Ruby is the creative director behind Dreamland: happy, nostalgic fun clothing. Known for big bold prints inspired by TV shows and popular culture, in particular her upside down collection inspired by Stranger Things.Ruby takes me through how she started out the label and why travel and people watching are central to her creative process. There’s de…

Cat and Andy repurpose old skateboards into beautiful new products. They take me through their labour intensive process from old broken board to shiny new product. The episode is a fascinating insight into how they've learned and developed their woodworking skills from scratch and built the business up at the same time diversifying the product rang…

Graphic designer, Duncan Barton takes me through his design process, position on current trends and how he's developed a career around the things he loves. "At university they taught you to be 'the best designer in the world' not a jobbing designer"Probably my favourite quote from the episode. You're just not taught all the day to day nitty gritty …

With over 20 years experience in the fashion textiles industry Chris has a really varied and interesting career path. His journey starts from a really dark and troublesome place: at school during Section 28. Chris hasn't done many interviews and I feel privileged he was trusting enough to come on the podcast and share his journey. When I set up the…

A lead consultant at the Service Design Academy, Katie says that she fell into Service Design after doing a masters in leadership and innovation. We have a really interesting discussion around whether Katie sees herself as a designer and the complexity around design terminology. This also leads onto a topic I'd like to explore further run the futur…

After a successful kickstarter campaign Alastair decided to start Lowtek Games a studio focused on creating games and tools to help dyslexic players enjoy video games more. It was at primary school that Alastair got an early diagnosis of dyslexia creating real difficulty with reading. As text to speech technology became more readily available and w…

Design researcher Stephanie Crowe and Design Generalist Kevin Sinclair met and decided their love in discussing the failings of design in the world around them was enough to start Muckle Studios. They take me through a journey of how they built a partnership based upon the crossovers in their skillsets and also what they could learn from each other…

Hear how a trip to Vienna where all the museums were unexpected closed due to the pandemic led to Elizabeth Ann Day and Luke Cassidy Greer creating an art dispensing vending machine in the Keiller Centre in Dundee. It's been a long time since I've had two guests on the podcast and this week it's a real deep dive into the Volk Gallery project. One y…

This week we start back in the 80s where Rick takes me through his own creative career as well as the history of the skate scene in Dundee. He went from college to a full time job as a graphic designer and then on to study Time Based Art at DJCAD. After staying around as a research assistant Rick taught himself how to cope websites and the rest is …

Stephanie Graham founder of Natla Jewellery and Dundee Community Craft joins me this week. Her goal is to make Dundee the recovery capital of Europe supporting recovery through teaching design skills. She takes her mobile jewellery workshops out into the community to deliver them. The workshops take people through a design process over several week…

Hippies communes to funeral directors to Jennifer Lopez and Dior, Jennie grew up in Dundee, was drawn to Glasgow and inevitably London building her eclectic PR career before returning to Dundee. Starting out in Pitkerro House, a sort of hippie commune on the outskirts of Dundee, this instilled the values of community and people working together on …

We take a deep dive into some of the nuances of graphic design with Badbish Design this week, featuring how to vent your creative frustrations, the need for building relationships when giving and receiving feedback and why she would happily draw a hippo for £5,000.Badbish's career started out with a frustrating time at art school but after picking …

I'm joined by Jillian Elizabeth owner of the Little Green Larder a zero waste, plastic free shop aiming to make shopping for sustainable products easy and convenient. The Little Green Larder offers a wide variety of foods and products with their best seller being their vegan pick n mix. Jillian saw zero waste shops opening up across the world and s…

Jeweller and owner of Double Door Studios joins me for a wonderful meandering chat through her journey. There's a little sidetrack into busking and then onto building a jewellery practice in kilt pins, wedding rings and collections. A quick jaunt around making brooches more accessible through skirting boards and broken musical instruments. Before f…

Fashion designer Kerrie Aldo joins me this week. Probably best known for her signature wax cotton jackets created using material from local manufacturer Halley Stevenson. We talk about slow vs fast fashion and how you get across the value of small scale sustainable production. Kerrie talks me through her journey starting out by being influenced by …

This week it's all about street art with C.Gul. Inspired by Dundee's ballsy bird community he has been creating seagull inspired street art for 9 years now. Clearly he doesn't take himself too seriously and his work is about putting smiles on people's faces. We touch on the differences between street art and graffiti and go into the rules and polit…

It's textile designer Kate Harvey's turn to be the guest on this week's podcast. We go from corner shops to Australia and eventually back to Dundee where she started her own clothing brand. Kate produces hand made one-off appliqué garments in a style that I would describe as beautifully organised chaos. We discuss how she has developed her style an…

This week I'm joined by Leonie Bell, Director of V&A Dundee. She has had a fascinating career working in many high profile roles across Scotland's creative and cultural sector. We talk through her career, why she deliberately seeks out positions of responsibility, that she may not quite be equipped to deal with and why this is a real positive. From…

I had a very open and honest conversation with David about his career so far as an artist, photographer, videographer and educator. We go into a particularly dark time after he took on a corporate banking job due to 'expectations' which lead so severe anxiety and depression. As David says in the episode it nearly killed him but "When your back's ag…

A celebration of the past 98 episodes with so many wonderful guests. I talk about some of the things I’ve learned and answer the questions of past guests and listeners. This episode is a big thank you to everyone who has made the first 98 episodes of the podcast possible. I’ve had so many brilliant guests openly and honestly sharing their stories. …

This week I’m joined by the Head of Cinema at the DCA, Alice Black. She gives us a behind the scenes peek of how an independent cinema operates and the difficulties of catering to such a wide and varied audience.Cinema has always been the biggest focus and passion in Alice’s life. From an early age the cinema was an adventure, being a 2hour drive e…

Darryl comes from a background in social care and community engagement through many different jobs and projects that we chat about on the project but he’s currently working on researching and developing a local currency for Dundee. ‘I would never call myself a creative’Pretty much the first thing Darryl says. Not the best start, given the name of t…

Kirsty runs a Passivhaus Architecture practice from Wasps studios in Dundee but we don’t really talk about any of that. Instead, she takes me through her epic journey to the ends of the earth that she was able to make when lots of factors aligned to create the perfect opportunity. Something of a different episode this week for the first remote reco…

Programme director of Digital Interaction Design at DJCAD, Paul has gone full circle from being a student on the course to now leading it. We cover that whole journey including some brilliant music based side projects along the way.“mostly I’ve just pursued what I’ve been interested in rather than what’s been a good career move”We begin by talking …

Kirsty is the founder and CEO of the Circle, a “More Than Profit” organisation focused on working with social entrepreneurs, community activists, charity leaders, commercial business leaders, trustees and non-executive directors.Kirsty starts her journey on her return to Dundee after being in academia for many years she found herself unemployed. Af…

Ryan McLeod

Jen is an Illustrator and ceramicist who has spent her time between Dundee, Glasgow and Toronto during her career so far.Her work often notes quiet moments, human connection and the natural world. Pencil and paper are generally the tools of choice, but she occasionally plays with clay, too.After graduating from DJCAD Jen started making products tha…

Ryan McLeod

Ryan McLeod

5 weeks into a year-long role as director of Creative Dundee I chat to Lori about her journey, what interested her in the role and what she wants to achieve.Starting out, Lori’s journey has a bit of uncertainty that then led to working in the financial sector. After rising through the company she ended up being made redundant along with the rest of…

An opportunity for a year-long graduate internship on the isle of Coll to write and create music was massively significant in Andy’s life. It kick-started a remote music creation process with his brother and initiated a love for field recordings.Now 2 albums down, Kinbrae are looking to release an LP and then a further album but Andy is looking to …

Katja has been working in the cultural sector producing events for many years. From music festivals in the Czech Republic to DJCAD degree show. Having only been in Dundee for a relatively short period of time she’s already worked with most of the cultural organisations in the city.As most of her work is event-based it leads to relatively short term…

Director of Leisure & Culture Dundee, Stewart has spent many years engaging communities, enabling others and really helping develop the cultural offer in Dundee. As he moves towards retirement we talk about what he has achieved in the role and what he feels is important for the city going forward. After growing up in Fife, Stewart started in commun…

A freelance photographer who has worked across many areas but mainly with cultural and arts organisations like NEoN Digital Arts Festival, the Cooper Gallery and many fashion brands. The first big project I worked on with Kathryn was this year’s Dundee Design Festival. We brought her in as the official festival photographer and to run a space calle…

A graphic designer currently working for Avian in Dundee, Jamie shares his journey to where he is now with lots of ups, downs and educational institutions.Jamie first did undergrad degree in product design but felt it was too focused on the engineering and the prospects afterwards were limited. He realised from the design process he had developed t…

Kirsty Thomas runs creative studio Tom Pigeon from the East Neuk of Fife. We go through her journey from fashion design to teaching to the creation of Tom Pigeon and her latest project The Make Bank.After a bit of a false start with Sports Science Kirsty went on to a degree in Design Studies which didn’t exactly prepare her with the skills needed f…

21 – 28 May the Dundee Design Festival will be at the Keiller Centre in Dundee. In this bonus episode me and Lyall Bruce talk about the process behind producing the festival.The podcast has been on a bit of a hiatus and DDF19 is the reason why. So, I thought it only fair to do an episode on our process behind the scenes in structuring and creating …

Joanne runs Tea Green Events where she brings together some of the best makers from across Scotland in amazing spaces for people to buy their wares. Joanne’s journey took a few twists and turns along the way before building up Tea Green. Starting out with a ‘false start’ doing a business degree she realised that what she really wanted to do was go …

Frances is the ex-director of the Queens Young Leaders programme and describes herself as a ‘positive troublemaker’ which I think is very much the case. We start on her journey where she sort of blagged her way through university, playing the system to get through. Her ability to do this did make her lose interest in art and I think ultimately univ…

Gareth runs Flick For Kicks, making hand made Subbuteo tables and has been involved in playing and promoting the game for over 30 years.He takes us right back to when he first started in his mates’ living room to being Scottish Youth Champion then starting his own club and finally running his own business.It probably took me about 2 years to convin…

Fun Makes Good is how you may also know Eleanor. She produces an amazing range of work from products to upholstery and textiles full interior designs. Strong geometric shape and bright colours feature heavily in Eleanors work and is a style she has become known for. This aesthetic seems to have always been in her work and has been refined over time…

Designer, maker, teacher, wood worker, exhibition installer and co-owner of Tayberry Gallery in Perth, Louise has a lot going on and this episode is an amazing whirlwind of a journey. We start by going back to her final year university project of sexually inspired furniture that’s probably not for the feint hearted. Then there seemed to be a bit of…

What would make your city more liveable/loveable? - http://dundeedesignfestival.comFun a Day Dundee Website - https://funadaydundee.wordpress.com/Fun a Day Dundee Twitter - https://twitter.com/faddundee?lang=en Fun a Day Dundee Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/funadaydundee/Sam’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sambaxterart/Sam’s Website…

Film maker Ed Broughton is my guest this week. I’ve known Ed for a few years now, sharing co-working space Fleet Collective. In 75 episodes I’ve never had anyone derail the flow of the podcast quite as much as Ed did! He deflected talking about himself and his journey by bringing along his 10 top tips for freelancing.There’s lots of great tidbits i…

Laura is a community artist and has been for about 16 years now. 12 of those years have been spent at The Corner in Dundee, a health and information service in Dundee, bringing amazing projects to life and influencing the lives of many young people.We go on a journey from where she started as a 20 year old working for the lighthouse in communities …

Freelance Illustrator Lauren Morsley joins me for this episode. After graduating in the summer, Lauren exhibited at D&AD New Blood in London where she won a One to Watch award.We talk through her university experience and transitioning to life working as an illustrator. During our chat, Lauren highlights a few gaps and places that universities coul…

Samantha Paton is the fashion designer behind independent clothing label Isolated Heroes. She describes it as a lot of fun with sequins and faux fur.From the outset, Samantha wanted to create a brand that resonated with real people. Using street cast models and an honest voice she has built an amazing following. Although she has worked on custom pi…

Louise Kirby is a designer and illustrator based in Dundee. She was also part of the Maggies Penguin Trail with her creation, the Provincial Penguin.It carries her signature style that has a very handcrafted aesthetic. We chat about how she has developed this and how it has come from a very hands-on creative process. I found her focus on 'play' ver…

A multidisciplinary artist based in Dundee. Although she produces work in many forms, Sekai’s often works with photography and has created a signature dark style in subject matter and aesthetic.I ask Sekai about where she thinks her style originated from and how difficult it is to take photos when you are the subject matter. It leads to chat about …

I think it’s fair to say that Mike Press is a big personality and a well known figure in the Dundee Creative community. He runs service design consultancy Open Change with Hazel White. He decided to make the jump back into consultancy after a 25 year stint in education. This episode is a whistle stop tour of Mike’s amazing varied career from sellin…