WiseNoise: The Creative Practice Podcast

This week I'm joined by Freddie Öst, co-founder of Stockholm's Snask, the agency behind Make Enemies and Gain Fans. We start with the naivety that started it all: three graduates who looked at the agency ladder and decided to build their own rules instead. There's the teddy bear they sent to Glasgow School of Art (still sitting on a shelf in the office), the quote they doubled as a joke and got ac...

WiseNoise, Steven Wakabayashi: Design as Data, Selling with Your Ears, and Why Health Comes First This week I'm joined by Steven Wakabayashi: founder of Stranger Creative, the New York digital product agency, and of QTBIPOC Design, the nonprofit opening pathways into the industry for queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and people of colour. We start with his unlikely route in: physiology, neuroscience...

For this episode, I'm joined by Brand Strategist & Creative Director Kirsten Murray and Edible founder Alex De Sousa : mentor and mentee at Edinburgh College, who years later worked together to build a brand for people living with food allergies. Alex has around 28 food allergies. We talk about the game of whispers that is asking for allergen info at the table, the lamppost sticker research th...

This week I'm joined by Tegan McDougall and Charlotte - the inaugural winners of the Wiselove Studio Emerging Talent award at Gray's School of Art degree show. We talk about the chaos of getting a degree show ready (painting floors, no sleep, that panic of 'have I done enough?'), what four years at Gray's taught them, and the daunting step into industry. Tegan discusses her 'Reimagining Football'...

This week I sat down with Matt Burns, co-founder of the world-renowned beverage design agency Thirst . We went right back to the beginning — meeting over a pint at the Velvet Elvis in Partick, Glasgow after Matt answered a Gumtree ad straight off the boat from Australia, to making the single most effective spreadsheet in design history (cold-emailing 44 Scottish breweries and getting one life-chan...

In this episode, I spoke with Jonny Mowat — a Graphic designer turned film director who's written and directed the short films 'The Organist' and 'Behold, this dreamer cometh', and the brilliantly sarcastic Dooklt Brewery ‘football survival’ ad. Here's the full advert to watch as we discuss it: https://vimeo.com/1193140335 We talk about the leap from Freytag Anderson to film sets, why being a gene...

From the art clubs of Stornoway to curating the history of Shinty in Inverness, Freya Macleod’s journey is a masterclass in "designing for place." In this episode, Pearse catches up with his former LOOM colleague to talk about her fabulous Museum of Here project, the surreal experience of building models in her dad's garage during lockdown, and why she’s embracing the "Generalist" tag in a world t...

What happens when your successful design agency collapses in "20 minutes"? For Chris Sanders, it was the start of something much bigger. I'm delighted to talk to the founder of Right Aligned about the messy reality of a career in design. Chris shares his journey from a 1999 print room to building a global educational platform that prioritises "the process" over the polished final result. We discus...

In this episode, Pearse sits down with Fraser Robertson—the illustrator and designer behind the moniker Lost Astronaut . They dive into the "deep lore" of Fraser’s career, from his foundation days in Dundee to the serendipity of pitching a brewery that happened to have a beer called Lost in Sauce . We get into the gritty details of: The Market Stall Hustle: The vulnerability (and exhaustion) of se...

In this episode, Peter from Brandsmith™ takes us on a whirlwind tour of how he turned his versatile skills into a thriving freelance empire, all while making everything look effortless—even if he’s toyed with metal band logos and 3D models. You'll discover how to leverage your full spectrum of skills, from slick websites to motion graphics, without sacrificing your sanity—or your soul. We break do...

My guest this week is James Barnard - Logo and visual identity designer with a mahooosive social media following. I'm a big fan of James' output and recently became a founding member of his Designerrrs.com community. We discuss the community and how it's grown. We also chat about some of my favourite logo designs he's made. James doesn't get the 'quickfire' element of the Bingo Wheel of Wisdom, bu...

Hello, and welcome to episode 2 of  WiseNoise , where I sit down with creative minds to chat about the challenges behind their work. This time around, I had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Chris Wilson, the one-person powerhouse behind STCKMN. Chris is one of the good guys on the scene with an incredible portfolio, which we discuss. He is proudly a generalist, dubbing himself a 'polyamor...

In the very first episode of WiseNoise, I’m joined by Ewan Leckie, the brilliant mind behind MyCreative . Ewan has built an solid reputation for creating bold, meaningful brand identities and packaging designs across a range of industries. We chat about into his creative process, how he approaches a new brief, the ricky issue of pricing and whether he would snog Photoshop. Intro music by Mother Ni...

Hello, welcome to WiseNoise - a podcast about creative practice. You're in the right place. All new episodes will appear here, so subscribe and stay in the loop. For clips and info on upcoming guest follow on Insta: @WiseLove. Studio or check the studio HQ - www.wiselove.studio