Australian Design Radio

In this episode, we spoke with Tegan Wotton, Design Director at Space Between in Melbourne. Tegan has an interesting career path which we get stuck into straight away, growing up in the bush has given her a strong connection to her home and what the idea of home can be. Unsurprisingly she has found herself working with a band of likeminded designers at Space Between Melbourne, where is the design...

EP117 WITH Johanna, Matt and Flyn It’s that time of the year when everyone is winding down for Christmas… who are we kidding, everyone is frantically trying to get things finished before the enforced shut down. Either way, the ADR crew decided to sit down and chew the fat (as a vegetarian, Matt finds that somewhat offensive), review the year, pinpoint highlights and favourite interviews, before lo...

EP116 with Craig Black In this episode, we spoke with Craig Black a graphic designer, lettering artist and typographer. Craig is Scottish born and after spending some time in London, he currently runs his own design studio in Gourock, Scotland. He has a diverse style and doesn’t seem to be tied down to any single medium or aesthetic. This has led to an impressive list of clients from all over the...

EP115 with Andrew Ashton When it comes to the Australian design industry, there are few as supportive and as accomplished as Andrew Ashton. Across his 30+ professional years, he has consistently advocated on behalf of Aussie creatives and built an international reputation that has seen him awarded many times over. At 34, Andrew was made one of the youngest members of the prestigious Alliance Graph...

In this episode, we spoke with Nick Gower and Saakshi Muralidhar of Mentally Friendly. Mentally friendly is a group in Sydney that works with health, education, finance, and government to deliver wellbeing at scale. Nick is one of the founders of the business and an advisor to senior product leaders and clients, Saakshi is a senior organisational designer who started her career in product design,...

This episode, Flyn is in conversation with Head of Endineering, Joe Macleod. With a 20+ year career in product design, both digital and tangible, Joe has a wealth of experience in UX and HCD. During his time at Nokia and as Head of Design at UsTwo, Joe became concerned about the end of the customer journey and started a campaign to make off-boarding as important as on-boarding. This ultimately led...

In this episode, we spoke with Chi Ryan National Experience Strategy Lead at PwC. Chi Ryan makes meaningful products, services and experiences for humans, and humanity — and she’s passionate about empowering others to do the same. She has worked with many of the big names in service design including Fjord, Isobar and Idean and she is now the experience strategy lead at PwC. We talked about Ancient...

This episode sees us sitting with Steve Baty, co-founder and principal of Meld Studios. Let’s just get this out of the way, Steve is a mad cyclist, so we begin there before he expertly links it back to service design, user experience and how to solve ‘dumb shit’ quickly. Steve has an uncanny ability to see the core of the problem and we talk through a range of case studies that explain Melds appro...

In this episode, we spoke with Benni Weller and Mikey Hart of Hulsbosch. Benni and Mikey are both Creative Directors at Hulsbosch based in Sydney. Hulsboch is known for creating iconic brands and working with big-name clients throughout Australia and Mikey and Benni find themselves today as creative leaders. We spoke about their different paths to where they are today, the pros and cons of special...

In this episode, we spoke with Kenjiro Kirton, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Hato. It’s Saturday afternoon on the last day of The Design Conference in Brisbane. The beers are flowing, the heads are sore and the minds overloaded. Still, we found time to sit down with Kenjiro Kirton, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Hato. Hato is a unique studio (both in London and Hong Kong) for the way th...

In this episode, we spoke with Ben Johnston and Alex Naghavi of Joseph Mark. We began by talking about working and living in LA and projects with famous people, we spent some time at Adam Sandler’s Christmas Party and the gushed about the Hemsworth's. We later got deep into the future of sex, getting old, sexual compatibility scores and our cognitive load, venturing and investing in people (rather...

We’re at the Design Conference in Brisbane and we had the opportunity to sit down with Amanda Munilla, Managing Director, at Wolff Olins.    Amanda, not a designer by trade has had a non-linear path into managing at one of the biggest creative firms in the World. Deciding not to be a lawyer was only the beginning and she has since gone on to build a strong career in strategy. With that in mind, we...

In this episode, we spoke with Tea Uglow, experimental person in charge at google's creative lab, Sydney. Tea Uglow is one of those very few people who genuinely make you rethink everything you thought you knew. This episode is full of interesting insights into how we can think about technology, inclusiveness, design, and accommodation. We talk very briefly about her early days at Google in 2006 a...

EP105 with Mills and Sinx Founders and owners of UsTwo, Matt 'Mills' Miller and John ‘Sinx’ Sinclair suddenly find themselves in a very enviable position — leaders of a successful ‘independent’ company, and… not really needed. This is of course ‘designed’ and not without a lot of hard work. But, since bringing in a CEO and senior management the best friends finally get to appreciate what they have...

As Director and co-founder of Small Multiples, Andrea Lau is a data-visualisation specialist. In their words, they are a multidisciplinary team of data specialists, designers and developers, helping people make the best use of their data. Flyn and Matt unashamedly use this as an opportunity to dig into what data is, and how the visualisation of it is affecting many of our day to day decisions. Tha...

Matt is still in London and he managed to find an empty spot in Pip Jamieson’s — (understandably) very busy — diary (8am after a public holiday). Pip is the founder and CEO of The Dots, a professional network for people in the creative industry. She has been named in numerous ‘ones to watch’ lists and has thrown herself into the world of raising capital and entrepreneurship. She’s passionate about...

This episode Matt is in London and took the time to catch with two old friends, Mark Stott, ECD at Felix® — and, wait for it — Denise Chippindale, Marketing Manager at General Assembly (UK & Europe). Denise very kindly jumped in as co-host and gave great insights into the London design scene and how she’s been keeping busy since she moved over. Mark has been working on a secret project after closi...

This episode we’re with Ben Miles, Executive Creative Director at Interbrand Australia. Ben has been with Interbrand for over a decade and during that time has seen it evolve and change — this is what Ben terms the ‘three horizons of Interbrand Australia’. We spend some time unpacking these periods, why people made the culture and how the studio has tried to ‘stand apart’ from what is expected of...

In this episode, we spoke with Katja Forbes Managing Director of Designit. Katja is the Managing Director of Designit ANZ, Director, she’s on the IxDA global board, one of 100 women of influence and in the top 10 female entrepreneurs in Australia. She's a specialist in research & experience design with the qualifications that go with it, she's an educator, mentor, coach, who gets genuinely excited...

In this episode, we spoke with Zoë Pollitt and Natasha Hasemer from independent creative agency eskimo. ⁣⁣⁣ Specialising in fashion, retail, luxury property and consumer goods eskimo design has been a colourful part of the Australian design tapestry for twenty years. Recently, Zoë and Tash have both taken a sabbatical, we unpack what that means, what’s next amid our jealousy. We spoke about the ye...

ADR EP98 with Rob Self-Pierson on Words and Verbs Rob Self-Peirson is a writer and brand consultant based in London, UK. He is the founder and head of The Table, an agency devoted to tone of voice and copywriting. He’s worked with the likes of GumTree, British Gas, IKEA, V&A and has a fierce love of design and a desire to see designers and writers working closely together. Rob was actually in Aust...

Episode 97 with Carlo Giannasca on Limelight and Curtains.⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Carlo Giannasca is a multi-award-winning graphic and three-dimensional environmental designer. He is the Head of Urbanite, Design Director and one of the founder/owners of Frost*collective. On top of that, he is the joint chair of Sydney's SEGD chapter (The Society for Experiential Graphic Design). ⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ In this episode, we chart...

Mike Rigby is Vice President and Executive Creative Director at R/GA. We know Mike from his time in Australia working as Creative Director at Interbrand and although he’s always been on our list of people to talk to on the show, the timing never worked out. So when we found out Mike would be at Adobe Max when we were, we jumped at the chance to make it finally happen. This episode could’ve gone in...

Episode 95 with Jessica Hische on Encouragement and Bravery. Jessica hardly needs an introduction, she is a creative icon and well known for her illustration work, side projects and phenomenal client work. But for those out there who may not know her, she is described on her website as a lettering artist and author with a tendency to overshare and a penchant for procrastiworking. We spoke about de...

EP94 with Mark Heaps on Life and Fulfilment⁣ ⁣ In this episode, we spoke with Mark Heaps, designer and synergist.⁣ ⁣ Mark is an American designer from Austin Texas who studied art and design in the UK. With his wife, he runs a service group with a small team of designers and production experts. This episode was recorded in Los Angeles as part of our Adobe Max series. ⁣ ⁣ We spoke about the beginni...