The Honest Designer Diaries

You can go to an event knowing exactly who you want to meet, but sometimes the conversation that leads to something brilliant is with the person you hadn’t expected to speak to at all. This week I’m chatting with graphic designer, instructor, speaker and author of 'How do I do that in InDesign' Dave Clayton about the creative connections that have shaped his career, including an awkward moment at...

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m just not creative”? In this episode, I’m chatting with Scott Gordon, a brand designer who also teaches in secondary school, about whether creativity is something you’re born with or something you can learn. We talk about what happens when a student is convinced they can’t come up with ideas, why being brilliant with design software doesn’t necessarily mean the...

Courtney started designing £5 logos on her phone during lockdown, while still thinking graphic design would probably remain something she did at weekends alongside her retail job. Six years later, she’s running Funky Enough, working with branding and website clients around the world, building a small freelance team and creating the bold, colourful work she’s now known for. In this episode, we chat...

In this episode, I’m chatting with brand designer Abi Lee about something we don’t hear discussed very often, how you keep a freelance business going when you’re grieving. Two years ago, Abi lost her dad very suddenly. While trying to process what had happened and support her family, she was also dealing with the reality of working for herself, where there’s no compassionate leave and nobody else...

This week I’m chatting with editorial designer, speaker, host and Adobe mentor Kieron Lewis about all the different skills that can shape a creative career. We talk about why being a great designer will only take you so far, how important it is to communicate your ideas and why Kieron considers his people skills to be one of his biggest strengths. We also get into some of the more difficult parts...

Chloe from The Chatty Freelancer and I have a habit of sitting in the car talking for ages whenever we meet up, usually after one of us has offered the other a lift home. We always end up saying we should have recorded the conversation, so this time we actually did. So we've set ourselves some big audacious goals we want to reach in the next few months and sharing our progress in this bonus series...

When you’re good at listening, asking the right questions and understanding what really matters to a client, it usually makes you a better designer. It can also mean that somewhere between the brand strategy and the logo concepts, you accidentally become their therapist as well. This week, I’m chatting with art director, brand designer and content creator Wayne Fick about the client relationships...

Hannah Walker didn’t set out to become a content creator. She studied fashion design, worked in London and New York, then found herself back in the UK wondering what the next version of her career might look like. Hannah also shares how she plans content around big events without spending the entire trip staring at her phone, why she hasn’t forced herself into one very specific niche and how she’s...

In this episode I’m chatting with Robin, brand and graphic designer and host of Creative Confessions , about the fear of growth and why we can make a decision in our own head, sit with it for ages, then still feel like we need somebody else to tell us it’s a good idea. We talk about overthinking, changing direction, working on your own without other creatives around to bounce ideas off, and why st...

What happens when you graduate from design school and realise you’ve technically already been working as a designer for a few years? This week I’m chatting with graphic designer Morgan Hastie, aka The Logo Lassie, who had graduated just two weeks before we recorded this episode. But while she might be a brand new graduate on paper, Morgan has already been freelancing since 2023 and has worked with...

This week I’m joined by brand designer, speaker and Building Your Brand podcast host Liz Mosley for a chat about sexism in the graphic design industry, and why women are still having to work harder to be trusted, heard and taken seriously. We talk about toxic agency culture, unconscious bias and the lack of women in senior creative roles. We also get into ageism, motherhood, caring responsibilitie...

In this bonus episode, I’m sharing the story of the Saturday Night SOS client, who also happened to be a friend, which made saying no even harder. What was meant to be a quick emergency job turned into hours of designs, feedback and changes. This episode follows on from my conversation with Bhavini in Episode 5, Bad clients and blurry boundaries , where we had plenty to say about red flag clients,...

What do you do when business goes quiet, orders slow down and everyone else online still looks suspiciously busy? In this episode, I’m joined by Scottish designer and maker Nikki McWilliams, whose wonderfully niche world includes biscuit cushions, stationery and a loyal community that has grown with her business over the past 15 years. In this episode, we chat about: Why quiet spells feel so diffi...

Aseil Amgheib started out in interior architecture, moved into production design, then found her way into branding almost by accident during lockdown. A few cold emails, one very determined 100-day design challenge and a lot of figuring things out as she went eventually led to her building Design Wolf, her London-based branding and web design studio. We chat about changing direction when the caree...

Ross Grubb didn’t plan on becoming a freelance graphic designer. After four design jobs and being put at risk of redundancy four times, three of which ended with him losing his job, freelance started to feel less like the risky option. Ross is also one of the co-hosts of the Scottish Creative Network , a monthly Glasgow networking event created to help designers, photographers, marketers and other...

I’m chatting with graphic designer Bhavini Lakhani about the client red flags we really should trust sooner, especially when we’re freelancing and trying to keep everyone happy. We talk about what happens when a project starts feeling off before it has even properly begun, from scope changes and last-minute timelines to contracts that are definitely not the NDA they were meant to be. Bhavini share...

I’m chatting with my lovely pal Darren Meredith about something we’ve both been asked about quite a lot, our experience working with Canva and Adobe as creators. And just to say this right at the start, this isn’t a “which design tool is better” episode. This is much more about what it’s actually like behind the scenes when you create content, build an audience, get invited into brand programmes,...

In this episode of The Honest Designer Diaries , I’m chatting with Teresa Ferreira , founder of Ferrrgood Studio , about leaving her role as Head of Design at the Financial Times and building something of her own. Teresa had what many designers would probably see as the big, impressive, “you’ve made it” kind of job. But after seven years at the FT, and a pandemic-induced bit of rethinking, she sta...

In this episode of The Honest Designer Diaries , I’m chatting to Rachel Cartlidge , a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Edinburgh. Rachel left university thinking she had her next step sorted. She had a junior designer role lined up, had signed for a flat, and was away travelling before she was due to start. Then, two weeks before her start date, the role fell through. So we chat...

Episode 1: Why I’m Starting The Honest Designer Diaries The Honest Designer Diaries is a podcast about what it’s actually like to build a life and career as a designer, beyond the nice work we share online. Hosted by Juls, a brand designer and design educator from Glasgow with over 30 years in the industry, each episode is a real chat with designers about the situations, decisions and wobbles that...