A publishing, advisory, design, and media production company based out of Zurich, Switzerland. We develop thoughtful books, products and services for families who love to learn.

Why we created Avriano

We believe that learning is paramount and what is even more important is the aspiration to learn; the innate ambition to want to learn more, understand further, and stay curious.

We aim to create products that the entire family learns from and delights in them, because we value family time and we believe that learning should be joyful, rewarding, and a lifelong skill. To do so, we connect everything we love with learning such as sciences, soft skills, nature, traveling, music, play; intertwining disciplines with interests and skills, modelling what children will be required to do later in their lives.

We want to help children get excited about learning, keeping an open mind, whilst being principled and focused on preparing for avriano, for tomorrow. After all, learning should be inspiring, bright, and full of potential. Like avriano.

avriano, a. (αυριανό) [origin, Greek]

the one for tomorrow; the day after today; the future

How it started

When Maria became a mother she looked for children’s books that encompassed aspects of life that truly mattered to her: inspiration to live a good life, knowledge connected to the natural world, beautiful art, brightness and positivity, familiarity with some of the best education institutions, and seeing the world through different angles. Although she was able to find many books she loved, she wasn’t able to find the unique combination she was looking for. It seemed to her that big concepts and ideas were not often available to small children. She saw this gap as an opportunity to bridge more opportunities for children to learn, grow and believe in themselves.

Her brother, Nas Ploumakis, had previously published a paper at Mol Cell (scientific journal), titled “OH, the places you’ll go!”. He did a twist of the original children’s book of Dr. Seuss “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” about his research on hydroxylases during his PhD research (the places hydroxylases go in the human body). Maria found it fascinating, and wondered how beautiful it would be for young children to be introduced to ten of the greatest discoveries of our time, in an adventurous journey through time and space - and this is how our story started.

Our purpose is to create publications, products, and services around the theme of knowledge for families who love to learn.

Our books are developed with the highest quality standards; are made to grow with your children over the years; and they encompass learning science, appreciating art and advancing skills. The books and world created around them enable further interaction at home and outside in the natural world, inspiring young children to learn, create and set high goals.

Avriano has two logos - here is why

Avriano has two logos; one corporate and one literary. The aquarelle literary logo is developed around five principles, which we find important to symbolize visually. Maya Angelou said “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” With the literary logo we want to instil the feeling that everything is possible and that we can learn each day, with every book, experience and opportunity we have - with the sky only as limit.

The 5 principles:

  • The empty book encompassed by a wreath of quills indicates that knowledge is constantly being written, and everyone can contribute a small piece, maybe a page.

  • The flying books express that knowledge is accessible and all around us, while the wreath of quills represents the shape of Earth, our world

  • The books that become birds flying away convey how we see the world with different viewpoints depending on where we are in our journey. The flying birds also represent how important it is to travel as it amplifies the way we experience the world and allows for new perspectives.

  • Sky blue and yellow gold are selected as the colors of the blue sky and the bright sun, representing hope, inspiration, and new horizons filled with light.

  • The broad horizon in the air aims to remind us that everything is possible when we look into the future, or into tomorrow, avrio.

Upcoming developments

We have published the first book of the series Albert Goes to Oxford - Around the World of Knowledge in paperback and ebook. We encourage the ebook to be used when the paperback is not easily accessible, such as when traveling. The coloring book has also been published, and after this the first book club subscription available for picture books in English will be made available.

In parallel we are working on the second book of the series and on more books. The book club will gradually be expanding its offering in more languages (German, Greek and French to begin with) and including more age groups.

If you would like to be notified with our new publications, products and services, as well as having the opportunity to shape some of the products by participating in beta reviews, you can subscribe to our Avriano mailing list.