© 2010 Arkkitehdas
If you looked at the link in previous post about Europan, or received one of our cards, you'll already know what this is about.
A combination of being unemployed (with few jobs around), not qualifying for benefits, and being asked to design some friends house extension has conspired to encourage me to become an yrittäjä ('entrepreneur' - a horrible term which makes me think of Alan Sugar) and register a toiminimi (trade name, sole trader, business) for an arkkitehti- suunitellatoimisto (architect and design studio) which has thrown me into the world of business plans, starttiraha (startup grants), YEL (self employed social insurance - like NI in UK), vastuuvakuutus (indemnity insurance), contracts, professional competence registers,kirjanpitominen (book keeping), ALV (VAT), domain hosting and more. Which is fun enough in English let alone Finnish. Luckily I have some help in deciphering it all... (kiitos kulta Konnalle).
More fun was choosing a name and designing the logo, graphics and website, which of course are the most essential parts of the whole enterprise. (What do you mean getting clients and making a profit?)
If you want to know why Arkkitehdas - have a look at the link.
I also thought of a few others, most of which either are too similar to existing names, or Konna just gave me one of those looks and I quickly discarded:
- Luovia (to tack or zig-zag - but already an IT company or something)
- Navetta (barn, which is a bit agricultural when you live in Helsinki)
- Vintti/Ullako (attic, hmm, like atelier except like suomeksi)
- ArKäDa (too similar to Arkkada)
- dk studio (er, Calvin Kline?)
- jkmd (which is a bit too close to JKMM)
- m.ARK (which is just sad)
- JaM (we could send out free jars of jam with our name on them... NEXT!)
The 'grand plan' is to hassle remind all those people who've said - 'one day we'll get you guy's to design our house'; to do some of the Finnish open design competitions (hopefully better than Europan); to try to get some sub-contracting work with other architects here and perhaps UK. And maybe do a little graphic design work on the side, based on the response to our christmas cards and launch cards... my second commission (of a huge total of two) is to design some invites...
Anyway, back to the realities of small business. What with investment in a new computer, YEL, PII and accountant's fees for the year I've already spent the income from my first commissions before I've even started...
Anybody need something architecting?
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