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Creative Slash

Brad Woodard and Dustin Lee

Have you ever wondered what secrets drive the most profound, successful, famous, and unique creatives?


Then the Creative Slash podcast is for you. We dig deep to discover the high-leverage concepts, philosophies, tools, weird obsessions, and quiet daily routines that fuel their success—the stuff that rarely gets talked about publicly. 


You'll get an inside look at what really drives the world's greatest graphic designers, illustrators, and artists through in-depth interviews with creatives who've achieved both creative and financial success.


Hosted by Brad Woodard (bravethewoods.com) and Dustin Lee (retrosupply.co), each episode feels like you're hanging out with us after hours, having the kind of conversations that happen when the work day is done. 


You'll walk away with fresh inspiration, new ideas, and practical advice you can actually use in both your creative work and personal life.

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  • 35 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 33 min
  • English

Episodes 35

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  • S1 · E62
    Thursday · 1 hr 46 min

    Ep. 062 – Anna Hurley – How to Become the Go-To Illustrator and Survive the Slow Seasons

    Every freelancer carries the same two fears. Will anyone pick me for the work I love? And what happens when the work stops? Anna Hurley has faced both. She became the go-to illustrator at Asana, a tech company full of talented designers, then went out on her own and built a career drawing happy things for brands like Target. This year has been her slowest yet, and she's still at it. In this episode, we talk with Anna about what she learned on that path and how you can use it, whether you're in-house or freelance. You'll hear how she made herself the person every team asked for and how she plans for the months when nothing comes in. There's plenty of fun along the way too, including a few board game losses Anna is still processing. In this episode, you'll learn: How to become the go-to illustrator inside a company including what it looked like to take fast-turnaround requests from every team at Asana. How to read a creative director so your best idea makes it in front of the client, a skill she picked up in friendly competition at Hatch Design. How to set expectations with first-time clients and why she sends tighter sketches to authors who have never worked with an artist. How to prepare for the leap to freelance starting with the CPA she hired a full year before she quit. How to get through a dry spell especially the six months she went without a single job and spent drawing for fun. Whether you're still in-house or already on your own, you'll walk away with a steadier plan for the slow seasons. Anna's advice is to keep drawing and keep reaching out until the next job shows up. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Anna Hurley is an illustrator based in Berkeley, California. For more than 20 years she has made bright, playful work for brands and authors, with clients including Target and Disney. She counts her mid-century illustration heroes as a big source of inspiration. Before going freelance, she spent five years as the in-house illustrator at Asana. She is represented by Closer&Closer. She is now building a Toddler Snail Mail Club, with little games and art for kids plus stationery for grown-ups. It launches next year, and her newsletter is the first place to hear about it. Website https://anna-hurley.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/itsannahurley Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E61
    November 6 · 1 hr 36 min

    Ep. 061 – Brandon Campbell – Mesmerizing Pen and Ink, Mid-Century Magic, and Drawing Without a Net

    Most illustrators sketch first and ink later. Most of us also keep one finger hovering over undo. Brandon Campbell does neither. He puts down shapes of color, then draws straight on top in pen and ink, and whatever happens is what happened. So how does someone end up working with no safety net, and why does it look so effortless when he does it? In this episode, we talk with Brandon about his path from broadcast design at Comedy Central and CNN to a full-time illustration career built on pen, ink, and mid-century charm. On the surface it's a conversation about process. Underneath, it's about choosing your limits on purpose, protecting the fun part of the work, and not waiting for someone else to make the leap for you. Part drawing lesson, part career talk, and part three grown men arguing about circus peanuts. In this episode, we talk about: Why he starts with color instead of line and how a block of ink can do the job of an under-sketch if you let the drawing tell you where to go next. A one-star review of his coloring book from a fellow vegan upset about zoo animals, and why nostalgia and strict principles don't always get along. Getting laid off into a career including why his biggest piece of advice is to jump before someone makes the decision for you. Picking two or three colors and sticking with them for ten years and why leaning into what feels effortless can beat grinding on your weak spots forever. Endless undos versus zero undos especially when all that overworking starts showing up in the finished piece. Whether you sketch everything three times or go straight to pen, this one is a reminder that the joy in the work is worth guarding. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your art is stop fighting the parts you were never going to love. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Brandon Campbell is an Atlanta-based illustrator and designer, known online as Brand Camp. Before going out on his own, he spent years doing design and motion work for broadcast, including Comedy Central and CNN. His pen-and-ink work pulls from mid-century commercial art, vintage children's books, and old cookbooks. He is the author of Brandon Campbell's Just Add Line: Coloring in Reverse from Rizzoli, and he illustrated a vintage-recipe cookbook for B. Dylan Hollis. He sells prints, limited editions, and originals through his shop, and posts his full, unedited drawing videos on Patreon. Website https://www.brandoncampbell.tv Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brandcamp Patreon https://www.patreon.com/brandcamp Just Add Line https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780789346247 Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E60
    October 29 · 1 hr 44 min

    Ep. 060 – Oliver Barrett – 300 Pee-wee Posters, Hidden Curses, and Getting Fired Into a Career

    Most illustration careers look like a straight line from the outside. Big clients, iconic posters, a portfolio full of names you recognize. Oliver Barrett's started with 300 Pee-wee Herman prints, 12 sales, and a box of leftovers he eventually abandoned in a Cleveland basement. In this episode, we talk with Oliver about how he went from Go Media's first employee to making posters and key art for Mondo, ESPN, Nike, Pearl Jam, and John Wick 4. But the real conversation is about the messy middle: quitting too early, getting fired for a mistake he made, learning to trust a client's pick over his own, and what happens to a working illustrator when AI quietly eats the big-budget jobs. Part career autopsy, part sports superstition, and part support group for anyone who's ever said yes to one more project. In this episode, we talk about: The Pee-wee Herman poster disaster and what printing 300 of them and selling 12 taught him about the real cost of making things to sell. Getting fired over a $15,000 die cut and why he says he wouldn't have the career he has now without it. The Green Room poster he pitched as a joke, including the Black Flag sketch Mondo insisted he make for real. What AI actually did to his client list, especially the big studio jobs that vanished once the images stopped looking like “mangled face soup.” Why Mark Hamill is the hardest face he's ever drawn, and when the only fix for a bad likeness is to tear the face off and start over. Whether you're chasing your first big client or wondering if the work will still be there next year, Oliver's story is a good reminder that creative careers rarely move in a straight line. Sometimes the expensive mistakes are the tuition. And sometimes the sketch you sent as a joke is the one that works. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Oliver Barrett is a multi-time Clio award-winning illustrator and designer from Cleveland, Ohio, now living in Austin, Texas. He spent nearly a decade as a graphic designer before going out on his own as an artist. His work includes posters, key art, and covers for Mondo, ESPN, Nike, Netflix, Lionsgate, Marvel, and Pearl Jam, including the John Wick 4 artist series poster and Mondo prints for The Martian and Green Room. He's currently putting together a book of stories from his career. His shop has prints, plus a scratch and dent section for anyone who doesn't mind a ding. Website https://oliverbarrett.com Shop https://shop.oliverbarrett.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/oliverbarrett Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E59
    October 22 · 1 hr 44 min

    Ep. 059 – Jess Goldsmith of Women of Type – Cottage Cheese, Bob Lazar, and Why You Are the Niche

    Most creatives have heard the advice a hundred times. Pick a lane. Niche down. Be known for one thing. But what happens when the thing you're known for is just you? Doodles one day, glossy dimensional lettering the next, hot pink whenever the brief allows it, and a pencil hair clip you designed because you wanted one to exist. In this episode, we talk with Jess Goldsmith, the Brooklyn-raised lettering artist and illustrator behind Chick of All Trade and the founder of Women of Type. On the surface, it's a conversation about clients, pricing, and portfolios. Underneath, it's about deciding how you want to work, then holding the line, whether that means walking away from a Super Bowl job or asking a client to tell you the budget. It's part pricing masterclass, part cheese debate, and part Bob Lazar rabbit hole we didn't plan to fall into. In this episode, we talk about: Why your portfolio works like a menu and how showing work you hated doing is the fastest way to get hired for more of it. Walking away from a Super Bowl job, including the five-figure project Jess turned down, and what she did with the idea afterward. Why she tells friends exactly what she got paid especially after a friend landed a job she'd quoted at $10K and did it for $2,000. "You are the niche" and why the worst advice Jess and her friends ever got was to niche down, even when your many styles start to look like one person. Business cards nobody throws away from pretzel snack bags to a spinning-wheel-of-death plush with an NFC chip in its hand to a crayon-box matchbook for Adobe MAX. Whether you're still building a portfolio or you've been freelancing for twenty years, this one reminds you that the work you choose to show, and the jobs you choose to turn down, shape the career you end up with. Also, the cottage cheese has to be four percent. Jess was very clear about that. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Jess Goldsmith is a Brooklyn-raised, NYC-based illustrator, lettering artist, and creative entrepreneur who works under the name Chick of All Trade. Her work is color-drenched, often pink, and moves freely between styles. She's a Webby Award winner, an Adobe ambassador, and an Adobe MAX speaker. She's also the founder of Women of Type, a community that uplifts and amplifies women and nonbinary type and lettering artists, and the creator of the self-published Women of Type book, featuring work from around 130 artists worldwide. Her newest project, Soft Skool, is a six-week program that helps creatives build the soft skills that turn talent into a paying career. It's open to everyone, and the next cohort is planned for January. Website https://www.chickofalltrade.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chickofalltrade Women of Type https://womenoftype.com Women of Type on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/womenoftype Soft Skool on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/softskool Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E58
    October 16 · 1 hr 11 min

    Ep. 058 – Clinton Campbell of Studio MUTI – From T-Shirt Label to Global Studio, Scattergories, and Low-Ego Leadership

    Illustration is supposed to be a solo sport. One person, one style, one desk. So how does a studio at the bottom of Africa keep a whole team of illustrators working under one name for fifteen years without the egos getting in the way? In this episode, we talk with Clinton Campbell, co-founder and creative director of MUTI in Cape Town, South Africa. Clint tells us how MUTI grew out of a streetwear label he started with his brother, and why the early internet mattered so much when your clients are half a world away. Underneath it is a story about building a creative business that actually works, both financially and as a place talented people want to stay. Part studio tour, part cooking show, and part three people trying to talk over a very long internet delay (don't worry, we edited the delays out). In this episode, we talk about: How a streetwear label became MUTI and what those early years taught him about making creative work that also pays the bills. The rule that kept plants, toys, and photos off every desk at MUTI until a talented new illustrator brought in his wedding photo and the floodgates opened. Redesigning Scattergories, including the “just have fun” pitch he was surprised the client picked, and why so many classic brands keep getting redrawn. Why in-person conferences feel like the antidote to a design internet that has gotten more competitive, more critical, and more anxious about AI. The chef's presses a friend carried over from the States plus Christmas cards that arrive in July and Churchill, the internet-famous studio cat. Whether you run a studio, want to start one, or just like hearing how good creative places actually work, this one reminds us that the best teams run on trust, not rules. Even the rule about plants. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Clinton Campbell is an illustrator, creative director, and co-founder of MUTI, a creative studio in Cape Town, South Africa. He grew up in Durban, studied graphic design in Stellenbosch, and started MUTI in 2011 with Miné Day. Brad Hodgskiss joined as the third founding partner in 2013. The studio's illustrators and designers make everything from lettering and icons to digital painting and animation. Their clients include Google, Nike, Apple, Airbnb, Uber, TIME, and National Geographic. When he isn't drawing, Clint is probably cooking. He cooks at home, and his favorite kitchen gear includes a set of chef's presses and some made-in-the-USA baking trays. Website https://studiomuti.co.za Instagram https://www.instagram.com/studiomuti Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E57
    October 9 · 1 hr 37 min

    Ep. 057 – Matt Dawson – An Orange in the Door, a Cobain Jaguar, and the Freedom of a Day Job

    The dream we were all sold was going out on your own. Your own clients, your own hours, your name on the door. But what if freedom looks different once you've lived that dream for a while? In this episode, we talk with designer and CROP founder Matt Dawson about his first-ever CROP Field Trip to Cleveland, his guitars and records, and a band that sounds like Weezer and the Pixies had a baby. Underneath it is a bigger story. After seven years of running his own thing, Matt realized his priorities had changed. He wanted more time with his family, evenings that actually ended, and room to get excited about design again. He began to see that freedom can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it's your name on the door. Sometimes it's a steady in-house job, a team that logs off at five, and the choice to say yes only to the work you actually want. It is part gear talk, part record-store hang, and part permission slip to stop curating yourself. In this episode, we talk about: Choosing a day job on purpose after seven years on his own, and why real freedom turned out to be saying yes only to the work he actually wants. Letting go of the logo-only feed and how posting records and guitars has led to better conversations with clients. Taking a group of designers on a field trip to Cleveland including a behind-the-scenes tour with the Guardians creative team and what to do with 10,000 bobbleheads that came back not quite right. A Kurt Cobain Jaguar he hopes to be buried with plus Dustin's Strat versus Silver Sky showdown and why Fender picked now to defend the Strat shape. A mystery question from Jason Craig that ends with a hotel door, an orange, and a running text thread between two friends. Whether you're freelancing, in-house, or quietly wondering if your priorities have shifted, this one is a reminder that careers don't run in a straight line. As Matt puts it, you can't lay your career on tracing paper over somebody else's and expect it to match up. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Matt Dawson is a designer and creative director based in Austin, Texas, and the person behind Stay Gray Ponyboy. His work centers on brand identities and logo systems, for clients that have included Disney, Jeep, Adobe, Under Armour, the Atlanta Braves, and Toyota. He is also the founder of CROP, a creative conference he runs with his wife in Austin. For the past decade CROP has brought creative people together, and this fall it added Field Trip, a smaller, hang-out-first event in Cleveland. The next CROP conference is April 29 and 30, 2027. When he isn't designing, he might be creating something on his Jaguar, playing with his band LCLS, or checking another ballpark off his list. Website https://www.staygrayponyboy.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/staygrayponyboy CROP https://www.cropcons.com Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E56
    October 1 · 1 hr 57 min

    Ep. 056 – Tom Froese – Finding the Why in Commercial Art, Overprints, the One-Brush Brush Pack

    Most of us were told the same thing. Make something every day, share it, and the people will come. But what happens when you do exactly that for years, the numbers stall, the platforms change the deal, and the thing you love starts to feel like homework for an algorithm? In this episode, we talk with illustrator, teacher, and author Tom Froese about building a very public career as a self-described introvert. It starts with camera presence and resting dad face, then turns into a bigger conversation about owning your audience, scaling back, and why any of us spend our lives making commercial art in the first place. It is part career audit, part wardrobe therapy, and part airport-gate conversation that wanders into ghosts, aliens, and faith. In this episode, we talk about: Why Tom is pulling everything under one roof after years of spreading himself across Skillshare, YouTube, Patreon, Instagram, Substack, and a podcast, and why every channel now has to point somewhere. Why he moved his daily drawing practice off Instagram and onto Substack to protect it, especially once the joy started to erode. Resting dad face, eyebrow pencils, and the plaid shirt uniform and why being on camera means playing a slightly stylized version of yourself. Why "if you build it, they will come" may not hold anymore including what Tom thinks actually works now, and Dustin's case for owning your list instead of renting an audience. Aliens, ghosts, and the spiritual realm and a candid conversation about faith, doubt, and doing your work for a reason bigger than money. Whether you draw every day, quietly wonder if social media is still worth it, or just want permission to make the one-brush version of your thing, this one comes back to a question Tom asks his own students. You're spending most of your adult life making commercial art. Why? ABOUT THE CREATIVE Tom Froese is an illustrator, teacher, and writer based in British Columbia, Canada. His work borrows from printmaking, with limited colors, overprints, and letterpress-style texture, and it shows up in maps, editorial work, and picture books. He is one of Skillshare's top teachers and has taught more than 150,000 students. His book Drawing Is Important: How to Start a Lifelong Daily Drawing Practice came out this spring from Rockport. It is not a how-to-draw book. It is a why-to-draw book. Website https://www.tomfroese.com Drawing Is Important https://www.tomfroese.com/book Classes and Drawing Club https://www.commercialartistry.com Substack https://mrtomfroese.substack.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mrtomfroese Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E55
    September 24 · 1 hr 45 min

    Ep. 055 – Chris DeLorenzo – Johnny Cupcakes, a 500-Foot Airport Mural, and Learning Everything Once

    Most people see a slackline, a motorcycle, or a recurve bow and think, “That’s not me.” Chris DeLorenzo sees the same things and signs up for lessons. He taught himself to slackline one summer. He has a motorcycle license he has never used. For a while, he wondered if he was quietly training for the apocalypse. In this episode, we talk with Chris about his years as lead designer and art director at Johnny Cupcakes, his move into illustration for places like The New York Times, and the 500-foot mural that now greets people flying into Boston. But the real conversation is about curiosity, what happens to it when life gets busier and more settled, and knowing when your work is already good enough to stand behind. It is part career history, part client-wrangling masterclass, and part three guys talking about French chore jackets for longer than anyone planned. In this episode, we talk about: Why you should ask a designer for all their working files and how digging through Clark Orr’s messy Illustrator files taught Chris more than any class. How Johnny Cupcakes kept everything limited and still made payroll, including the tiered system that split the collectors from people who just wanted a good shirt. Why the same drawing is worth more on a wall than on a T-shirt and how mocking up the work you want to do got Chris an email from The New York Times. The time Chris told Dustin the RetroSupply logo was better the first time and why a little confidence in the pitch can save everyone a round of revisions. Whether drawing flowers is a cop-out, especially when the thing people already find beautiful is the thing you keep coming back to. Whether you are a designer drifting toward illustration, an illustrator with too many hobbies, or someone who keeps saying “that’s not me,” this one is a good nudge. Curiosity is a practice. You are allowed to try the thing before you decide who you are. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Chris DeLorenzo is an illustrator based in Massachusetts, known for simple, bold work built on line, flowers, and hands. He spent about six years as lead designer and art director at Johnny Cupcakes before going out on his own, and this year marks ten years of working for himself. His work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, and it shows up all over Boston, including a 500-foot mural at Logan Airport. He also designed RetroSupply’s original logo, which is still in use today. Website https://www.chrisdelorenzo.com Shop https://www.chrisdelorenzo.com/shop Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chrisdelorenzo Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E54
    September 17 · 1 hr 59 min

    Ep. 054 – Van Berkemeyer – Design, Music, and the Empty Chase for the Next High

    Van Berkemeyer has built two separate creative careers: one as an illustrator and designer, one as a musician who's had real viral hits and industry attention. He says neither one ever actually felt like arriving. In this episode, Brad and Dustin talk with Van about growing up on a small farm in rural Texas, working as a cowboy on an Oklahoma ranch as a teenager, and building BerkMade, his illustration and design studio, alongside a music career as Van Andrew. The surface topic is juggling two creative disciplines. The real conversation is about something every working artist runs into eventually: chasing a peak, hitting it, and finding out it doesn't fix anything. It's part career retrospective, part cigar-lounge philosophy session, and part reminder that the goalpost never stops moving, no matter which craft you're chasing it in. In this episode, we talk about: Why success in one creative discipline doesn't transfer the lesson to the next, and how Van's found the same empty feeling chasing wins in both illustration and music. The shoe-shopping analogy for chasing achievement, and why finally getting the thing you wanted for years lasts about as long as a new pair of shoes. What's actually real about a creative's social media persona, and why the people who look most confident online are often the most different in person. Why "jack of all trades" doesn't have to mean master of none, and how Van thinks about splitting real creative capacity across two disciplines without feeling like he's failing at both. Aliens, ice walls, and why Van isn't (technically) a flat earther — a tangent Brad and Dustin promise is "a safe space." Whatever discipline you work in, this episode keeps circling back to the same question every working creative eventually asks: once you get the thing you thought you wanted, then what? Van's answer, four and a half years sober and building two careers instead of chasing one high, might be the most useful part of the whole conversation. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Van Berkemeyer is an illustrator and designer based in Nashville, Tennessee, working under the name BerkMade. He grew up on a small farm in rural Texas and spent his teenage years working as a cowboy on an Oklahoma ranch before building two separate creative careers: illustration and design as BerkMade, and music as Van Andrew. Alongside his design work, Van has had real success in music, including a song that went viral and hit number two on iTunes, and a stint as a contestant on The Voice. He's four and a half years sober and spends most of his downtime on his Harley, at the cigar lounge, or playing volleyball. BerkMade (Illustration & Design) Instagram https://www.instagram.com/berkmade/ Van Andrew (Music) Website https://www.vanandrewmusic.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vanandrewofficial/ Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E53
    September 10 · 1 hr 34 min

    Ep. 053 – Christian Helms – The 99-Pack, a McDonald's Broom, and Taking the Joke Seriously

    A 99-pack of beer sounds like a joke. It's about as tall as Shaq and weighs eighty pounds. When Christian Helms described it to his mom, she said she didn't get it. A few months later, she called to ask if he'd seen what Austin Beerworks did. In this episode, we talk with Christian Helms, founder and creative director of Helms Workshop in Austin, about the 99-pack, Howler Brothers, a week living with Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, and a career built mostly on naive optimism. Underneath the stories is a bigger conversation. Why is the funniest idea in the room so often the most human one? Why do you have to understand something better than anyone before you can make it surprising? And why would he rather hire a great person than a great portfolio? It is part design history, part Southern storytelling, and part confession from a man with two giant wind chimes and a painted bunting at his feeder. In this episode, we talk about: Getting chased out of a McDonald's with a broom as a Pentagram intern, and why just being in the room while Michael Bierut presents is a master class. How the 99-pack actually happened including the rule he still works by: take the joke you make at the bar with the client and make it real the next day. Why creativity is a skill, not a gift and the Edward de Bono exercise that can turn a hospital logo into a vehicle. Why AI and focus groups pull you toward the same place especially when the whole point of a brand is to not look like everything else in the category. How years of Lyme disease finally broke his micromanaging habit and why he's hired the third-best portfolio in the stack more times than he can count. Whether you run a studio, work in one, or just want your ideas to stop looking like everyone else's, this one's worth your time. The weird idea is usually the right one. Someone just has to be brave enough to make it real. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Christian Helms is the founder and creative director of Helms Workshop, a branding agency in Austin, Texas, focused on consumer goods and hospitality. The studio has built brands for Austin Beerworks, Howler Brothers, Tecovas, and plenty of the places that make Austin feel like Austin. He grew up in small-town North Carolina, studied journalism and creative writing at UNC, went on to Portfolio Center in Atlanta, and interned at Pentagram under Michael Bierut. In Austin he fell in with the Decoder Ring crew, making music posters for the bands he was already seeing four or five nights a week. These days he reads a lot of Southern noir, keeps boiled peanuts in the freezer, and is writing a book on branding. Website https://helmsworkshop.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tchristianhelms Studio Instagram https://www.instagram.com/helms_workshop Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E52
    September 3 · 1 hr 6 min

    Ep. 052 – Bill Gardner – Stolen Magic Secrets, a $20 Rock, and Branding for Machines

    There are thousands of magicians who can handle a deck of cards better than David Copperfield. There is one David Copperfield. Bill Gardner has a one-word answer for why, and it turns out to be the same word that explains why one designer’s work gets remembered and another’s gets filed. In this episode, we talk with Bill Gardner — founder of LogoLounge, owner of Gardner Design, and a man who put himself through college as a working magician — about story as the actual engine underneath branding. It opens with how he got into magic in the first place, and ends on whether we are about to start designing brands for AI agents instead of for people. It is part magic-shop origin story, part masterclass in selling design to a CFO, and part quiet argument that the thing you are selling has never really been the picture. In this episode, we talk about: How Bill actually got into magic and why he could only tell the story once the magician whose props he broke into had died. The $20 rock that named an investment firm and why he set it on the table in front of the client before saying anything about design. How to answer a CFO who wants you to prove ROI including why “no, I can’t guarantee that” is the right way to open. Meeting Saul Bass at twenty years old including the thing he discovered walking down that hallway that nobody had ever written down. What happens when AI agents become the audience for branding and whether we will have to design for human consumption and machine consumption at the same time. Whether you are trying to justify your rates, name a company, or work out what is left for human designers once the machines are the ones doing the looking, this is the same question coming at you from five directions. What are people actually buying when they buy design — and what makes any of it worth remembering? ABOUT THE CREATIVE Bill Gardner is the owner and creative director of Gardner Design in Wichita, Kansas, which he has been running since 1983. The studio does nothing but branding — roughly 80% of it rebranding — for clients including Cessna, Thermos, Pizza Hut, Coleman, Hallmark, and Wichita State University. He is also the founder of LogoLounge.com, the largest searchable logo archive in the world, now approaching half a million logos submitted by more than 20,000 designers. He has authored fifteen LogoLounge books and has written the annual Logo Trend Report for more than twenty years, which has carried him around the world as a speaker. His newest book is The LogoLounge Guide to Iconic Branding: Trendcasting for Logos that Last. He holds degrees in both business and fine art, collects antique bagatelles, and paid his way through college performing magic. Website https://gardnerdesign.com LogoLounge https://www.logolounge.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/logolounge The LogoLounge Guide to Iconic Branding https://www.quarto.com/books/9780760398104/the-logolounge-guide-to-iconic-branding Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E51
    August 28 · 1 hr 30 min

    Ep. 051 – Paul Lukes – Graffiti, Getting Clean, and Why Ugly Design Converts

    Designers spend their careers trying to make things beautiful. So what do you do when your boss tears up the polished sign you made for the tip jar, tells you to redo it in crayon, and the ugly one makes more money? In this episode, we talk with designer, artist, and reformed graffiti writer Paul Lukes about the road from painting the streets of San Francisco to a career built on craft, community, and a published ethics page. It is a conversation about addiction and recovery, about what graffiti and client work actually have in common, and about why the job is not to make something pretty but to make something that moves people. It is part recovery story, part street history, and part very practical argument for designing things that work. In this episode, we talk about: The frozen yogurt tip jar and why the ugliest sign in the shop was the one that made the most money. Getting clean after years of trying and relapsing including the ordinary moment in a meeting that finally stuck when nothing else had. How he pulled off his biggest street piece with a little help from the crack dealers working the same corner. Why he put an ethics page on his website and what it did to the kind of clients who reach out. The design influencer pile-ons and why he thinks recreational outrage has become America's new favorite pastime. Whether you came up in a scene you had to leave, or you are just tired of making pretty things that do not work, this one goes somewhere. It is about what you keep from the person you used to be, and what a creative career looks like once you stop trying to impress other designers. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Paul Lukes is a designer, artist, and retired graffiti writer based in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is a senior designer at Bonfire Effect and runs smART minds, the studio he shares with his wife, music journalist Kyle Eustice. His fine art pulls from found materials and street ephemera the way hip hop pulls from records, layering pieces of the past into something new. He also started CoLab, a free Colorado design community with close to two hundred members, a Slack channel, and periodic in-person events, built on the idea that everyone grows faster when nobody is gatekeeping. Website https://smartmindsthinkalike.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/culture_conservationist LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-lukes-906608134 Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E50
    August 21 · 1 hr 6 min

    Ep. 050 – 50 Episodes, Over 40 Creatives, and the Equation We Never Meant to Find

    Fifty episodes and over forty interviews in, Brad and Dustin have heard just about every piece of advice a working creative can give. About half of it directly contradicts the other half. So they went back through a year of their own transcripts to find out what was actually true underneath all of it. In this episode, Brad and Dustin mark Creative Slash’s 50th episode by digging through their own interview archive for the patterns that kept repeating: the formula almost every guest fits without meaning to, the uncomfortable realization that most of the people they admire most are not secretly geniuses, and why sitting across from forty different creatives finally talked them down from their AI anxiety. It’s part victory lap, part debrief, and part two hosts realizing they’ve accidentally been running a longitudinal study on what actually makes a creative career work. In this episode, we talk about: The “unique value + consistency + adaptability” equation they didn’t set out to find, and why every guest fits it whether they know it or not. Why the show’s best advice always contradicts itself and why hearing two very successful people say the opposite thing is the most reassuring part of the whole show. The design influencer debate that split their own comment section and what it taught them about growth requiring you to give up the thing that made you successful. Why nobody they’ve interviewed is secretly a genius, and the “surface area” theory of staying in the game long enough for opportunity to find you. How their AI anxiety quietly changed over 50 episodes, and the “provenance” idea, with an assist from a stop-motion movie studio, that explains why. Whether you’ve listened since episode one or you’re just now hitting play, this one is less a highlight reel than an audit: the patterns that held up after a year of asking the same questions, and the ones neither of them expected to admit out loud. Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E49
    August 14 · 1 hr 22 min

    Ep. 049 – John Hendrix – Sandcastles, Doubt, and Why Your Calling Doesn't Have to Be Your Career

    Somewhere along the way we started assuming that the thing you were made to do and the thing that pays your bills are supposed to be the same thing. John Hendrix does not think that is true, and he has spent a twenty-year career and a whole graduate program arguing otherwise. In this episode, we talk with illustrator, author, and Washington University art professor John Hendrix about making work that is too weird for the church and too churchy for everyone else, why perseverance beats talent every single time, and what changes when you stop treating your art like a monument and start treating it like a sandcastle. John gets into his path from Marvel how-to books to Eisner-nominated graphic novels, the ten years that passed before his first book existed, why he thinks school is about community rather than skill, and the emails he still gets about drawing the Holy Ghost as a small blue cartoon. In this episode, we talk about: Why your calling might not be your career and why John thinks that is fine, freeing, and a great deal healthier than the alternative. Treating your work like sandcastles instead of monuments and what changes when you stop asking whether a drawing will outlive you. The ten years between art school and his first book and why perseverance, not talent, is what actually separates the people who make it. Being too weird for the church and too churchy for everyone else including the publisher who passed on his sketchbooks for seeming suspiciously sincere. Why “I have no idea” is a complete sentence and how doubt turned out to be a feature of his faith rather than a bug in it. Whether you are deep into a creative career, quietly wondering whether you picked the wrong one, or just trying to work out why twelve productive hours still ends with the feeling that you are behind, this conversation goes somewhere worth following. It is also the only episode where you will hear about losing a national fencing bout to a sixty-five-year-old Frenchman. ABOUT THE CREATIVE John Hendrix is an illustrator, author, and educator based in St. Louis. He is the Founding Chair of the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches. His books include The Faithful Spy, an NPR Best Book of 2018 about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the plot to kill Hitler, and The Mythmakers, an Eisner-nominated graphic novel about the friendship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. His new book, One Hundred Things You Love to Draw, a follow-up to Drawing Is Magic, arrives this fall, and he is currently at work on a graphic novel about the Salem witch trials. Website https://www.johnhendrix.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/johnhendrix Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E48
    August 7 · 45 min

    Ep. 048 – Allan Peters, A$AP Rocky & the Design Influencer Dilemma

    In this episode, Brad and Dustin dig into the recent Allan Peters and A$AP Rocky situation, but the real conversation goes much deeper. It turns into a bigger discussion about design influencers, public criticism, jealousy, visibility, client work, AI, and why there may not be one morally pure way to build a creative career anymore. It is part industry therapy session, part internet anthropology, and part two designers trying to figure out why everyone is suddenly so mad. In this episode, we talk about: The Allan Peters and A$AP Rocky situation and why sharing a private DM might be more complicated than it looked at first. Why “fixing” famous logos makes designers so angry even when the content is educational, entertaining, and clearly working. The tension between craft and visibility and why being great at design does not automatically make people pay attention to your work. What design influencers actually do for the industry including the uncomfortable possibility that they make human design more visible in an AI-heavy world. How jealousy sneaks into creative criticism especially when someone else’s version of success looks easier, louder, or less “earned” than yours. Whether you love design influencers, hate them, or quietly watch every logo breakdown while pretending you don’t care, this episode is about the bigger question underneath it all. What do we actually value in creative work now, and how do we decide what success is supposed to look like? Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • July 31 · 1 hr 33 min

    Ep. 047 - Emily Balsley - Murals, Community Art, and Making the World Weirder in Public

    Emily Balsley makes art feel like something that should spill out of your sketchbook and into the neighborhood. In this episode, we talk with illustrator, muralist, and community art instigator Emily Balsley about building a creative life around color, curiosity, local projects, and the kind of ideas that make people stop on a walk and think, “Wait, who made this?” Emily gets into her path from graphic design to illustration, why she stopped calling herself a designer, how neighborhood art projects became a natural part of her work, and what it feels like to keep making physical, human art in a world increasingly full of AI-generated everything. In this episode, we cover: How Emily went from designing Schwinn bikes to freelancing, rediscovering illustration, and finally feeling like she could call herself an illustrator Why self-initiated projects, fake briefs, and portfolio experiments can help you build the work you want to be hired for How Emily turns neighborhood block parties, fences, manhole covers, Halloween displays, and murals into real community art What it feels like when a client uses AI to generate an “Emily Balsley style” mural mockup before hiring the actual Emily Balsley Why baseball scorebooks, horror movies, local traditions, and tiny creative obsessions all feed the same bigger creative life ABOUT THE CREATIVE Emily Balsley is an illustrator and muralist based in Madison, Wisconsin. Her work is colorful, playful, bold, and full of personality, showing up across murals, editorial work, products, community projects, and the occasional neighborhood Halloween spectacle. She is also deeply involved in local creative projects, from collaborative fence murals to block party art activities to the now infamous Haunting of Commonwealth. Website https://emilybalsley.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/emilybluestar Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E46
    July 24 · 1 hr 44 min

    Ep. 046 – Jason Craig – Cash Flow, Chicken Bones & Making Creative Work Actually Work

    Jason Craig is the type of guy you talk to about freelance work, and suddenly it feels like you’re seeing the whole thing in technicolor for the first time. This episode gets into the parts of freelancing people usually skip over. Cash flow. Repeat clients. Fast little projects that keep the lights on while the big projects take forever to approve. Jason also talks about why being easy to work with might be one of the most underrated skills in design. Talent matters, obviously, but so does trust, clarity, momentum, and not making every project feel like a hostage negotiation. And yes, this conversation also somehow includes the shopping cart etiquette conspiracy, stolen grapes, closeout mustard, murals, chicken bones, and the moral weight of paying someone else to fix your toilet. IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER: • Why steady cash flow matters more than waiting around for perfect projects. • How to turn small jobs into steady income that comes in year after year. • Why being easy to work with is a prerequisite to building a stable, low-stress business. • How personality, weird ideas, murals, merch, and community all become part of the work. If you freelance, run a studio, or feel stuck between taking every job and waiting for the dream one, this episode will feel painfully useful. ABOUT THE CREATIVE Jason Craig is a designer, illustrator, mural artist, and speaker based in Augusta, Georgia. His work spans branding, murals, merchandise, sports, restaurants, events, and plenty of strange creative side quests that somehow make perfect sense once Jason explains them. His big, kind, and authentic personality has made him a staple of conferences and talks across the country (and an essential merch stand stop). Visit Jason’s website Follow Jason on Instagram Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • July 16 · 1 hr 41 min

    Ep. 045 — Dan Lee — Leaving the “Right” Career and Building a Creative Life

    In this week's episode, we talk with graphic designer, illustrator, lettering artist, and all-around creative entrepreneur Dan Lee. We've admired Dan's work for years. At Creative South 2026, we finally got to sit down with him, and we walked away struck by his optimism about the creative industry, his genuine love for other creatives, and his impeccable style (he was sporting a Westersen hat from Don Clark's western wear venture — see episode 28). Here's some of what we get into: How to leave a "safe" career without feeling like you wasted everything that came before it. Dan has a degree in chemical engineering, and his escape route is a masterclass in transitioning to work you love. The simple journaling practice Dan uses to turn vague creative ambitions into real projects and clear decisions. The tested secret to steady creative work. It depends less on constantly finding new clients and more on building relationships that make you the easy choice to come back to. The one habit that makes clients want to keep working with you. And no, it's not being cheaper, faster, or flashier. The Shopping Cart Problem. The strangely addictive debate we've been having with everyone about putting your cart back. We think it goes way deeper than shopping carts. You be the judge. It's a conversation about changing direction, finding your people, serving customers well, and building a creative career without waiting for permission — or following the supposedly correct sequence of steps. ABOUT DAN LEE Dan Lee is an artist, writer, illustrator, and designer specializing in hand lettering. A Philly kid now based in Sheridan, Wyoming, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering, then taught himself to draw words instead. He's the lead artist behind moto lifestyle brand Go Fast Don't Die, and he brings an engineer's eye for structure to compositions that run from four words to a hundred. Website Instagram Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E44
    July 9 · 1 hr 38 min

    Ep. 044 – Kate Smith – How Being Unmistakably Yourself Becomes a Creative Business

    This episode features artist, illustrator, greeting card designer, and licensing powerhouse Kate Smith on what happens when you stop trying to make work that looks “marketable” and start making work that sounds, feels, and thinks like you. Kate talks about building a creative business from her own weird little ideas, emotional instincts, funny phrases, and need to put more joy into the world. That deeply personal approach has turned into a massive licensing career, with her work selling millions of units at retail across cards, gifts, products, and major collections, including Target. But this conversation is not just about selling a lot of stuff. It’s about how personal work can slowly become financial stability, how licensing can create more freedom, and how building a business around your actual point of view can help you live more of the life you want instead of constantly chasing someone else’s version of success. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why making work that is unmistakably yours is not just a creative luxury. Kate shares how her voice, humor, emotional honesty, and specific way of seeing the world became the foundation of a licensing career that could not have been built by copying what everyone else was doing. How licensing can turn personal work into long-term stability. Kate talks about landing dream retail opportunities, creating collections for major stores, and learning how repeated licensing wins can slowly build the kind of financial foundation that gives artists more room to live, travel, experiment, and choose. Why success still comes with a “what’s next?” problem. Even after major retail wins, Kate explains how easy it is to move the goalpost, judge yourself by today’s results, or forget to enjoy the thing you once desperately wanted. Why joyful art does not always come from a joyful place. Kate’s work often says the thing she needs to hear too, whether that’s “even the sun has its ups and downs” or some tiny phrase that makes life feel a little more survivable. ABOUT KATE SMITH Kate Smith is an artist, illustrator, greeting card designer, and creative entrepreneur known for her funny, bright, emotionally honest work that has been licensed across dozens of product categories and sold millions of units at retail. Her work blends humor, vulnerability, color, and sharply specific phrasing in a way that feels unmistakably her. What started as a small greeting card idea inspired by talking for her dog grew into a creative business spanning stationery, gifts, retail collections, licensing, and art that helps people feel a little more seen. Visit Kate Smith online Follow Kate on Instagram Shop Kate’s work Explore Kate’s greeting cards Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

  • S1 · E43
    June 28 · 1 hr 26 min

    Ep. 043 – Chris Piascik – The Accidental Illustrator and the Power of Making Work Every Day

    This episode features illustrator, author, YouTuber, and accidental Adobe Fresco evangelist Chris Piascik on building a creative career by staying weird, making a lot of work, and refusing to turn art into a fake polished performance. Chris gets into his 14-year daily drawing project, why YouTube changed his business more than Instagram ever did, how his new book The Accidental Illustrator came together, and why being honest about your process is more valuable than pretending everything is effortless. It’s funny, loose, and full of the kind of creative advice that only comes from someone who has spent decades making art, shipping projects, reading terrible comments, rollerblading aggressively, and somehow turning all of it into a real career. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why consistency doesn’t have to mean becoming a content robot. Chris talks about how his daily drawing project started as a simple structure to help him draw more, then slowly changed the entire direction of his career. How YouTube creates deeper relationships than faster, scroll-based platforms. Chris shares how his channel helped grow his shop, sell more work, and create a community that actually feels connected to him. Why leaning into your weirdness is not a branding gimmick. From punk flyers and old cartoons to strange characters, rollerblading, toy design, and Fresco tutorials, Chris shows how your odd little obsessions can become the most valuable part of your work. ABOUT CHRIS PIASCIK Chris Piascik is an illustrator, author, designer, and YouTuber known for his bold, funny, weird, character-driven work and his long-running daily drawing project. After drawing every day for 14 years, Chris built a career that spans illustration, lettering, products, online education, YouTube, and his new book The Accidental Illustrator. He’s also one of the clearest voices online for artists trying to make digital illustration feel more natural, honest, and fun, especially through his work with Adobe Fresco. Visit Chris Piascik online Follow Chris on Instagram Subscribe to Chris on YouTube Check out The Accidental Illustrator Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this. Brad Woodard Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books. View Brave the Woods Dustin Lee Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional. View RetroSupply Credits Audio/video editing: Clara Wright Cover art: Brad Woodard Intro animation: Seth Austin Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

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