New to Freelancing shortlist announced

Freelancing comes with wonderful opportunities, but can be a daunting prospect at first.

The New to Freelancing award celebrates the success of individuals who have recently crossed the bridge to freelancing.

The award is one of four up for grabs at this year’s Freelancer of the Year Awards ceremony, hosted by The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE).

The nominees shortlisted for this award are from a wide range of backgrounds and demonstrate a bright future for freelancing.

The winner will be announced at the Freelancer of the Year Awards ceremony at Kings’ Place on 13 June 2019.

The finalists

Sean Muntaner

Sean is a freelance industrial and graphic designer based in London. Running under the name Palma Bay Creative, Sean helps businesses launch products and services to customers worldwide. After leaving his full-time job as a senior designer for Marks & Spencer to go freelance last year, Sean has gone on to design products, packaging, graphics, marketing collateral and branding for a variety of large and small businesses. Alongside M&S, his products can also be seen in the likes of the Disney Store, John Lewis, Debenhams and Target.

Sean was featured as ToyNews’ 30 under 30 most talented people to look out for in 2016 following his successful range of Star Wars Homewares & Toys which sold in Europe, the U.S and Australia. Now with close to 10 years experience in design, Sean uses his multi-disciplinary skills and experience of large brands to give an all-round service to his clients.

Adam Pearson

Adam Pearson is a freelance research and evaluation consultant based in Lancashire. He worked in the public sector for the best part of a decade, heading up an in-house research agency for the last few years. But Adam always had the ambition to be self-employed and last year he went for it.
He set up Pearson Insight last May to help public and cultural organisations find new insights through market research, evaluation and analysis. Adam has worked with a dozen clients over the last year on projects covering anything from customer insight and employee research to event evaluations and industry benchmarking.

Salma Haidrani

Salma Haidrani is a four-time award-winning freelance writer and journalist. She has won awards such as ‘Young Journalist of the Year’ in October 2017, and ‘Best Feature’ in November 2016. Her work predominantly focuses on women’s rights, marginalised communities, contemporary faith, British identity and social issues for the likes of i-D, Vice, DAZED, Refinery29UK, Cosmopolitan, HUNGER, Time Out London and others. She is committed to shedding light on Britain’s invisible voices and providing a platform for the voices of invisible and under-represented communities.

Tina Touli

Tina Touli is a creative director, graphic communication designer, maker, speaker and educator. She currently works as a freelance multidisciplinary designer and teaches at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. She works in a great variety of design fields, including print and digital design, with different clients, such as Adobe, Dell, Tate, Converse, University of the Arts London, Kappa, Athens Digital Arts Festival and Movement Festival.

Her work has been featured in Adobe Create Magazine, Digital Arts Magazine and Creative Review blog among others and design publications such as “Design{h}ers” by Viction:ary.