“Pauliina Holma’s illustrations ooze with a soft summertime haze. We are reminded of long afternoons spent lazing in meadows, and the cool feel of ocean waves splashing on the shore.” 

“There is an extra finesse of magic in Pauliina’s work, and it refuses to leave our minds.” 

Thus wrote the British media It’s Nice That, one of the world’s most followed online platforms for illustration, graphic design and photography, back in 2018. At the time, Holma’s career as an illustrator had barely lasted a year. 

However, Holma’s distinctive and widely acclaimed illustration style did not come out of nowhere. It is the result of a long journey marked by a variety of studies, jobs in the field of design and one existential crisis. 

Pauliina Holma’s home is located in Helsinki, near Hietalahti market square. Light floods in through the windows, bringing great joy after the long, grey period. Numerous plants and the colourful interior bask in the sunshine. 

On a weekday afternoon like this, Holma would normally be in her studio in the next block. She shares the small, street-level commercial space with three graphic designers, with whom she feels at home. 

Holma usually spends her mornings at home and then works in her studio from midday until six in the evening. The short trip to the studio also serves as a mental transition. However, Holma often takes a detour to create more distance between her home and work. 

“I used to resist routines, but I’ve come to notice that I need them too,” she says. 

Holma is the only one of the foursome in the studio who does illustrations. Recent projects include vignettes for the Timma online booking app and website, card illustration for Samuji and book covers for Gummerus. She has done editorial illustrations for publications such as Image, the American magazine The Atlantic, Psykologi and Trendi, and has illustrated short stories published by the British Soho House. 

“The illustrations for the rebranding of Timma were a lot of fun. I would love to do more brand illustrations,” says Holma. 

There is plenty of empty space on her desk in the studio. These days, Holma does not use any other tools for her illustrations besides an iPad. 

Many illustrators prefer to work with pens, paints, inks and brushes. Traditional methods are often described as therapeutic. Holma, on the other hand, enjoys the lightness of doing things digitally and has stored her old art supplies in cupboards. 

“I can’t stand all the clutter and eraser shavings that you get when using traditional methods. I also like the idea of not needing a lot of space.” 

However, it would be wrong to think that creating illustrations on a digital graphics tablet does not involve working by hand. 

“My technique is traditional drawing; it just doesn’t involve pens and paper. For me, it’s important to be in direct contact with the image. I wouldn’t like to do illustrations by clicking a mouse, for example,” Holma explains. 

The fragile lines and soft colours of Holma’s tablet-drawn illustrations convey a highly organic and delicate impression. Her style is both decorative and airy. The images often feature lush vegetation and imaginative, symbolic characters. The atmosphere is dreamlike. 

Pauliina Holma was born and raised in Kankaanpää, a small town about half an hour’s drive from the city of Pori. Kankaanpää is also home to the highly regarded Fine Arts Campus of Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, but the presence of a fine arts school did not have a significant impact on young Pauliina Holma’s experience of the town’s cultural capital. 

“There was nothing to do in Kankaanpää, so my best friend and I spent our free time at the library,” Holma says. 

Her imagination was also fed at home. Her grandparents’ place in Ostrobothnia was a fairy-tale world where she heard all kinds of tall tales as a child. 

After graduating from upper secondary school, Holma was about unsure what she wanted to do. She ended up studying art history and aesthetics at the University of Helsinki but eventually decided that a purely theoretical approach to art was not her thing. After a couple of years, she left to study visual arts at the Karjaa Folk High School for a year. 

“For some strange reason, I first applied to the University of Art and Design Helsinki to study industrial design. Only after that did I apply to study graphic design and was finally accepted in 2008. I drew a lot and had read about illustrators who had studied graphic design, so that’s where I wanted to be,” Holma explains. 

However, Holma put her drawing aside during her graphic design studies. She quickly immersed herself in the world of visual communication design. Before earning her bachelor’s degree, she was already working as an in-house graphic designer at Marimekko and Artek. 

Despite enjoying these jobs, Holma did not feel particularly fulfilled. She wanted more creativity in her work. She points out that graphic design can also be done in a very imaginative way, but that was not her strongest arena. She did not have enough energy for her own projects either after long days and weeks at work. 

“The question kept nagging at the back of my mind: is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Eventually, I had a full-blown mid-life crisis at 30,” Holma says. 

“I quit my job and travelled around Southeast Asia for six months.” 

While travelling, Holma found herself in situations where she felt bored for the first time in a long time. She started drawing again after a break of several years. 

“That’s when things seemed to fall into place.” 

During her time abroad, Holma published a website for her illustration portfolio, an exceptionally impressive one at that. Her colleagues were amazed by this new venture – where did these illustrations suddenly come from? Orders began pouring in. 
“I’ve had plenty of work, especially considering how poorly I’ve marketed my art. I’m pretty bad at using Instagram, and I don’t post images often enough. But whenever I do post new images, I get more job offers,” Holma says. 
She is currently working on updating her website. The previous virtual artwork will be making room for work samples. 
“I’ve started to realise that a surprising number of customers do actually visit the website to see my work, so it would be useful to have a more comprehensive portfolio there. That’s what I’m working on right now.” 

Although Holma’s career as an illustrator has advanced rapidly, the growth has felt natural, without any major pressure or surprises. Holma does not consider herself very competitive. 

“I’ve always been quite cautious and calm in my actions, and the same goes for my work. I take my work seriously and want to do it well, but I also listen carefully to myself. For example, I don’t try to take on so much work that I feel overwhelmed,” Holma says. 

So far, the commissions have gone well. The clients have been nice and understood what Holma is good at and have not asked for something completely different. 

Holma’s background in the world of design can perhaps be seen in the elegance of her illustrations and their contemporary relevance, even though her style does not focus on being trendy. Holma says that when she was working as a graphic designer, she kept track of and thought a lot about what was fresh and current in design language, but when creating illustrations, she does not need to think about this as much, at least not consciously. She still believes that fashion trends do influence the colour palette and design language of her illustrations. She finds most of her inspiration and aesthetic pleasure in objects and spaces. 

In addition to working as an illustrator, Holma is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Contemporary Design at Aalto University, where students work with materials such as ceramics and glass. However, the pandemic has caused some interruptions to her studies. It is difficult to sink your hands into clay through a video link. 

“I’m interested in taking the world of my illustrations into a more three-dimensional form and also think about end products and spatial entities,” Holma says. 

In addition to interior design elements, Holma says she is interested in designing packaging, for example. 

“My dream would be to design a lovely pastry package of some sort. I really love baking! It’s a great way for me to de-stress after major work projects. It’s just been a bit difficult to practice this hobby lately, as there haven’t been many people around to eat the cakes,” says Holma with a laugh. 

Another beloved new hobby is sailing. Last year, Holma and her partner bought a 1970s wooden sailboat named Meritähti. 

“My boyfriend has been dreaming of having his own boat for a decade, and I finally agreed to get one with him, even though I didn’t know how to sail. It’s been wonderful. When I’m tinkering with the boat, I forget all the worries in the world, and I can’t wait to get back out on the water,” Holma says. 

“I still struggle with the sails and, having grown up inland, I find the sea quite scary. But I’m sure that fear will lessen over time.” 

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The article was published in Kuvittaja magazine 1/22. 

Read also: Pauliina Holma is Illustrator of the Year 2025 

Read this article in Finnish: Pauliina Holma – Kasvu ja kukinta 

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