It's been two years and nearly a hundred episodes since we launched The Creative Boom Podcast. With 2023 fast approaching, we thought a Christmas Special might be in order. One that celebrates how far we've come and pays tribute to the people who helped us get here but also allows us to look ahead and consider what's next. What better way to do so than return to our very first guest? And that's Malcolm Garrett. The esteemed graphic designer and creative director also happens to be one of...

It's our final guest of season five. Angela Roche is a graphic designer and creative director who runs Manchester studio, Love & Logic. We've been trying to get Angela on the show for quite some time. Disclaimer alert: we're great friends and once shared an office when she was running Design By Day – a brand and digital agency that had tremendous success, working for clients such as the NHS, Barnardo's, and Brother. We fondly remember leaning out of the window of our Northern Quarter...

Our next guest is Meredith Schomburg, a Brooklyn-based illustrator originally from North Carolina. Today, we'll be hearing about the interesting twists and turns of Meredith's career thus far. Like many of us, she was told as a child that art wouldn't make a living, so she went down the more "constructive" graphic design route. After graduating in the field from North Carolina State University in 2015, she secured an internship at IDEO in Boston, which led to her first full-time job at a...

This week's guest is Lyndsay McLaren – account director at All Conditions Media and founder of Neighbourhood Skate Club. Lyndsay has spent the past decade in marketing and creative communications for action sports, outdoors, fashion and lifestyle brands worldwide. We're talking Patagonia, Go Pro, Adidas, Arc’teryx, Yeti and many more. Originally from Scotland, she graduated in Corporate Communication from Robert Gordon University in 2008. But then went to the States to study Performing Arts...

This week's guest on is Dyneisha Gross, an American graphic designer based in Washington DC, currently working at Ogilvy, one of the most respected creative agencies in the world. Dyneisha describes herself as someone who loves to tell stories, spark conversations and solve problems, starting with paper and a good writing utensil. Her punchy and colourful work reflects her bubbly and outgoing personality. And it was also one of the things that got her noticed after university, leading to...

This week, our guest is Michael Freimuth – the co-founder and creative director of Franklyn, a respected design studio in New York City. If you find yourself on Michael's personal website, you immediately get a sense of his character. There's a whole heap of humour and a dose of humility. He doesn't take himself too seriously but is passionate about the people and causes he gets behind. Whether he's focused on branding, design or illustration – collaboration and play are at the heart of...

Our next guest is Tom Geismar, the acclaimed American graphic designer famous for creating some of the world's most recognisable and enduring brands. Tom is a founding member of Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv (formerly Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar and Chermayeff & Geismar), the highly respected design firm in New York, which he began with friends Ivan Chermayeff and Robert Brownjohn in 1957. Together, they became renowned for their fresh and creative approach to companies...

Our next guest is Rebecca Harrison, a brand designer and creative director at global agency Loveblood Creative. Today, Rebecca is based in The Lakes, where she grew up. It's a small village with close family and a tight-knit community. But quite typically, when someone has enjoyed a quieter life as a child, she wanted to experience a different adventure in a big city. And so she packed her bags in 2004 and moved to London, where she studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. During...

Our next guest is Muiz, an art director, artist and designer from Manchester who specialises in Arabic and Latin branding, editorial and type design. Many of you will know why it's impossible to define precisely what you do. Job titles, after all, can be so limiting. It's why Muiz points out that he's a natural-born illustrator with an academic background in product design and fine art and also a qualified graphic designer working with clients as big as Arts Council England, Audi, and...

Our next guest is the acclaimed American graphic designer, author and scholar Louise Sandhaus. A professor at the California Institute of the Arts, she is also the principal of Louise Sandhaus Design, a studio she founded in 1998. Born in Massachusetts, Louise began her career in the 1970s and has since seen new technology disrupt and change the creative industries in ways many of us can't imagine – from the birth of the Apple computer to the software tools we still use today.  Thanks to...

Our guest on the podcast this week is Arthur Foliard, a creative director originally from Paris who is currently based in New York City. Arthur has travelled the world since he accepted an internship at Landor Associates in San Francisco over a decade ago. He later moved to London and worked for Pentagram before joining Moving Brands for a couple of years, rising from junior to senior designer. In 2016, Arthur tried his hand at freelancing for under a year but then was snapped up by the...

This week's guest is Katie Jones, a graphic designer from Manchester. We met Katie at the Manchester School of Art, where she is currently an associate lecturer. It's a role she adores, as she spends a lot of time doing something she loves while helping the next generation of designers. She enjoys it so much that in 2019, she scooped an MMU Teaching Award for 'Outstanding Feedback', the first teaching award the Art School has ever won. The School is where Katie studied her own art...

We kick off season five of The Creative Boom Podcast with a topic that is, thankfully, getting louder in the creative industries. And that's mental health. We've invited Manchester-based graphic designer Graham Jones as our first guest to guide us through. Now, if you're one of those creatives who doesn't do any marketing or seek fame in this industry, then Graham's approach will appeal. He's stayed deliberately quiet, not seeking out interviews or press coverage. Instead, he's been...

Want to hear the inside scoop from leading artists and designers? Understand what makes them thrive (not just survive) in a post-pandemic world, how they view emerging technology like generative AI, and where they think creativity is heading next? Or even hear of those seemingly small career moments that had enormous impacts? The Creative Boom Podcast will answer many of these burning questions and satisfy your curiosity through candid conversations with some of the world's biggest creative...

What does it feel like to be immersed in a scene documenting the rise of the UK's most important musical genre since punk? Simon Wheatley is an acclaimed photographer who did just that, capturing grime culture as it happened. His subsequent book Don't Call Me Urban! The Time of Grime was released in 2010, offering a fascinating insight into that world through music portraiture, reportage and architectural imagery. It shot to the top of the book charts and was immediately hailed as a classic...

We speak to many people about how they got into graphic design. But we never expect anyone to admit that a dislike of their handwriting would set them off on this creative path. This was certainly the case for Alison Haigh. Realising computers were the answer to crafting neater typography, she fell in love with design. And today is Design Director at Accept & Proceed, a respected studio based in London that's behind identities for Dickies and campaigns for Nike. Alison has had quite the...

It was the picture books from her childhood that inspired our next guest to become a freelance artist. The illustrated stories sparked a passion for drawing for Aysha Tengiz but were also what kept her sane growing up in Turkey, where her family had moved to be closer to her father’s. Now based in London, Aysha specialises in illustration, animation and textile design. Her work is playful, colourful, and often of everyday scenes full of charming characters like Fil, a lonely elephant who...

Those of you who remember the glory days of web design, Web 2.0, Flash and ActionScript, when the FWA and Deviant Art were just getting started, and when everything felt new and exciting, almost like a Wild West of the Internet, then our next guest will make you smile. Elliot Jay Stocks is a legend in the web design world. He began working as a junior designer for EMI Music, which he admits was a lucky break thanks to his portfolio, which had all the websites he'd designed and built for...

If you've been running a design studio for quite some time and with some success, does it feel like you've been doing so for many years? Or do you feel like you're only just getting started? This was the curious question we posed to Max Ottignon, a co-founder of Ragged Edge in London. Launched nearly 15 years ago with friend Matt Bland, the pair wanted to create a branding agency for people who "care less about how things are, and more about how things could be". That is anyone with the...

Boma Krijgsman is a cultural champion who is currently part of the team at JDO in London. As a brand ambassador and talent manager, she helps the creative agency raise its profile to attract clients and diverse talent. A self-proclaimed 'hustle bunny', Boma began her career travelling the world, working incredibly hard and picking up skills and experience along the way. She spent two years in Vietnam as the PR and marketing manager for a large fashion retailer, which she admits was a "dream...

What was it like to move to the UK from Delhi in the 1970s, aged just five years old? For Gush Mundae, founder of creative agency Bulletproof, he felt that, as an immigrant, he was never "invited in", so he admits it was a real hustle from the beginning. Hip-hop was just emerging in Britain, which he became obsessed with – along with all the associated culture, like graffiti art and sneakers. But Gush admits the street art "got him into a lot of trouble with the boys in blue and rival...

Our guest this week is Marina Willer, an award-winning graphic designer and filmmaker and one of Pentagram's many respected partners. Before joining the global agency, she was head creative director for Wolff Olins in London. With an MA in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art, Marina has enjoyed an incredible career so far. She's led the design of major identities, including Rolls Royce, Oxfam, Nesta and Amnesty International. She recently rebranded Battersea and Sight and Sound...

Mat Voyce describes himself as a "non-award-winning" graphic and motion designer based in the UK – not only because he hasn't yet won any awards and wants to joke about it, but perhaps to prove a point that you don't need a trophy to be a success. And a success Mat has truly been. Specialising in 2D type animation, Mat has become known for his pioneering style that explores illustrative kinetic typography. It's actually what made him famous, as he spent the pandemic creating simple yet...

Darnell Brown is a growth strategist and educator based in North Carolina. Originally a graphic designer, he now helps businesses to harness their superpowers, hack their time and impact lives through creative courses and consulting.  It’s a career he carved out for himself after suffering the effects of burnout during his days of crafting logos and building brand identities. It was 2008, at the peak of the global economic crisis when he decided to make the change from full-time employment...