If you’ve ever thought about chucking the TV out of the window, here is a very good reason: it leaves room for all the creative things that you always wanted to do. That’s at least what the young graphic designer/illustrator Burcu Günister does: without a TV to zap channels on, Burcu spends all her time feeding her soul.

An all-around artist who illustrates, does graphic design, and writes; Burcu was born in the northwestern city of İzmit and came to Istanbul in 2004 to study graphic design at the Fine Arts Faculty of Marmara University. Although not an Istanbul native, she is enchanted by the beauty of Istanbul, from where she gets most of her inspiration.

After finishing her BA in 2009 (which she graduated from at the top of her class), she began her Master’s degree in graphic design. She’s now writing her thesis on the effect of microstock sites (websites that sell images) on graphic design—a topic that has not been researched before.

She took the first steps of her successful career in primary school where her talent was discovered and encouraged by her art teacher. Burcu says that her teacher inspired and urged her to pursue a career in art. Now, when she looks back at her paintings from primary school she realizes that what she was painting then was in fact a form of illustration.

That’s why she enrolled in a vocational high school, studying graphic design at a young age and realizing that this is what she’s meant to do. She tells me that, after completing high school, she didn’t even consider doing anything else; it was a natural progression for her to go on to study graphic design at university. “This is what I’m meant to do,” she says, “this is a lifestyle, not a job.”

As she was preparing for university, it was her art teacher caricaturist Muhammet Şengöz that taught her how to think and look at the world. She says that “my time with Mr. Şengöz was one of the turning points in my life.”

A very disciplined and energetic young woman, Burcu has prospered in university, winning several logo competitions. She continues to overachieve in all aspects of her life. For example, in June, she’s headed to Cannes to compete at the Cannes Young Lions Competition in the short film category to execute a creative project in 48 hours.

She currently works as the art director at Publicis Bold while also being involved in freelance illustration and logo projects. She explains that she has a growing interest in typography and aims to improve herself in this area.

She is still ambivalent about which road she’ll take in the future; she doesn’t like limiting herself and wants to run free. But she does stress the fact that she wants to stay within the advertising industry as she finds the force and effect of advertising too appealing, as well as the process of finding an idea and being involved in the creative process.

She also dreams of working in interdisciplinary projects in the future, hopefully getting a chance to be involved in projects in which she can blend her two passions: illustration and typography.

A lover of all things chaotic and dynamic, she loves the energy of Istanbul, especially the areas where the beautiful and the ugly coexist. Istanbul is not just her inspiration but also the topic of most of her projects. In the past, she created a 3-D pop-up book on Istanbul and hand-made postcards. In the future, she’d like to work on a project in which she can illuminate Istanbul without its icons, with all its nakedness.

(To see more of Burcu’s work, check out www.behance.net/burcugunister.)