Diana Varma

Talk Paper Scissors

Arts EN ↓ 318 episodes

Join host, Diana Varma, as she explores the wonderful world of design and printing, typography and branding, books and publishing. Diana loves nothing more than getting creative with Creatives about all things creative. Ready to have some fun? Let's Talk Paper Scissors!

Author

Diana Varma

Category

Arts

Podcast website

www.talkpaperscissors.info

Latest episode

Jul 9, 2026

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Episodes

Brave Creative Humans: Failure (Part 1) 11.09.2025

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Brave Creative Humans series! This is the second of 6 episodes featuring some of the many past Talk Paper Scissors guests who exemplify brave creative living: Allison MacKenzie, Kevin Shaw, Vincent Wanga, Meg Lewis, Emad Saedi, and Justine Abigail Yu. In this episode, the 6 answer this questions: “How do you sense failure: literally, how would you describe how you s...

Brave Creative Humans: Perfection 04.09.2025

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Brave Creative Humans series! This is the first of 6 episodes featuring some of the many past Talk Paper Scissors guests who exemplify brave creative living: Allison MacKenzie, Kevin Shaw, Vincent Wanga, Meg Lewis, Emad Saedi, and Justine Abigail Yu. In this episode, the 6 answer these questions: " What are your thoughts on perfectionism in creative work? Is pe...

Brave Creative Human Book Launch Day! 28.08.2025

Send us Fan Mail Surprise! Brave Creative Human is here one month early. In this episode, I share the serendipitous story behind the book, why it exists, and who it’s for.  There's a special guest appearance by Creativity Professor and Drag Queen, Guy Anabella, who wrote the book’s foreword and joins me to talk about brave creative humanity. Themes include embracing failure, reframing imposte...

Accessible Digital Publishing with Laura Brady 02.07.2025

Send us Fan Mail It’s the final episode before Talk Paper Scissors takes a break until September and we have one of the best with us today, talking all about accessibility in digital publishing. Laura Brady is an accessible publishing expert who works with eBound Canada, the Accessible Books Consortium, the International Publishers Association, and Adobe among other organizations. She teaches, she...

Making Magic 30.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Let’s make magic!  In this episode you’ll hear about Diana’s latest collaborative making project (that could involve you!) called Making Magic; a collection of creativity kits that anyone can use to experience a bit of everyday joy and wonder. You’ll hear about the first batch of kits ready to share (Upcycled Zine Kits), as well as the three alternative creative economies on which...

A Home for Zines: The Toronto Zine Library & Archive 27.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail A home for zines! From makers near and far, with small and large publications, you’ll hear about the exciting medium of zines where anything can happen at the intersection of art and independent publishing. This is the 4th and final episode in the series, featuring the Toronto Zine Library. The Toronto Zine Library & Archive (TZL) is a physical library space run by a collectiv...

Zines to Feel Seen with Sisley Mark 25.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Yesssss zines!  From makers near and far, with small and large publications, you’ll hear about the exciting medium of zines where anything can happen at the intersection of art and independent publishing. This is the 3rd of 4 episode in the series, featuring Sisley Mark. Sisley is a Chicago-based artist and creative. She primarily works with acrylic or ink on canvas and paper. Her...

(Feeling All the) Feels Zine with Hannah and Sarah 20.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Zines! Zines! Hooray for Zines!  From makers near and far, with small and large publications, you’ll hear about the exciting medium of zines where anything can happen at the intersection of art and independent publishing. This is the 2nd of 4 episode in the series, featuring Hannah and Sarah of Feels Zine.  In this episode, you’ll hear how Feels Zine came to be, as well as hear mo...

Life is Collage with Ioana of Artizine UK 16.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to a 4-part publishing series all about the world of zines! From makers near and far, with small and large publications, you’ll hear about this exciting medium where anything can happen at the intersection of art and independent publishing. First up we have Ioana Simion, who is an artist-educator and facilitator based London. She runs community workshops under the artistic...

Emerging Typeface Designers Paulina Marin & Darrab Qureshi 12.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Meet emerging typeface designers, Paulina Marin and Darrab Qureshi! Paulina designed a typeface called Funky Pants and Darrab designed an Arabic typeface called Qalam in GCM 806 Advanced Typography at Toronto Metropolitan University. In the following conversation, you'll get to hear about each typeface. You'll also hear their perfect type pairings, sensory descriptions o...

Be The Glitch You Want to See in the Matrix with James McCrae 06.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to a thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting conversation with James McCrae, author, poet, and teacher who empowers creators to live with purpose and turn imagination into reality. In this conversation you’ll hear how James’ career has always been rooted in both art and writing, including his navigation through various facets of the design industry. You’ll hear why James b...

Toronto Tourism, Graffiti Culture & Emotional Infrastructure with Alex Sein 03.06.2025

Send us Fan Mail Today we have educator, storyteller and Toronto tourism go-to, Alex Sein @BeardedProf416. In this conversation, you’ll hear Alex’s story of becoming a Torontonian, including his link to graffiti culture in the city and how he accidentally became intwined in this community. You’ll hear about the history of graffiti, why it matters and how graffiti is often a collaborative process....

Nature x Creativity with Paige Deasley 30.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Today’s conversation features Paige Deasley, photographer, storyteller, and creative strategist passionate about helping people reconnect with nature.  In this conversation, you’ll hear about Paige’s life that exists at the intersection of nature and creativity. You’ll hear how she handles working remotely while immersing herself in nature, how she found her photographic voice, as...

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Citizen Printer 26.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Today we have the one, the only, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., an American printer, book artist and papermaker who has been puttin’ ink on paper since 1949. He is a citizen printer, which you’ll hear much more about very soon. In this conversation, you’ll hear about Amos’ incredible book, Citizen Printer, including how it came to be, what it means to be a citizen and Amos’ vision for ci...

Talk Paper Scissors Meets...Talk Paper Scissors?! 15.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Today’s guest is internet artist, Nolen Royalty. He's interested in getting strangers to interact over the internet in unusual ways and in pushing mundane technology to its limits. Projects of his include stranger video (a website that shows you live, silent video of a stranger's face until one of you blinks), One Million Checkboxes (a website with a million global check...

Creative Meets Technical with James Rowan 12.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Could you collaborate to make an award-winning professional short film with a team from start to finish in just 48 hours? Our guest today has done just that! James Rowan is a technologist, educator, and researcher working at the intersection of film, television, and emerging technology. You’ll hear James talk about the ways in which both creativity drives technology and technology...

Type Up Your Life with Elliot Jay Stocks 08.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Elliot Jay Stocks is a designer and musician, known in typographic circles thanks to his time as Creative Director of Adobe Typekit, founder of typography magazine 8 Faces, and for his recent collaboration with Google that lead to the creation of Google Fonts Knowledge.  In this conversation, you’ll hear about Elliot’s prolific career in type. We talk passion projects and opportun...

I Wrote a Book! 05.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to 250th episode of Talk Paper Scissors where I celebrate YOU the listeners, chat about podcasting milestones and share info about the upcoming release of my book called Brave Creative Human: Reframe imposter syndrome, embrace failure and be unapologetically you, with the foreword written by the one and only Drag Artist & Creativity Professor, Guy Anabella!  Release da...

The Art of Direction with Vincent Wanga 01.05.2025

Send us Fan Mail From actionable leadership strategies to creative direction to AI, this episode is for all of the creative change makers!  In this conversation, you’ll hear from creative leader, Vince Wanga, author of "The Art of Direction” with a distinguished two-decade career. He shares the benefits of long-term goal setting and he shares his next audacious goal. You’ll hear about his boo...

Playing Racquetball in the Bathroom with Artist Kara Dunne 28.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever dressed up as a life-sized paper doll, used a typewriter in a public bathroom or traveled to multiple continents to learn more about sheep? Meet Kara Dunne, who has done all of the above and more in the name of art. In this conversation, you’ll learn more about why and how many artistic modalities are part of Kara’s artistic practice, as well as about her most challe...

A Rosie Life in Italy with Rosie Meleady 24.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail Today’s guest is Rosie Meleady, Irish author and my first cousin once removed!   Rosie is currently having a fabulous midlife crisis in Italy, running women’s writing retreats in Italy twice a year, and hosting women solo travellers and creatives in her Umbrian villa guest house. She writes humorous living memoir and humorous fiction.  Through this conversation, you’ll better unde...

Snacky Sidebars with Magazine Designer Kyle Schruder 22.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail This 3 part mini-series features 3 designers who bring different kinds of magazines to life. In this third and final episode, we have Creative Director and magazine designer, Kyle Scrhuder. In this conversation, Kyle straddles the line between printed magazines and digital magazines. You’ll also hear about a project early in Kyle’s career that fundamentally changed the way he appr...

Digital Tools for Magazine Creation with Alexandra Golubeva of Readymag 17.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail This 3 part mini-series features 3 designers who bring different kinds of magazines to life. In this second episode, we have Alexandra Golubeva, Designer at Readymag! In this conversation, Alexandra takes us through what Readymag is all about, as well as a series of projects that showcase the platform’s capabilities. You’ll better understand what’s possible with digitally publishe...

Serving Up Magazines with Nicola Hamilton 15.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail This 3 part mini-series features 3 designers who bring different kinds of magazines to life. First up we have Art Director and Issues Magazine Shop owner, Nicola Hamilton!  In this conversation, you’ll hear Nicola share what it means to work on projects that manifest in print, as well as how she approaches the design of Serviette magazine to serve the content and audience, includi...

Communities of Care with Patricia Ki 10.04.2025

Send us Fan Mail This is the third and final episode in a 3-part mini series about exploring creative education, both as a noun and a verb; new ways of thinking about assessments, grading and ungrading with 3 brilliant educators who work and teach in the spaces of communication, design, creativity, art and art therapy.  In this episode, you’ll hear from Art Therapist and Educator, Patricia Ki, who...

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