In this episode, Andy Wright and Rachel Zhang share an interview with James Martin, renowned graphic designer at Lincoln Design Co., creator of MadeByJames and member of the Canva Design Advisory Board. James shares his deeply personal and winding journey—from overcoming childhood trauma and addiction to building a successful design career and becoming a mentor for emerging creatives worldwide. Key Topics Discussed: - The Myth of the Perfect Career Path : James reflects on his non-linear journey...
Jun 22, 2025•40 min
What happens when an internet sensation decides to take creative control? In this episode of the Never Not Creative podcast, Rachel and Andy sit down with Lubalin, the musician, content creator, and viral TikTok star known for his hilarious Internet Drama series.Lubalin opens up about his journey—how a fun experiment turned into a massive internet hit, the challenges of being known for one thing, and his evolution into a serious music artist. We explore the creative struggles of balancing viral ...
Mar 26, 2025•49 min
In this episode of the Never Not Creative podcast, hosts Andy Wright and Rachel Zhang are joined by Paper Moose Co-Founder, Nick Hunter to discuss how to break into the creative industry, emphasizing the importance of internships, personality, and authenticity in applications. They explore the significance of passion projects, the concept of Ikigai, and the necessity of networking. The conversation also touches on the challenges of entry-level jobs and offers practical tips for new graduates to ...
Feb 22, 2025•30 min
In this episode of the Never Not Creative Podcast, hosts Andy and Rachel explore the complex topic of determining your worth in the creative industry. We discuss the challenges creatives face in measuring their value, whether as employees or freelancers. Our conversation touches on different pricing strategies, the importance of balancing passion with commercial viability, and gender dynamics in the workplace. We also delve into strategies for negotiating pay rises and promotions, including prac...
Feb 09, 2025•31 min
Andy Wright and Rachel Zhang discuss every creatives dreaded topic – Impostor Syndrome. How to deal with those voices that keep telling us we're not good enough, we don't deserve to be in the room, or that everyone is better than us. Luckily they source advice from previous Asking For A Friend guests, Maria Devereux (Executive Creative Director and Head of Innovation at Accenture Song), Psychologist, Dr. Aileen Alegado, and Aimee Davies from The Hey Mate Project. Thanks to our supporters Streamt...
Nov 16, 2024•25 min
Rachel and Andy are discussing the topic of how to deal with bad behaviour from colleagues, managers and even clients. It's a topic that has been frequently asked in our Asking For A Friend events and so we've brought the learnings and discussions into our latest episode. Our hosts discuss the excellent advice shared on questions like: How do I approach a manager who has been taking credit for my work? How can I change the toxic culture in an organisation? How do I deal with a micro-manager? How...
Sep 12, 2024•32 min
Andy and Rachel are back with the still, rather awkward question – How is your mental health? We delve into questions like, how should we talk about mental health at work, as a leader, as a colleague? How do we bring up a subject that can sometimes lead to fear of judgement? Well, fear not, the stigma relating to mental health is improving by the day and we share advice on all of these questions and more by referencing some fantastic Asking For A Friend episodes. How do I let my team know that I...
Jul 29, 2024•25 min
The Never Not Creative podcast is back after a 2 year hiatus. Joining Andy for this new season is co-host, Rachel Zhang, a digital product designer living in Sydney and with experience working across brands and agencies including Telstra, R/GA, Accenture Song and now her own design consultancy Ro&Co. This first episode of the new season focuses on Burnout. Andy and Rachel pull in some of the best advice that’s been shared by Asking For A Friend guests from over the past 3 years of events. Le...
Jun 27, 2024•33 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Paul Balfe is no football expert. But he is a male creative who was willing to chat to us about his mental health and his experiences with anxiety. Paul is Creative Director and Founder of Pennybridge Creative, an independent design studio at home on the Gold Coast of Australia. Paul shares his battle with anxiety as a result of the recent Queensland flooding and the steps he took to improve his mental wellbeing. From hypnotherapist to psychologist, Paul tried a number of different ways to tackl...
Sep 30, 2022•42 min
Nasya Kamrat is the Co-Founder of FACULTY, a certified, woman-owned spatial storytelling agency. After experiences working with multi-national agencies owned by the global holding companies, Nasya decided to start something new and do completely the opposite. Nasya is joined by Chief Creative Officer, Aaron Wolfe and both chat to Andy about the positives of building a company that is diverse, equitable and different to the status quo. Nasya also shares how she's gone one step further to co-found...
Sep 22, 2022•51 min
In our latest episode, Ve Dewey interviews James Routledge, the co-founder of Sanctus. After starting Sanctus, a coaching business to help improve mental wellbeing in workplaces, James has gone on to author the Penguin Business Book, Mental Health at Work. He's always very transparent and honest in his own challenges and shares how practice was the key to opening up and helping people realise that we're all capable of talking about our mental health. Links: More about James and Sanctus . James' ...
Jun 19, 2022•42 min
In this episode, Ve and Andy join forces to chat to recent winners of the Deutsche Bank Awards For Creative Entrepreneurs – Jameisha Prescod, founder of You Look Okay To Me, an online space for the chronic illness community and Nahum McLean, founder of African Diaspora Dance Association (ADDA), an organisation that aims to expand the curriculum and training of dance under the African Diaspora. Jameisha and Nahum share the importance of strong mentorship, community and not letting social norms st...
Jan 20, 2022•46 min•Season 4Ep. 9
It's our third and final episode of the F Word Mini-Series. David and Ve sit down for an inspirational conversation around failure at an organisational level with the award-winning transformational change leader Eva Applebaum and Global CEO of Butchershop® Global, Trevor Hubbard. Within the episode, we go in-depth discussing failure, what the opposite of failure is (clarity), key leadership attributes, and what failure for women in a work environment means. Eva Appelbaum – Butchershop – The Clar...
Dec 20, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In our second episode, David and Ve sit down with Alina Mendoza Lopez, currently an intern at Dragon Rouge London, and Max Ottignon, co-founder of the London based agency Ragged Edge to discuss failure at the individual level. Within the episode Max and Alina discuss their experience of failure: Alina discussed her relationship with failure in university whilst Max elucidates early career experiences with failure as well as his current experiences running Ragged Edge. Ragged Edge Dragon Rouge Th...
Dec 19, 2021•51 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Based on the “The F word”, our latest mini-series focuses on "Failure." This first episode with Never Not Creative Co-creator, Ve Dewey and David Beare, Executive Creative Director of Dragon Rouge, come together to discuss what we mean by failure. Their discussion lays the foundation for future episodes exploring what failure is and what counts as small or large failures and how we deal with them on a daily basis. Stay tuned for more in episodes 2 and 3 coming soon. More about David – More about...
Dec 14, 2021•52 min•Season 6Ep. 1
The final episode of our Creativity and Football mini-series rounds out with The Hallway's ECD Simon Lee. Simon has lived experience with the ups and downs of mental health, but has also been working closely with mental health charity, Gotcha4Life for the last 3 years. The result of this work is the quite excellent Boys Do Cry campaign – a clever take on The Cure's "Boys Don't Cry" from 1979. It's a powerful piece bringing together 30 men from all walks of life to unite in tackling the stigma of...
Dec 12, 2021•54 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In the 4th episode of our Creativity & Football mini-series we head to Switzerland with renowned lettering artist Stefan Kunz. Stefan is an internet phenomenon, entrepreneur and educator who is passionate about sharing his gift to inspire others. But his quest for excellence and always doing how best isn’t free from the challenges of struggling to get out of bed, becoming bereft of ideas on how to excel further and everything in between. Stefan shares his coping mechanisms and how his willin...
Dec 07, 2021•52 min•Season 5Ep. 4
It's the 3rd episode of our Creativity & Football mini-series. Craig Elimeliah is an award-winning ECD at VMLY&R in New York. A native New-Yorker he gets his football analogies from the oval shaped ball rather than the circular one. A couple of months ago, Craig wrote a brave post on Linkedin sharing his experiences with many years of mental heath ups and downs. It's not easy to suddenly go from zero to a hundred in the transparency and vulnerability stakes, but Craig has taken it in his...
Nov 27, 2021•52 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Dr Zac Seidler knows a thing or two about football. Whilst he's scored many a goal from all over the pitch, his ultimate goal is to reduce the staggering rate of male suicide. In this second episode of our Creativity & Football mini series (psst, yeah the one on men's mental health in the creative industry) Andy and Zac discuss everything from mental health to masculinity and the one secret that just may give men the courage to speak up. Find out more about Zac at https://www.zacseidler.com/...
Nov 12, 2021•49 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Welcome to a Never Not Creative podcast mini-series. Creativity and Football. We're talking to men about creativity, football and... who are we kidding? This is an essential listen. A mini-series dedicated to the topic of men's mental health in our industry. We kick-off our first episode with Pete Brennan. Co-founder of Heaps Normal, Electric & Analog and lucky for us, sharer of stories and experiences about his own journey with mental health. We're publishing this series because its almost ...
Oct 21, 2021•54 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Asher Oliver didn’t take the traditional ‘qualified’ pathway into the creative industry. After graduation from university with a Business Management degree in 2009, he moved back home and encountered a huge struggle in regards to finding employment. Like many graduates having to rely on casual work meant Asher became a waiter in an Italian restaurant, but he never gave up what had become a passion on the side for animation. While researching opportunities, Asher came across Gary Vaynerchuk and h...
Sep 25, 2021•46 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Blair Enns (author of Win Without Pitching and Pricing Creativity) joins Andy to discuss the challenges that creatives have when it comes to business. How our emotional attachment to work can hinder financial success and why we shy away from the grown-up stuff. We also discuss the pro's and con's of unpaid internships and whether mental health issues are naturally more present in creatives. Links: Rocket Fuel book Win without pitching Mentally-Healthy research Never Not Creative Thank to Streamt...
Aug 31, 2021•51 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Andy and Sarah are back with another episode on a Never Not International Women’s Day talk with Tom Tapper. Tom is the co-founder and CEO of B-Corp certified agency, Nice and Serious. In 2008, he co-founded Nice and Serious with a clear purpose: to make creative work the world needs. Since then, he’s exclusively worked with pioneering charities and brands to make creative work that amplifies social and environmental causes. From international brands like IKEA, Unilever, Innocent and Ben & Je...
Aug 17, 2021•39 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Join Andy Wright and Sarah Nguyen in another episode to discuss two powerful talks from Never Not International Women’s Day - ‘Until your fear of me isn’t my problem’ with Tanarra Schneider, and ‘Until we flip the question’ with Andy Polaine. Tanarra is a Managing Director at Accenture Interactive, leading Design in the Midwest. She spills the tea about the outcomes of a system predicated on the fear of women’s success. Dr. Andy Polaine is a designer, educator, coach and writer who helps clients...
Aug 02, 2021•38 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Somewhere around 2015, the first of the John genre articles arrived, trumpeting that there are more CEOs named John than women CEOs in their entirety. In this episode, we have a well-presented talk by Jess Lilley, who focuses on this issue and talks through what we (John) can do about it. Jess is a co-founder at The Open Arms, a creative company that strives to weaponise empathy to help communities thrive. After a near 20-year career as an award-winning writer and creative director in some of th...
Jun 22, 2021•23 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Jane Duru (Verbal Design Director, R/GA) and Sumita Maharaj (Associate Design Director, Re:) join Sarah and Andy to discuss their recent submission to Never Not International Women's Day. From having to bring a 6-pack to a meeting to get a seat at the table and a constant need to over-prove themselves Jane and Sumi share their stories and experiences from the world of advertising and design. You can watch their talk at Never Not International Women's Day . More at Never Not Creative . Thanks to ...
May 16, 2021•59 min•Season 4Ep. 3
To make meaningful change in workplaces all around the world, we need to recognise that the gender inequity in our industry and society is a cultural problem. We need to show men what they can’t see all around them - the norm. The norm that has let stereotypes rule and anyone but a privileged white male suffer. Join this discussion with Daniele Fiandaca and Deborah Rey-Burns. By his own admission, Daniele is the very definition of privilege - white, male, straight, middle class and privately edu...
Apr 25, 2021•59 min•Season 4Ep. 2
International Women’s Day 2021 has passed. But this year, we're not going back to business as usual. As far as we're concerned, it will always be Never Not International Women’s Day until all women including women of colour, women with disabilities, and queer or trans women, stop being penalised for being women. This new season of the podcast highlights our Never Not International Women's Day initiative. A mind-changing, bias-ridding, downright mutinous loop of ideas and musings from women in th...
Mar 30, 2021•40 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Dr Sally Fitzpatrick is a Clinical Psychologist and the Acting Program Manager, Mental Health and Research at Everymind, our partners in the Mentally-Healthy research study. In this episode she’s joined by Author and Creative, Alex Wadelton to tackle community questions about finding meaning and purpose through work, disclosing mental health challenges, taking better care of contractors and freelancers and managing expectations about working hours with your boss. You can also watch at https://ww...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Victoria Davies has spent years as a leader in the advertising industry. Now though, Victoria has swapped running some of the most successful agencies in London and New York to start an artificial intelligence business to nudge leaders into being better. This episode is recorded in partnership with Gabberish – Creative Therapy For Creative Minds . An online magazine for our industry. Issue 21 (out on 15th December) is edited by Never Not Creative's Andy Wright and this interview forms part of an...
Dec 14, 2020•36 min•Season 3Ep. 15
