Finnish designer’s logo appears on vehicle at Khamenei’s funeral

A video showing the casket of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei being removed from a refrigerated truck bearing the logo of Finland’s K-Group has left the logo’s designer, Chris Bolton, in stunned disbelief.

The footage, captured during Khamenei’s funeral processions in Iraq, was initially shared with Bolton by a former client from K-Group. Bolton, who helped design the K-Group logos while working at the advertising agency Hasan & Partners, first assumed the video was AI-generated.

“In this context, that would have been very macabre,” Bolton told Yle in an email. He described the surreal disbelief of seeing his past commercial work resurface in such extraordinary circumstances amid global political events.

Kesko, the parent company of K-Group, called the situation “highly regrettable” in a statement to Yle on Thursday. The company said it was investigating how the branded vehicle ended up abroad, suspecting that the decals were left intact when a transport partner resold the truck.

Bolton confirmed he played a significant role in both the overall design and execution of the K-Group logos, which were developed through two separate projects to unify the brand while allowing individual stores to retain unique identities.