and France when it comes to wallpapers that dress a room, because there they actually call it wall covering instead of wallpaper. I think that describes it so much better. Even when I work with solid-coloured walls, I prefer wallpaper over paint. I like wallpaper because it naturally creates that warm, caring, and even embracing feeling. When I work with patterned wallpaper, I prefer to let the walls speak and keep the rest of the room calmer, instead picking up the colours of the motif in details, furniture, and woodwork.”

In Sofi’s living room, the Oilpainting Landscape wallpaper adorns the walls. The choice was instinctive and immediate; it was the warmth of the grove and its slightly unexplored feel, together with the sense of security the forest gives her, that made the decision. Dressing her living room in this motif felt natural — she felt it with her whole being, and it unleashed her imagination.

“In the wallpaper in my living room, there are layers; it feels as though someone stood before this grove, admired it and imagined everything that could happen there, and then painted it. All the shades of green capture the room and turn it into a painting.”

Green is Sofi’s favourite colour, one she always returns to in her design, and she describes green as her white.

The green brings that warm feeling Sofi is looking for; it is restful and stirs strong memories from childhood. Green brings to mind a special place, a deciduous forest near her childhood home in Kungälv. The forest became a refuge for her and her friends, a place for adventure and daydreaming. In her grove, imagination always took hold among the treetops.

“To me, this wallpaper is like the landscapes described by Jane Austen — it takes me to other worlds. I have always loved fairy tales and dreaming myself away to other places, and I still do, but today I tell stories in other ways, through the designs I create. It is as if the homes I create become the settings of the stories, and the people who live there are the characters.”