In English

Pirita Tolvanen
pirita(at)piritatolvanen.fi

I’m a Finnish Illustrator passionate about infographics, illustrating data and creating non-fiction picture books. I’m a Fulbright grantee 2021-2022; I spent spring semester 2022 in Simmons University, Boston, MA, with my project Data visualizations in children’s nonfiction picture books.

My debut non-fiction picture book The Flying Finn – Life of Jarno Saarinen was highly commended at the World Illustration Awards in 2019. The book was chosen a finalist for the Sports Book of the Year 2018 in Finland. The second non-fiction picture book I illustrated, Rally Team, was chosen to the collection of the Most Beautiful Books of 2021. It received a Merit Award in the 3×3 International Illustration Annual No.19.

#BooksAreEssential

Cover illustration for Publishers Weekly and their global awareness campaign in support of the book publishing industry during the novel coronavirus crisis (2020).

Infographics

Infographics on social integration for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (2020).

The Baron / The Flying Finn

”Baron – The Life of Jarno Saarinen” (2018) is a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of a road racer legend Jarno Saarinen. Besides the story of Saarinen, the book displays motorcycle road racing of the era with technical attention. The book’s illustrations were highly commended at the World Illustration Awards. You can view the book project on Behance.

Rallitalli / Rally Team

Rallitalli is my motorsports children’s book number 2. Written by Pasi Lönn, illustration and graphic design by me. The book’s illustrations received a Merit Award in the 3×3 International Illustration Annual No.19. The book was chosen to the collection of the Most Beautiful Books of 2021. The jury writes: ”The charts and statistics are particularly interesting and joyful. The controlled colour palette and solid layout do a great job of keeping the information understandable.”

Cover illustrations for high school text books on social studies (2020).

My year 2021

The year of an illustrator.

My year 2020

The year of an illustrator: most important numbers of the strange year.

…and other illustration projects

I’m working on different kind of illustration projects all the time. I’d be glad to tell you more! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram. My portfolio can be found on the website of Association of Illustrators as well as Directory of Illustrators. I have a blog called Illustrating Data, where I write about data visualization, non-fiction picture books, visual accessibility and illustration.