Sonja Djønne and Thoralf Lian live near the Arctic Circle in Norway. "We have a lot of snow and rain," Djønne said in an interview with Scandinavia Standard, "and a lot of wet weather in general." Having children and a dog, the pair found that keeping the elements from being tracked into their home wasn't easy.

Lian knows a thing or two about keeping surfaces clean. His family has run an industrial laundry for three generations, with Lian having taken over in 1994. The business cleans industrial and commercial mats, and Lian naturally acquired a few smaller ones to use at home. Djønne found that the industrial mats performed better than domestic store-bought ones. "I thought to myself, this is such a good product," Djønne says, "but it doesn't look good!"

Djønne—who holds a Master of Management business degree, specializing in business administration, finance and investing—has no formal design background, but her nationality provides an awareness of it. "The Norwegian design tradition is about making beautiful products for everyday life," she says. "I'm a practical person, so I like items that have great functionality. For example, I could never have a chair if it was not possible to sit in it comfortably. Things should be beautiful, but also useful."

Which brings us back to doormats. "Everybody has a doormat, but nobody has really reflected on the design of it," Djønne says. "You just…have it there."

Djønne and Lian started having conversations about them. Lian's laundering experience had provided him with technical knowledge about mat performance and durability, and Djønne had an eye for design. Couldn't they start producing their own doormats, which offered industrial performance but actually looked good?

It turns out they could. They located a manufacturer in Belgium, and collaborated with working designers—including Norwegian furniture designer Stine Aas, whose work we looked at here—and also hired an in-house designer. By 2016 they launched their company, Heymat, and began producing their own doormat designs.

"Heymat is definitely established in the Scandinavian design history; clean and minimal."

"Many of our designers are inspired by the Norwegian landscape, which is also a very Scandinavian feature."

Today Heymat works with a stable of designers and moves 30,000 units a year, selling in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Iceland, Switzerland and other countries. They're now making a push into the U.S. market. You can peruse their offerings here.