After spending seven years working at a non-fiction publishing house, I went on one year’s parental leave to take care of my 9-month-old daughter. I felt I had learned all the essentials of my work in photojournalism, and I needed new experiences. At the beginning of my year of leave, a couple of colleagues contacted me and asked if I had time to do freelance layout design on the side. I still had a permanent employment contract, so I checked this out with my employer’s lawyer, who encouraged me to start my own business. Me, a humanities graduate, as an entrepreneur? Would I sell my soul to big capital and become a baron of industry? The general feeling towards entrepreneurship and economics at the Department of History had been, if not outright hostile, at least rather indifferent. On the other hand, my wife, who is an economist, encouraged me to give it a try.

My first steps as an entrepreneur were none too grand: our little two-room flat in Alppila had an alcove where our baby slept. When my wife came home from work, I would shut myself away there to work on the layout of books. Late at night, little Julia and I would switch places and the cradle was lifted back into the alcove. Within a year I already had my own office in a bigger apartment, and when we got more kids, who constantly disconnected the computer leads, I rented my first office. At that point I already had so much design and layout work that I hired an assistant. Without even noticing it, I started referring to my company in the plural: “we at Graaf, and so on.”

Now our firm has been a limited company for 12 years already and has had over a dozen employees doing various tasks. Our office is in the Helsinki Suburb of Etu-Töölö, and we receive about 200 commissions a year. I’m very proud of our team, we know what we’re doing and have experience in most areas of graphic design. My own job description, shaped by my university and publishing house past, is to be team leader and combine the talents of different actors, as I have experience in writing, editing and layout design. I’ve learned that as an entrepreneur you don’t have to know everything. Instead what is a must is a wide network of people, so you always have a friend to call when in need. The University of Helsinki played an important role in creating that network.