http://tkj.jp/glow/2011May/
Iittala is a Finnish design company specialising in houseware objects made on the principle of "modern Scandinavian design". [N.B. The official logo of the Company is all in lower case - iittala.(See the link to the Company's webpage at the end of this article.) Using upper case for the initial i can cause some confusion as it may be mistaken for an L.] The Iittala Group consists of a number of businesses within its portfolio of operations: Arabia, Hackman, Iittala, BodaNova, Höganäs Keramik, Rörstrand and Høyang-Polaris.
The most famous products to be fabricated by the Iittala company are the glassware designs of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, such as the so-called Aalto Vase (or Savoy vase) from 1936, and the glassware designs of Timo Sarpaneva, who started designing glassware for the company in 1950. In 1956 Sarpaneva designed the Iittala i-logo. The company also sells glass birds designed by Oiva Toikka.