GAME-CHANGING MOMENTS
W
hat defines me the most
is persistency. I like to
continuously challenge
myself, by experimenting and
setting up goals and never giving
up on them. But when it comes to
jobs, I never lasted more than a few
months on any of them. I quit my
first job after just 10 months. On
my second one, after around seven
months. On my last job I handed in
my notice just a couple of days after
the end of my probation period.
Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed
working at all those studios. I had
some awesome colleagues and I
loved the projects that I worked on.
It was that the routine was killing
me and my creativity. Stagnation
is my greatest fear. What keeps
me going is the excitement of
something new. Something that
comes out of the blue motivates me
a lot. I didn’t have a plan on what to
do next, I just knew that I wanted to
get out of the nine to five ‘prison’.
The only thing I had was a
project with a £2,500 budget that
seemed perfect for me. I could
survive for two months paying my
rent and bills in London, commute
by cycling, eating pasta and frozen
pizza every day and drinking soda
on my night out. That was enough
for me! It might sound miserable,
but I was the happiest I’d ever been.
I was able to spend every hour of
my day doing something that I love,
something that I would do if money
didn’t matter (which didn’t seem to
with this budget).
But there were all these thoughts
in the back of my mind. What if
I fail? What if I left this job and
became unemployed? It was scary
knowing that no one could pay
my rent and there was no family
in London to help me if things
went wrong. I guess that was the
challenge. Always pursue your
dreams and try to make every
project the best one you’ve ever
worked on. Do this and you won’t
fail – there’ll always be a plan B.
Just a month or two after I
started, a well-known design
magazine approached me for an
interview. But there was a smallproblem... They asked me for a
picture of my studio. I was barely
surviving, let alone enjoying a
studio space. I only had a little desk
on the corner of my bedroom. But
remember, there’s always a way to
make things work. Start with what
you have and you’ll figure things
out. So I moved the TV, some
furniture and some objects from the
living room, placed my laptop on
the dining table, Photoshopped a
frame with my artwork on the wall
to create a nice office setting and
suddenly I had an amazing studio.
Now, just a couple of years later,
I am 24 hours per day, 365 days per
year, in my own perfect ‘prison’.
I have a studio space, travel by
Tube but still eat pizza. The most
important thing is to be able to
enjoy, appreciate and get satisfaction
from every little thing that you do.
Sooner or later, things will work out.Left: Poster to celebrate 30 years of Adobe Illustrator. Above: Branding for US restaurant chain &pizza.“Stagnation is my greatest fear. What keeps me
going is the excitement of something new”
TinaTouliisacreativedirectorandgraphiccommunicationdesignerlivingandworkinginsouth-eastLondon﹒She’s
workedindifferentstudios﹐suchasPearlfisher﹐BlastDesignandNallaDesign﹒ShecurrentlyrunsTinaTouliDesign﹐
herownmultidisciplinarystudio﹐andsheteachesatCentralSaintMartins﹐UniversityoftheArtsLondon﹒Tinaworks
inavarietyofdesignfieldsincludingbranding﹐typography﹐editorialdesignandanimation﹒
tinatouli﹒com- 51 -