Meet Nevine Younes | Owner, Radish Studio

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nevine Younes and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nevine, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I’d been working as a Graphic Design freelancer in San Diego for four years after moving from Washington, D.C. and leaving my secure, 9-to-5 job. I was working on projects I liked, earning money, and got to set my own hours. In 2020, I was lucky enough to get to illustrate and design a children’s book. I loved working on it so much that I felt like I was in my purpose. That project came and went, and I continued to work on other projects I liked—but didn’t set a spark in me the same way working on the book did. I was going through the motions and felt like I needed to do something more with my career—to have more opportunities to work on projects that I truly loved from time to time.

One fine day I was browsing Instagram and came upon a post on ‘Ikigai.’ I learned that Ikigai is the Japanese concept of finding one’s purpose, and has four components: Passion, Mission, Profession and Vocation. It was a revelation to me that I was missing the component of ‘Passion’ in my life. I listed the subjects I was truly passionate about and came up with the one thing hiding in my life in plain sight: Food.

As I thought about my life, food had been a central theme. I looked around and realized I had more cookbooks and food magazines than novels. I thought about food constantly, and most of my disposable income went towards buying $20 truffle hot sauces and elaborate dinners. I grew up living around the world with an Egyptian Father and British Mother who would grind her own spices in order to make all sorts of ethnic food. Specializing my Design business in food made the most sense because my upbringing primed me for it and I also felt like it was in my blood.

Although my food & design business, Radish Studio, has only been in operation for a few months, all the hard work feels so worth it because I am truly loving what I’m doing.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The way I approach my design work is to think about the audience first. Clients will often provide text-heavy files or complicated visual information and I help simplify that information so that its both accessible and stimulating. With any of the design work I do, such as logo design or branding, I am constantly stripping it down to the least amount of visual information needed to communicate the message. Simplicity is first and foremost, and once established, I then determine whether the design incites interest or curiosity or if I need to build visual appeal.

I think what sets my business apart is attention to detail. I often find myself agonizing over details such as color palette and typography because those elements make such a huge impact on the mood of the project. I’m really choosy about photography, too. The right images can truly support the rest of the design or it can bring it all the way down.

My design career has been fairly lengthy at 20+ years and what I’m truly proud of is also the thing that has been the most challenging: finding a better work-life balance. Long commutes and spending 8+ hours in an office had taken their toll. I realize I thrive by not being bound by certain conventional restrictions, so I started working from home around 2017 and never stopped. This transition had a tremendously positive effect on my mental and physical health and I consider it one of the most significant ways that I’ve been able to improve my life.

Being lucky enough to do what I love while being able to take care of my needs is what success looks like to me. It was not easy to get to this point based on all the expectations I had about what success should look like. As a result I learned to stop holding myself to others’ standards of success, and instead to trust my instincts about what is right for me.

I’m currently most excited about working with an old friend on branding his pecan tart business. He’s been really easy to work with and is as passionate about his business as I am about helping him with it. This is the kind of client collaboration that I long for.

My design business, Radish Studio, caters (pun intended) to entrepreneurs in the food industry. We specialize in branding food businesses, which involves the design of logos, food products, menus, cookbooks, advertising, social media, illustration and more.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend was visiting San Diego I would definitely give them a food tour of my favorite places with some walking breaks in between meals! Breakfast places would include Wayfarer Bread for the most incredible pastries. My favorite is their from-scratch English muffin which is a completely different beast from a packaged supermarket muffin. Morning Glory is another brilliant breakfast joint and their Japanese pancakes and hashbrowns are worth the wait.

For lunch we can’t miss the Taco de Adobada at Tacos El Gordo. For a less traditional spin on tacos, my favorite is City Tacos. Can’t go wrong with the Pescado taco! Two dinner places that I have visited recently and love so very much are Kingfisher, which is a sort of upscale Southeast Asian restaurant. Everything I ate there was impeccable—including the Hokkaido Scallops with culantro, Thai chili butter and peanuts. Huntress is another brilliant fancy dinner place. Do not leave without trying the Katsu Style Sandwich or witness the drama as the waitstaff reveals the “Magic Mushroom” dessert under a glass cloche that billows smoke once the dessert is revealed. Pop Pie is really my favorite place for dessert and their key lime pie and exceptional coffee is what dreams are made of.

In between meals we would go for a stroll in Balboa Park. I love the Japanese gardens and the San Diego Museum of Art where they house Juan Sanchez de Cotán’s exceptional painting, ‘Quince, Melon and Cucumber.’ We’d also visit the Botanical Building and Lily Pond: peaceful, and plant-filled. We’d walk to the nearby San Diego Zoo, which houses so many different kinds of flora (oh yeah, and fauna) and get on the Skyfari Aerial Tram where we’d ride high across the park. Finally, we’d walk around Little Italy, grab a coffee at James and watch the planes as they swoop down to land at the nearby airport.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to shout out to my Mother, Lesley, who not only passed on her instinctive skills in the kitchen, but also all of her cookbooks, along with her enthusiasm and curiosity for all types of food. “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain was the first book I read that sparked an insatiable hunger in me for more incredible food writing. Last but not least, I’d like to shout out to my now-retired college Design professor, Michael Graham, who continues to be my mentor and friend: his encouragement and appreciation for design and typography helped solidify my decision to major in Design.

Website: http://radishstudio.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radish_thestudio/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nevineyounes/

Other: https://dribbble.com/nevineyounes

Image Credits
Portrait Photo Credits: Aurora Grie