The one who draws, founder of Redanredan, entrepreneurial mastermind

How did I become an illustrator?

I am often asked if I am a trained graphic designer or a visual artist. Well, I’m not. I don’t consider myself to be an artist, but I do think I’m a communicator, and I guess the MA with a Nordic philology-English-Finnish twist is a degree that suits this job.

I have always drawn: as a child I drew at home under the desk of my entrepreneur mother and at school all my books and notebooks were scribbled. When I was in middle school, I did my very first commissioned work and got a gift card as a reward: I drew a menu for a restaurant in Seinäjoki, and I drew at least some cactus plants and sombreros in the picture. I received my first real paycheck in high school, when my German teacher wanted to buy one of my art works.

I still draw

When I went to study at the university – first in Umeå, Sweden, and then in Vaasa and finally Jyväskylä here in Finland – I took a break from drawing for a few years, except for sketches during those long and boring lectures.

I started sketching again during my teacher studies. My skills turned out to be a big benefit for a teacher. I continued that and then Facebook came and I decided to draw cartoon strips about the dreary life of a language teacher. After drawing a couple of years, I started a blog in 2009. My blog had been active for about a year, when I received the first request for quotation and I founded my own company.

I abandoned my post as a teacher for a job as an e-learning specialist and bought an iPad. All of a sudden I was sitting in meetings a lot and I got… um… a little bit bored. I started drawing what I heard, made it into pictures, created visual notes. By chance and by saying “Yeah!” I ended up with my iPad at the Nordic Business Forum event and the business scene here in Finland became very interested in what I was doing. At first, drawing was a side-show but in the fall of 2015 I made the decision to become a full-time entrepreneur. (I have not regretted.)

I am the most experienced digital graphic recorder in Finland. (Do I dare to say this? Well, I do!) In this job, everything I’ve done and experienced in the past is useful. In 2019 I was awarded the national sole entrepreneur award – the first time ever!

And I still draw.