Illustrator of the Year 2025 is Pauliina Holma, creator of dreamlike worlds

The Illustrator of the Year award, which is worth €10,000 and awarded annually by the Finnish Illustration Association, has been given to Helsinki-based Pauliina Holma, whose airy, decorative style, delicate lines and soft colour palette are familiar from her brand illustrations for Timma, among other clients.

3.6.2025

The Illustrator of the Year award, which is worth €10,000 and awarded annually by the Finnish Illustration Association (Kuvittajat ry), has been given to Helsinki-based Pauliina Holma, whose airy, decorative style, delicate lines and soft colour palette are familiar from her brand illustrations for Timma, among other clients.

Pauliina Holma (b. 1986 in Kankaanpää) has been chosen as Illustrator of the Year 2025. The award is presented annually to an illustrator or group of illustrators who has promoted or represented the field in a significant way. The winner of the award is chosen by an expert jury, which this year consisted of visual artist Karoliina Hellberg, Founder and Director of Helsinki Design Week Kari Korkman, Illustrator of the Year 2024 Marika Maijala, illustrator Janine Rewell, and researcher and Associate Professor of Arts Education at Aalto University Helena Sederholm (PhD). Producer Veera Jalava acted as secretary of the jury. The award is funded from the copyright remunerations collected by Kopiosto.

The jury was impressed by the organic style of Pauliina Holma’s digital illustrations, with their Japanese influences and Art Nouveau elements. Holma’s images often feature lush vegetation and mysterious, dreamy characters. The atmosphere of the images is marked by a slight sense of strangeness and magical realism. Holma’s clients have included several magazines such as The Atlantic, Mondo, New Yorker, New York Times, Psykologi, Suomen kuvalehti, Trendi, the publishing houses Förlaget and Gummerus, as well as the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Samuji, Soho House and Timma. “There is an extra finesse of magic in Pauliina’s work, and it refuses to leave our minds,” wrote the British media It’s Nice That, one of the world’s most followed online platforms for illustration, graphic design and photography, already in 2018.

Holma, who creates all her illustrations on an iPad, enjoys the lightness of working digitally. “My technique is traditional drawing, it just doesn’t involve pens and paper,” she explains. Having studied art history, aesthetics and graphic design, Holma is a fan of antique shops and gardening, and finds inspiration in various spaces, interior design and fashion. In her free time, she likes to go sailing on an old wooden boat.

The Illustrator of the Year award came as a surprise to Holma, who considers herself to be cautious and calm in her actions, far removed from the competitive nature of the industry. She says that the award will encourage her to continue working in the field of illustration, which she sometimes finds quite challenging.

The newly announced Illustrator of the Year hopes to design things like three-dimensional, decorative packaging in the future. Holma is delighted with the award, which will allow her to focus and delve even deeper into her own inner world.