Episode 3: Thembi Hanify
Friends have the greatest friends. It’s how I came to be introduced to Thembi Hanify, in fact. A buddy of mine (who you’ll meet in next month’s episode of watercolors) suggested I speak with Thembi as she is a surfer, designer, and the tastefully creative mind behind Emocean Magazine, a publication devoted to surfing, inclusivity, and telling the stories of a chorus of diverse voices. A perfect fit for this type of thing, my friend said. She wasn’t wrong.
Born in New Zealand and getting her feet wet with surfing in the waves of Rockaway, New York, Thembi now finds herself on the West Coast. She was at home in Ojai when we spoke on the phone at the tail end of winter, deep in wetsuit season. We talked about how freelance design work is the best job for a surfer, East vs. West Coast aesthetic, and the highly-appropriate origin story behind the Emocean name.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So, first things first, how and when did you start surfing?
I guess my path into surfing was quite roundabout actually. I grew up in Australia, but I only surfed once or twice when I was a young kid. I think the landscape of surfing back then was pretty macho and really shortboard heavy, although it’s obviously different now. When I was growing up, the barriers to entry were just too intense and I didn’t feel super comfortable doing it.
So then I moved to America when I was 20 and I was doing graphic design mostly for fashion brands. My life basically changed in a really interesting way when I was working for a lot of those fashion brands and fashion ad agencies. One of my friends and her boyfriend at the time who was a surfer ended up moving to Rockaway and all of us were like, “What the hell are you guys doing? What is out there?”
Then I went to stay with them over the summer and had so much fun. I thought, “Wow this is magical.” So I ended up moving there for the summer and that also coincided with me starting to freelance for graphic design. I had a little bit of freedom in my schedule and we all — myself and probably four or five other girls, there was a whole crew of us — shared a house. That was our goal. We said, “Okay, we’re going to learn how to surf and get up no matter the weather or the conditions.” We’d be group texting at 5am like, “Come on! Is everyone up?!” Then we would go down to the beach and splash around and learn to surf. That’s where it all started. Just on a random move to Rockaway Beach.
That’s rad. So was freelancing a way to do creative work as well as fund your life as a surfer?
Yeah. I mean, living in Rockaway was drastically cheaper than living in the city. My house rent went way down when I moved to Rockaway which was great, although I think prices have since risen because it’s become quite a hot spot.
I think I just wanted freedom of time. I was chatting one day with a previous coworker who quit to do freelance work and he told me the day rate he was on. It was so much more than what I was getting paid as a full time employee. But then you have to pay for your health insurance, etc. There are benefits to both situations. But yes, that is how the financial lifestyle part played into the plan of moving to Rockaway.
Are you still doing the freelance thing now?
I am. I feel like my pace of freelancing has been much slower. I was on one contract which I finished in December, it was mostly a “permalance” contract if you will. I worked there for just over a year. So I feel like I’ve been doing more permalancing these days just because I don’t have the energy I did to hustle and get new clients every couple of weeks.
Also, I live in California now and the pace is much slower. People in New York would email you saying, “Hey, can you start a job tomorrow?” It’s not like that in California.
Speaking of the difference between East and West Coast, I’m wondering if your aesthetic preferences or creative eye changed as you went from one coast to the other?
Interesting. I would say, honestly, I think that the East coast has a more artistic and diverse cultural style overall. The California surf style is historic, has a long heritage, and strong aesthetic which I appreciate. But my personal aesthetic roots feel a bit more East Coast or New York.
That leads me to another question. When I see your work, I feel like you bring more art to the surfing world than surfing to the art world. Would you say that’s correct?
Yeah. I mean, especially for Emocean. We’re not trying to be a performance surf magazine, although it is amazing and we still do have some shreddy photos in there. I was talking to my boyfriend about this the other day, my north star for the magazine is Apartmento which tells stories about people and their environment, as well as about art. I want the magazine to tell more of a timeless story or uncover more timeless or interesting layers about people as opposed to someone getting a sick barrel.
Do you think Emocean is a response to that macho barrier of entry you encountered as a kid?
Definitely. I think learning to surf in Rockaway was a really unique experience and that set the tone for me. It was really formative. I also have noticed, there are more women-only surf magazines but it’s not overpopulated by any means. Women still need to be represented way more in surf media in general but with Emocean the idea is just to bring a new platform to printed surf media that really reflects an actually diverse crowd of people. It’s not just women surfing, it’s not just shreddy white dudes surfing — it’s everyone.
You’re the founder and creative director of Emocean. Was it your first foray into print media? To individually tackle one component of print media — layout, typography, photography, creative direction — would be difficult but you’re doing it all. Can you tell me a little bit about how Emocean started and some of the obstacles that you faced getting it out there?
I’ve had experience printing various pieces of collateral and business cards and different things for companies and packaging in the past. Aside from that, not much. The idea started from a dissatisfaction with the current landscape of printed surf media.
I actually sent out a Google questionnaire to my friends, mostly female surfers, about surfing and surf media. Mariah Ernst [Emocean’s editor] was one of the people that I sent the questionnaire to. She replied within 24 hours, and was like, “Are you thinking of doing a surf magazine? Because I’m in 100%.” I was excited because I can do the creative stuff but Mariah’s expertise is in writing, editing, and uncovering people’s stories. She’s so amazing at that.
We teamed up together. We’re in different places — I’m in Ojai and she’s in St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands. I handle the extra stuff as well, on the ground, printing and all that. In the beginning it was really difficult actually to sort out all the printing stuff. The first issue we used a local printer and it didn’t exactly turn out the way we wanted. Then my boyfriend said he had some friends who live in Ensenada, in Baja, and he was doing a little photozine project and looking for a printer down there. The zine turned out really well so we got a quote from the same printer for Emocean and it was half the price of quotes in America.
It was really helpful to us because it can be prohibitively expensive to print the way you want to in America. We’re not printing giant quantities to go offshore to Asia or Eastern Europe, although we could print overseas. But then that also adds on months to a timeline. So it’s a balance. We ended up using this printer in Ensenada and they were amazing. My boyfriend actually drove down there and filled up his van with all of the copies of Issue Two and drove them back to California.
That’s incredible because not only is the magazine about diversity of individuals and how scrappy people can be to make things happen, but it also is playing out in the creation of the magazine.
Totally. We haven’t pursued advertising crazily either. Our focus has just been on creating the product and making it as amazing as it can be. With limited advertising money and resources we just snaggled our way into finding a really affordable print bill.
What’s been the reaction to Emocean?
It’s been overwhelmingly positive. When it first launched, I was honestly blown away. I think we sold out of 500 copies in two weeks.
Whoa. Congratulations.
It was so overwhelming and crazy. That’s obviously a really small scale anyway, but it proved people would like to see this. And for the second issue, we have stockists who initially doubled their orders from the first edition, saying, “We’ve sold out. Can you send us more?” It’s been really positive.
That’s nice to know that there is an appetite for those narratives in the surfing world. After moving to Rockaway, learning to surf while freelancing, how do those things influence each other now? Your creative work and surfing?
Yeah, Rockaway influenced me in many ways. It’s such a special place and I loved every second of my time living there but at the end of the day I was looking for a little more nature and peace and quiet. Even though it’s the beach, it’s still New York. It wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle for me. I guess it inspired me to go in search of more nature and that’s how I ended up in California. I would say, a lot of our collaborators and people featured in Emocean are from Rockaway or New York or in that community. I think that I will always carry that influence with me.
What about with your creative studio? Spending time on your website and looking at what you’ve done in the past, there seems to be a pretty large divide between that stuff and Emocean. Your design work seems a little bit more high fashion and high design. Are you trying to keep those worlds separate?
I feel like I’m not enjoying working in high fashion as much anymore. It was definitely a great, interesting period of time of my life but I feel like the expectation and the hours for that was next level crazy. My portfolio definitely has pivoted from more fashion stuff to tech, surfing, and beauty, which is an interesting combination. I think that is a lot of the Californian industry. There are many beauty brands obviously, all of tech, and the heart of big surf brands as well.
What inspires you? Who are your inspirations?
That’s a tough one. I love musical references. My friend Bel has this amazing book of ’80s rave flyers. Then there’s this other book, it’s a book of jazz covers as well as fashion photography and things like that. I think my inspiration comes from other places that aren’t surfing and then gets channeled into the creative approach for Emocean.
I dig that because when you start bringing in threads from other aesthetics or art forms, then seems to reinvigorate the surf aesthetic.
Totally. I like to look towards other artists, musicians, and a diverse set of cultural references, I guess.
I ask each interviewee a couple of the same questions. The first is, what does your dream project look like?
Well, I have a few dream projects. One is obviously Emocean and that is honestly a dream project. Second dream project would be building my own home.
I think architecture was my second preference going into university, but I ended up doing visual communication which I’m happy I did. I can be impatient and I think architecture requires a lot of patience. But as I get older, I really want to create a dream dwelling and not in the sense of something grandiose, but just having a space the way I want it. Those are my dream projects.
Second question: what are you riding right now?
Well, funny you should ask that actually. I just borrowed a board off a local shaper named Jacob and his board company is called Jive. I thought to reach out to him because I mostly longboard and ride mid-lengths. I have a longboard that I love and a 7'10" Haley Pin from Trimcraft, which I also love. So I thought maybe I want to try riding some more hollow waves and trying to be a little bit more critical. I’m not skilled in that department at all, but I wanted to try. So I borrowed a 6'3" twin fin and I took it out today and had a lot of fun. I think I’m psyched to have tried something outside of my usual realm.
Oh, I wanted to ask about Emocean, the name. How did it come about? It’s a great name.
This is another shout out to my friend Bel, who I mentioned earlier. She has the rave flyers book. Bel and I were lying on the beach at Rincon one day, and I was telling her about my idea and I asked her: “What should I call it?” She was like, “Me and my friends sometimes use the word emotion, but spelled e-m-ocean, to describe how we feel.” And I was like, “Oh my God, that’s it.” So I can’t take any credit but it’s so perfect in so many different ways.
Learn more about Emocean here.
