Tina Touli is an exceptionally talented London based designer, whose portfolio is bursting with ground-breaking work. She’s multi-disciplinary and describes herself as a ‘creative director, graphic communication designer, maker, speaker and educator’. Her practice spans various mediums and fields of design, but she is best-known for creating work that blends the physical and digital worlds. Often combining experimental motion and type, her inspirational work has won her accolades and industry awards and she often gives talks and workshops at events all over the world including, Adobe MAX, FITC Amsterdam and TOCA ME to name a few.
From a young age, Tina loved expressing herself through the arts, whether that was dance, drawing or music. However, it was only a few months before graduating that she realised she wanted to have a career in graphic design. After initially moving between various studios, she wanted to escape a rigid work structure. Whilst she acknowledges that she worked with some incredible people, the routine was stifling to her creativity. As she tells us, “stagnation is always my greatest fear. What motivates me and keeps me going is the excitement of something new, something unexpected. I didn’t have a clear plan for what to do next, I just knew that I wanted to get out of this ‘9-5 prison’.” Now, working in her own studio space – where she can set her own work schedule – she’s at her happiest. Not following a conventional routine has helped Tina tap into the impulses that inspire her to create brilliant things whilst working on her own terms.
Tina’s creative process is fascinating, and frequently involves moving between analogue and digital techniques. It’s her persistent pushing of boundaries, constantly challenging herself to experiment, that drives her work forward. She finds exploring analogue techniques a very natural process and combining this with digital media she believes, “makes everything possible”, often leading to completely unique and unpredicted outcomes. Her recent project, an ad campaign for Z by HP (Hewlett Packard), gave her complete creative freedom and the final outcome showcases the flexibility of the Z Book 2. This was achieved by using various techniques, from physical experimentations to 3D computer generated visuals, showcasing the versatility of the new product, which can be used to, ‘Create Anything, Anywhere and Anytime’. Tina’s own work philosophy reflects the campaign message, making her a perfect fit for this project.
As well as being a designer, Tina is an educator at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, which allows her to continue learning whilst also sharing her knowledge and experience. For her, designing and learning are intrinsically linked; she views teaching as simply another creative brief. The opportunity to engage in conversations, exchange work processes and ultimately push the boundaries of creativity, is as beneficial for her as it is to her students and workshop attendees.
Tina is incredibly passionate about her work. This is something that can be seen in her creative process and in her views on design education, right the way through to her final design outcomes. She believes that, regardless of your gender, dedicated and passionate work will gain you respect and recognition, no matter what.
We caught up with Tina to find out about her creative process as a multi-skilled designer in more detail and hear her advice for new designers.
Describe your career path. How did you get to where you are now? Have there been any pivotal moments?
I always loved communicating and expressing myself through any form of art. Since I was little, I’ve been keen on dancing, drawing, playing music and creative pursuits in general. A friend of my parents had a piano and whenever we were visiting, I was always trying to play some kind of a melody. After I implored my parents for a while, they signed me up for piano lessons. That lead me to study at a music secondary and in high school. It was not only about music but also about art, acting, drawing etc. Quite quickly I realised that although I enjoyed playing the piano and violin as a way to express myself, it was not my dream to become a musician. I seriously considered becoming a mathematician, a physicist or an architect. It was not until a few months before graduating that I realised what I wanted to do with my life. When a friend told me about design as a field that would allow me to combine everything that I was passionate about – audio, motion, visuals etc. – I got into a graphic design course and very quickly I fell in love with design and creativity.
What defines me the most is persistency. I like to challenge myself continually by experimenting and setting new goals. When it came to full-time job roles, I did not last for more than a few months in any of them. I quit my first job after just ten months. And my second one after around seven months. At 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 really enjoyed working on all those studios. I had some awesome colleagues – that I still enjoy hanging out with a lot! – and I loved the projects that I worked on. It was just that routine that was killing my creativity. Stagnation is always my greatest fear. What motivates me and keeps me going is the excitement of something new. Something that turns out unexpected, motivates me a lot. I did not have a clear plan of what to do next, I just knew that I wanted to get out of the ‘9-5 prison’.
The only thing I had was a relatively low budget project that seemed dreamy for me at that point. I managed to survive for 2 whole months paying my rent and bills in London, cycling to commute (who wants to get to the packed London tube anyways?), eating pasta and frozen pizza every day and drinking soda on my night out. It may sound miserable, but I was the happiest I had ever been until that point. I was able to spend every hour of my day doing something that I love, something that I would do anyway if money didn’t matter
Now, just a couple of years later, I am 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, in my own dreamy ‘prison’, having a studio space, travelling by tube but still eating my favourite pizza. 🙂
Experimentation and combining analogue and digital techniques seem a very important part of your design work. How has this approach and your visual style developed throughout your career?
I am inclined to believe that by working between the physical and digital worlds we can discover unexplored areas of design and come up with unique solutions. By interacting with the ‘objects’ from the digital and the physical world, leaving them to lead the way and evolve, we can find possibilities that were not in our initial thoughts. One can do so many amazing things in the physical world, but it is the digital one that makes everything possible.
I always enjoyed experimenting in an analogue way. Since I was very little I was a “maker” continuously exploring and creating, from little sculptures to balloon animals. And even during the first years of my design studies I was creating almost everything by hand. It was around the middle of the second year that I started working more on the computer. The analogue approach of experimentation is something natural, that we all did at some point in our life more or less. So the question perhaps is, when was the last time we used it creatively?
Can you recommend x3 other women creatives that you find inspiring.
Hard to pick just 3! The first three that came to my mind are Paula Scher with her smart and always engaging typography, Martina Flor with her impressive lettering, and Verònica Fuerte, with her strong colourful compositions.
Tell us about a favourite project that you’ve worked on and why it’s important to you.
One of my favourite recent projects is the Z by HP ad featuring the Z book 2. Having the freedom to create ‘anything’ was a great advantage and a challenge at the same time. Creating a campaign showcasing new techniques and ideas that will hopefully be a reference and inspiration for other creatives is challenging in a good way.
As designers we don’t want to be constrained by technical limitations and problems during the creating process. We ideally want to have an uninterrupted creative experience and freedom to ‘Create Anything, Anywhere and Anytime’. The Z by HP collection provides limitless possibilities, breaking down boundaries between creativity and technology. It provides devices that become an extension of us and our creativity.
Has the experience of being an educator and a designer influence one another or do you see them as separate practices?
Teaching is not just about sharing your knowledge it is also about learning! You exchange thoughts and ideas, improve your communication skills and of course gain a deeper understanding of the subject that you are teaching. So, for me being a designer and an educator are two things very closely related. In my mind, teaching is simply another creative brief that I’m working on.
Can you tell us a bit about your experiences of running workshops and speaking at events and why it’s important to you?
I am always interested in sharing my working processes and experience to open conversations, inspire and motivate others, or even help them come up with unique solutions and find their own ways of being productive. For me, workshops and talks are a two-way process, in that you are sharing but at the same time are receiving so much back. That can be just a feeling of satisfaction from helping others or a feeling of pride for someone else’s contribution to a whole new idea that you came up with while experimenting along with the participants of a workshop. I always see workshops and talks as a great opportunity to exchange knowledge and help each other to push the boundaries of creativity.
How has being a woman impacted your career?
I have never been concerned about my gender in the field of design. I only think of it when people ask me how I feel about being a woman in a creative industry. For me, no matter what people think and believe about your gender, if you are passionate and dedicated you will be respected and recognised for what you do.
In your experience, do you think there is equality and diversity across the creative industries today?
In the past there haven’t been as many female as male graphic designers in the creative industries. However, male domination of the graphic design field appears to me to have eroded much more recently, especially within the field of print design. That has just started to change in recent years and I’m looking forward to a more equal and diverse creative industry in the near future, especially in more senior roles.
Do you have any words of advice for current students or women considering a career in design?
Every good or bad decision I made helped me in the end to move forward and develop. Even if you are not sure what you want to do, or what you are currently doing, or even if you just don’t know how to make it happen – get started with what you’ve got, and you will figure it out along the way!
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Article by Rebecca Burrows
2020 Leeds University graduate rebeccaburrowsdesign is one of our amazing DesignbyWomen collaborators.