Her job as an in-house designer for corporate publications has allowed Lisa Haran to use her artistic skills in a practical business setting at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Three years after completing a degree in fine art at the College of Marketing and Design on Mountjoy Square, Dublin, it was becoming increasingly obvious that life as an artist would be tough and, more important, penniless.

1999 was a busy year for Haran in which she not only landed herself a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers, but also won the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group's Art on a Bottle prize for young designers. Next time you are soothing yourself with a bottle of house wine in Jurys check out the eye-catching label which is based on one of Haran's prints.

Winning the prize was a great boost, and added invaluable CV credentials to help her in her job search. The importance for companies of projecting an attractive corporate image means that graphic design has become an increasingly important element of their publications, from in-house magazines, to corporate letterheads.

Leaving college in 1996 Haren was still uncertain of where her art skills would take her. Like many graduates she headed abroad to do some travelling and ponder her future. She worked her way around the US and Australia doing the usual bar, restaurant and nightclub work that often sustains travellers through their journey.

If nothing else she realised she needed to find a way that she could do a job she enjoyed, while using some of the skills she had learned. It was in Australia, where she designed 100 different Christmas cards to send home, that she realised graphic design might suit her.

On returning she started a FAS course in that area, but was keen to get some experience in a graphic design company. Luckily her boss in her part-time Internet cafe job knew a director of BFK Design, a respected Irish graphic design company.

A four-week work experience stint in BFK followed, and it was there that the Jurys Doyle design prize idea was developed. Her design was spotted by one of the firm's directors and used in the entry for the prize. But even when the awards ceremony took place Haran had not realised that it was her work being rewarded and that she was the star of the show.

"I was so stunned I couldn't speak," she says. "I had to ask one of the guys why is everyone asking me what I had won."

Just two weeks ago she was having a drink in Jurys after her sister's graduation and could not help but start giggling when she saw her design on the wine bottles and menus. "I couldn't believe it was my design," she says.

While still at school in Palmerstown, Co Dublin, Haran was already very keen on art. She used to go to the National Art Gallery lectures at the age of 16, something she does not get around to now.

Her recent job-searching, and the time pressures of the new job have meant she has had to put her own artwork on hold for a bit. But she still has a studio on the quays and plans to keep making prints in her spare time. Her last exhibition sold out, so she plans to put some time aside to work on new material for an exhibition in the spring.

Her current job with PricewaterhouseCoopers is going well although it has been a huge leap in approach from the relaxed art world to the nine-to-five office routine she must now follow.

"I'm in the rat race now, I walk to work in the morning with my headphones on like everyone else," she says. "But I think this job will be really good for me because it will make me work to deadlines, and take a more professional approach to what I do". She also enjoys the training opportunities offered by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which have allowed her to increase the portfolio of computer graphics packages she is able to use.

Her advice to potential young designers is to have good long think about what they want to do, and make sure it is something they have a real enthusiasm for.