Design Beat

Abbey is hilarious, and a vintage clothing expert. She finds the most amazing pieces for her shop, The Peach Vintage and is designing original pieces that are beautiful for all body types. If you haven't seen her reels yet, run don't walk. She is one of my favorite content creators on Instagram and she even created a Reels Course! The Peach Vintage Website The Peach Vintage Instagram Graphic Design Contract Template Get 40% off an annual Skillshare membership here!!! designbeatpodcast.com Design Beat Instagram: @designbeatpodcast Lauren's website: laurenkunz.com Instagram: @laurenkunzzz Steph's website: martelloandco.com Instagram: @martello.co  Intro/Outro music: Mark Carlisle

Kiersty Loughmiller from the legal formative shed some light on all the legal things creative business owners need to know. We talked about copyrights, trademarks, contracts, and what to expect when working with a lawyer. 

I had the loveliest chat this morning with Annabel Wrigley! Annabel is a fabric designer for Windham fabrics and a teacher with Creativebug. One of our listeners requested that we reach out to Annabel and she did not disappoint! She was hopeful and light and happy and I think you're really going to enjoy this episode.

Michelle Gifford is an expert at helping women business owners message and market their business, inspiring women to take action, and delivering the tools to make it happen. As a business coach, podcaster, speaker, and founder and CEO of Michelle Gifford Creative, she guides women through creating and maintaining a business that lasts through creative content and online strategy. Her agency, Michelle Gifford Creative, cultivates brand strategies and content for influencers and creatives. A mom to five, she and her husband are raising their family in Southern California. This episode is packed with super helpful and specific marketing advice that I totally needed. 

**Disclaimer: This was literally just a conversation with my friend and was not planned or curated to provide helpful info.** Very different episode this week! My friend Shaylie I used to work with has been wanting to get into graphic design and while scheduling a Zoom call with her I though it might be fun to just record an episode. I feel like the questions she had are questions everyone has when they're starting out. Hopefully I cut out enough of my rambling for this to be useful! This episode could either be super helpful, or very boring. Haha!  Graphic Design Contract Template Get 40% off an annual Skillshare membership here!!! designbeatpodcast.com Design Beat Instagram: @designbeatpodcast Lauren's website: laurenkunz.com Instagram: @laurenkunzzz Steph's website: martelloandco.com Instagram: @martello.co  Intro/Outro music: Mark Carlisle

Sonia is the CEO of Wildly Creating, a web and brand design agency passionate about creating, designing, and developing strategy-infused brands for high-performing entrepreneurs ready to change the world and who are not afraid to go big! I had a great time chatting with Sonia about having an abundance mindset, the van life in Australia and what it's like to be a traveling entrepreneur. 

This was a fun one! Shailey is an interior designer, video production company owner and co-host of one of the first podcasts I ever listened to: “Shailey and Katie’s Lemonade Stand”. In this episode we talk about running her interior design business, her video production company, raising her two children and renovating her amazing house! I was so excited when she agreed to come on the podcast and loved chatting with her hilarious self!

Today we're talking with Elizabeth Silver. Elizabeth is a professional surface pattern designer who's been working for the last 2 decades in the industry. She teaches beginner surface pattern designers the clear steps to find clients, pitch their designs, and create a profitable business with confidence and ease. You will definitely hear some of that in this interview. Elizabeth shares a ton of advice from her time in the industry which I was grateful for as you know I've been venturing in to the surface pattern licensing world. Something Elizabeth said in this interview is that action brings clarity. She also shared some great advice about finding clients and working with surface pattern design agents. If you're interested in licensing your artwork you're going to love this one!

Welcome back!! I've wanted to be friends with Tayler for a long time so I decided to use the podcast as an excuse to get her to hang out with me!! She actually lived nearby so she just came over and we chatted in my living room for a bit. I absolutely loved talking to Tayler and I think we could have kept going for hours if I didn't have to pick up kids from school! We talked about creating your own definition of success, believing in yourself, finding your style, and she even tells us her favorite method for learning to draw something new! You're going to love this one.

The day has finally come. After two failed attempts at recording an episode with my husband Clint, we finally completed an episode! We may not be experts on goal setting, but we do enjoy it and think it's fun to talk about! This is a quick final episode before taking the month of December off, but don't worry we'll be back in January and already have an amazing lineup for the beginning of next year! I'm going to miss you guys this month, let's stay in touch on Instagram!!

Introducing Jaz, the 6 figure Design Superwoman turned Pricing Queen. Jaz is an Aussie creative teaching pricing through courses, resources and tomato sauces… ok maybe not the last one. Passionate about pricing, pie and puns, shes all about helping transform her students from Starving Artists to Hungry Creatives. In this episode we talk about all of that plus Survivor, Australian maternity leave (mind blown), and what her 14 years in the industry has looked like!

Joy is an Illustrator, artist and maker based in New Jersey and she was such a delight to chat with! She illustrates puzzles, she has paint by number kits and she's got a painting book coming out! I loved how joy was sharing specifics on her process and the tools she uses. We talked about finding your artistic voice through creating work in large quantities and drawing from inspiration, and the challenges of being an artist on Instagram right now. You're going to love this one!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

This is a short and sweet Halloween episode where I (Lauren) tell some listener submitted stories and a few of my own. Let me know if you'd like to hear more episodes in this format! 

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

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Today we're talking with traveling muralist Sarah Meitler. We were honored that Sarah took a break from her painting day in North Carolina to have a quick chat with us. We talk about finding clients, her mural process, insurance... She even turns her laptop and shows us the amazing view out her window! I will post a video on Instagram stories. 

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Today we're talking with another one of my Design Biz Mastery ladies, Abbey McGrew from Wayfarer Design Studio!! Abbey travels the world for her husband'd job and she's currently living in Romania! Abbey is the founder of Wayfarer, a full-service design studio that elevates premium brands to a place of meaning, purpose, and newfound confidence.

She has become known not only for her design work, but also her openness about the struggles of freelancing. Through her course, The Designer Essentials Club, template shop and 1:1 coaching, Abbey teaches designers how to streamline their process and finally feel confident while working with clients. 

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

I think you guys are going to be very excited about our guests today! This is our first interview ever with multiple guests! Today we are hearing from Phoebe and Roxy from PANDR! They create custom art installations and murals around the globe and one thing we really appreciate about them is that they are on a mission to end the starving artist stereotype. They have a plethora of resources for designers on their website and tons of helpful and fun content on their Instagram and TikTok as well. I'll link those in the show notes so have fun hopping into those rabbit holes! In this interview we talk about PANDR's origin story and how they got their start, red flags to watch out for when vetting potential clients, outreach and how important it is in landing clients, and some fun projects they have coming up! Phoebe and Roxy are fun and gracious and so generous in supporting the art community, you're going to love them!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Today we're talking with Cymone Wilder from Simon and Moose. She is a full time graphic designer by day, amazing lettering artist by night. She has some really cool creative processes and uses some unique methods and materials to create her artwork, so it was really fun to hear the behind the scenes on that! 

Today we're talking with Jess Levitz the other half of Shoppe Theory! So you guys remember Do-Hee, she was our very first interview ever on the podcast. Do-Hee is the web design partner of Shoppe Theory and Jess does more of the graphic design side so we're really excited to have her on and hear her perspective. You may know her from  The Creative Lady Collective Facebook group/ Instagram/ website formerly known as Freelance Wisdom. In this interview we talk about not being afraid to put your work out there, the perks of having a studio with a small team versus being a creative director managing a lot of people. She also  takes us on a deep dive into her branding process which you know I loved! So I do need to apologize for my audio in this episode.... I don't always point it out when my audio is bad because I feel like people wouldn't notice it a lot of the time if I didn't but this time.... it's pretty bad. I was at my parent's house and I wasn't as prepared as I thought so I had to use my AirPods which FYI are pretty much the worst thing you can record your audio on... so there you go if you find yourself wondering why I sound like I'm speaking through a Wendy's Drive-Thru speaker and Jess sounds really great that's why! So sorry guys... I'm not an audio engineer, I'm just a girl trying to share the stories of some pretty rad ladies. Ok! Here's Jess.

You guys... Hayley is absolutely incredible. She has been hand lettering professionally since she was in high school and has pretty much been hustling non-stop ever since. She's worked with a lot of amazing clients, if you live in Utah (specifically Provo) you've definitely seen her artwork in a store window,  a mural, a logo or even on a billboard. And you've most likely pointed it out and talked about how cool it was!

Something that we didn't discuss in the episode is that Hayley has been battling cancer on and off since she was 14 and right now she is in the hospital getting a bone marrow transplant. This involves Hayley being in the hospital for about a month, and the reason I'm sharing this with you is to ask for prayers. Hayley needs our prayers right now. Hayley is such an amazing, incredible strong person. Even before knowing the details of her cancer story I could just feel there was something special about her and Steph and I actually said to each other after this interview "Can you imagine if everyone had Hayley's confidence? And a world full of Hayley's??" What an amazing world that would be. I just feel truly blessed we were able to spend this time talking with her and learning from her. We love you Hayley!!!

Today we're talking with Allison Colledge!! You may know her as @hey.thankmelater on Instagram sharing all her favorite things and taking you behind the scenes in her design business. She does branding, workbooks, patterns, she was really fun to talk to because she has a really unique job where she travels to workshops, spends 20 minutes with several different business owners in one day and sends them a semi-custom branding suite at the end! I was really excited to ask her all the questions and get into the nitty gritty of what she does. She is sooo fun to talk to, in fact I got to meet up with her in real life today!! She was in town and we got to got to lunch and it was SO fun. She is just a treat. 

Some call it a funk, others a creative rut. Whatever you call it we all experience it, and it always passes! Every 10th episode of the podcast we like to switch it up and do something special. For this episode, we've combed through all 19 of our past episodes and compiled advice about what to do when you feel stuck from our amazing guests!!

Today we're talking with Melissa from Sweet Daddy Designs! Melissa is a very cool brand strategist and designer from Texas. In this interview we talk all about strategy and how she learned to start offering brand strategy as a service by itself, how she uses what she learned getting her marketing degree in strategy, and how applying strategy simplifies the design process in a big way. We also talk about value based pricing and how to uncover what is and isn't valuable to a potential client. And of course the story behind her business name: Sweet Daddy Designs!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Lisa is a really amazing illustrator from South Africa. You may know Lisa from The Honest Designer's Show. She also sells graphics, she teaches online courses, and she's got the most amazing accent!! If I had to describe this interview in one word it would be cozy. Lisa is SO encouraging and it just left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. We talk about her transition from her graphic design business to illustrating full time, the frustration of not being able to create what's in your head, how it's never too late to start, always being a student, being true to yourself and your style, and she even gives us a peek into her illustration process!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

This was a really fun episode because we all know each other from different things! It was really fun to just chat as design friends, we had a really great conversation! We talked about the reality and struggles that come with being a full-time working mother, the importance in defining success and what that looks like for you, her opinions on burnout and the shame that comes with it, the difference between failing and pivoting, recognizing when you are comparing yourself to others and moving past it, and many other interesting topics like that that we don't talk about enough. Morgan is so fun, you guys are gonna love her!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Today we're talking to TRISHA ZEMP The Queen of Stop Motion!! Trisha is one of those guests you probably already know who needs no introduction but just in case here we go: Trisha is a Stop motion animator, and co-founder of Golden Coil. She has worked with um well everyone haha including Conde Nast, Warner Brothers, Martha Stewart Living, Bath and Body Works, Netflix, Audible... and so many more! I don't know if you've heard of any of those. But more importantly she's just a really great person which you will hear in this interview. We talk about doing what feels right because if it feels right it's right. We also talk about how your weaknesses might actually be your strengths, the power in being yourself, how Golden Coil came to be, and looking at social media as a way to create a community. This is a really amazing episode and I am so excited for everyone to hear it! Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys! Trisha's Website Stop Motion School Trisha's Instagram Trisha's TikTok Trisha's YouTube Channel Golden Coil Golden Coil Instagram Other links: Big Magic  designbeatpodcast.com Design Beat Instagram: @designbeatpodcast Lauren's website: laurenkunz.com Instagram: @laurenkunzzz Steph's website: martelloandco.com Instagram: @martello.co  Intro/Outro music: Mark Carlisle

Today, we're talking with the very cool Natalee Cooper Chilton!! Natalee is a full-time graphic designer by day and an amazing illustrator and freelancer by night. Something you need to know before listening to this interview: Natalie is extremely humble. She definitely downplays her artistic ability and if you click over to her website or Instagram, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. She's amazing. In this interview we talk about the process of creating and publishing her adorable children's book, what her day to day looks like as a full-time graphic designer and my favorite part: she tells us about a game she plays with her friend Julie to just let loose and keep those creative juices flowing. I was practically begging Natalie to let me hang out with her by end of this interview. She's just so cool you guys are going to love her!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Can you believe we convinced Olivia Herrick to come on our podcast? If you're a graphic designer you probably already know who Olivia is, but if you don't Olivia is a graphic designer based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, best known for her playful, vibrant, and positive artwork. Though you will often find her glued to her computer at her studio, Olivia finds her greatest inspiration in the great outdoors. We had suuuch a good conversation with Olivia, she is SO well spoken! I always take notes when I'm editing to keep track of points I want to mention in the intro and I had such a long list after editing this episode! We talked about her goal to run the most stress-free studio that she possibly can, the importance of having a daily design practice to get the juices flowing, giving yourself permission to do what feels right for you as opposed to what people on Instagram are telling you you should be doing, being open-minded to change in your business, knowing when to hire help, and at the end she even encourages us not to follow her on Instagram(more on that later)! - Although sorry Olivia I am going to send them to your Instagram because it is a gold mine of inspiration! Obviously this episode is jam-packed with goodness, you're going to love it!

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys!

Welcome to Episode 10 of Design Beat! Where we share the stories of creative women who dance to the beat of their own drum. We hope you come away inspired, uplifted, and encouraged to go for it.

We wanted to do something special for this our 10th episode, and a few of our recent guests have requested that we do our own episodes sometime, so we decided to do a mix of those ideas and do a little Q&A with the two of us! I won’t spoil it, but we go over things like what music we’re listening to, how we combat our own imposter syndrome, what success looks like for us in our lives and businesses, and CONTRoveRSY around subjects like bad fonts and design program preferences.

Tag us and share your thoughts on social media if you're listening and resonate with anything we or a guest have shared lately—we LOVE seeing and connecting with you guys! 

As always, you can find our links here: 

Today we're talking with the amazing Michelle Parascandolo!! Michelle is an amazing surface pattern designer and illustrator from New York city. In this interview, we talk a lot about Michelle's recipe for avoiding burnout, the reality of doing what you love while also paying the bills, and we also talk about living in New York and the challenges that came with living there during the pandemic. I have admired Michelle for a long time and as you will see by my fan-girling, I am really excited she agreed to come on! Get 40% off an annual Skillshare membership here!!! Music by Mark Carlisle Michelle's Website Michelle's Instagram: @michelle.parascandolo Design Beat Instagram: @designbeatpodcast Lauren's Instagram: @laurenkunzzz Steph's Instagram: @martello.co

For today’s episode we had the BEST time talking to Latesha Lynch of Atelier Latesha. 

Latesha is a CEO, podcaster, designer and coach for designers, teaching women to believe in their abilities, raise their prices, and revolutionize the way we show up in our lives and businesses. In 2 years, Latesha went from charging less than $200 for a logo to charging $1600+, and eventually moving away from design and into coaching. In this episode we talk about what boxes to NOT put ourselves in when starting out, her biggest mindset shift that made her happier and more successful, and her advice on how to raise your prices and what to do when a client doesn’t like that.

We had the most amazing time talking with Latesha, she’s a ray of light and knowledge and we can’t wait for you to hear everything she has to say. I was so excited to talk to her that I forgot to ask our rapid fire questions, and I didn’t notice until as I was putting this episode together, we were just too excited! 

If you're just tuning in, this is the second half of our interview with Amy. Part 1 is called "Once Upon a Time in Silicon Valley". Amy is the Founder & CEO of Big Monocle, an award-winning creative agency that was recently named International Small Agency of the Year by the DMA Echo Awards. Big Monocle works with Fortune 500 brands and startups on branding, marketing and brand experiences. The logo they did for the Women’s March has created an identity for a global movement in support of women everywhere. She's also the Co-founder of the Sego Awards™, and the YEC Women Entrepreneurs Chair! This interview was actually the first time we had spoken since she babysat me about 20 years ago! At the beginning you'll hear me showing Amy a photo of us I found in a scrapbook! My parents ran into her on a flight a few years ago while I was studying design, so I starting following her and was so happy when she agreed to chat with us! She is such a great storyteller and just one of those people who is warm and  instantly makes you feel like you're best friends. I decided to split this interview into part one and part two. So in today's episode we get to hear all about how Amy got started, her amazing life working as a graphic designer in Silicon Valley and then next week we'll hear about founding her agency, Big Monocle and the ups and downs that come with running an agency, and also all the different causes Amy is a part of in supporting women. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss it, and you know we always love those reviews!!

Amy is the Founder & CEO of Big Monocle, an award-winning creative agency that was recently named International Small Agency of the Year by the DMA Echo Awards. Big Monocle works with Fortune 500 brands and startups on branding, marketing and brand experiences. The logo they did for the Women’s March has created an identity for a global movement in support of women everywhere. She's also the Co-founder of the Sego Awards™, and the YEC Women Entrepreneurs Chair! This interview was actually the first time we had spoken since she babysat me about 20 years ago! At the beginning you'll hear me showing Amy a photo of us I found in a scrapbook! My parents ran into her on a flight a few years ago while I was studying design, so I starting following her and was so happy when she agreed to chat with us! She is such a great storyteller and just one of those people who is warm and  instantly makes you feel like you're best friends. I decided to split this interview into part one and part two. So in today's episode we get to hear all about how Amy got started, her amazing life working as a graphic designer in Silicon Valley and then next week we'll hear about founding her agency, Big Monocle and the ups and downs that come with running an agency, and also all the different causes Amy is a part of in supporting women. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss it, and you know we always love those reviews!!

Steph and I got to interview Tanya Shyika! Tanya is an Illustrator and Multidisciplinary Designer based in NYC. She specializes in editorial and product illustration, digital and print design, packaging design, illustrated maps, book covers, and social media content. Basically just a very well-rounded amazing artist.

She's worked with clients like The New Yorker Magazine and  Primary.com and been featured on CreativeBoom and BuzzFeed just to name a few... Today we're going to be talking about how she went from getting a bachelors in electrical engineering to getting a second degree studying illustration in Berlin to then becoming the amazing illustrator and designer that she is today in New York! One of my favorite things we talk about in this episode is consistency and how whenever you stick to something it pays off, we also talk about cold emailing, Tanya shares some awesome resources for figuring out pricing and tells us about some really exciting projects she has going on. Tanya is just the sweetest and I know you're going to love her as much as we do!

Today’s incredible guest is Racheal Jackson of Banyan Bridges. She’s a self-taught muralist, champion of all things bold and colorful, DIY master, mom of 3 and pancake chef. In this episode we talk about what you need to be creative and artistic, how she started doing murals and getting clients, what she charges for her professional work, and what makes a project worth doing. We also go into how to lean into your subconscious to solve creative problems for you, how working as an artist makes her a better mom, and what it means to chase your fire in order to live your best creative life. So, everything. 

Lauren and I left this interview on cloud 9 and we know you’ll love it too.

We had the privilege of chatting with the amazing Betsy Petersen! Betsy is an artist, pattern designer and children's book illustrator. In this episode we talk about saying yes and figuring out the details later, using self compassion to combat imposter syndrome, and the advice given to her from a college English professor that motivates her to move forward whenever she gets into a creative rut. We also talk about her children's shop, Brighter Fun that she runs with her husband, and her new children's book: Happy Puppy Angry Tiger, which is out now!

In this heart-full episode we’re excited to be talking to Jenna AKA Lady Bright of Lady Bright Studios. She’s a muralist, painter, and bright color exploratory artist and sketchbook master with the biggest heart and funnest personality. Like both Lauren and I she hails from the great state of Utah and is calling in from her garage studio.

We talked about what truly drives her creativity, what it’s like trying to balance being a mom and wanting to design all the things all the time, and her experience becoming a muralist. Bonus: She shares her tried and true “best thing” you can do to develop your own personal style, and it’s good.

We’re honored to have heard her story and can’t wait for you to hear it too! 

A teeny tiny disclaimer, it was our second episode ever and we had technical difficulties, so the audio isn’t as good as we’d like it to be. BUT we promise the story is so, so worth it. The name of the tightrope walker artist is still unknown—will update when I figure it out.  

Do-Hee is a self-taught, Korean-American designer of 8 years. She is the co-founder and web design partner at Shoppe Theory, a boutique design studio specializing in creative solutions for retail businesses. A fan of color, typography, and labors of love -- Do-Hee is based in San Francisco (but calling in from New York today!). In this interview we find out out how Do-Hee went from getting a double major in history and studio art to becoming the co-founder and web design partner of a design studio when a creative career was NOT on her radar. 

Some other topics we cover include: working for a start-up , pursuing interests outside of work, managing a team and the one word they watch out for as a red flag when vetting clients! I am so excited for you to hear this interview, there is SO much good advice especially for anyone interested in pursuing a career in design or specifically web design.

Hey! I'm Lauren Kunz, a surface pattern and web designer, and I'm Steph, a do-everything-creative graphic designer, and we're both fans of connecting those who are doing it with those who want to be doing it and sharing all the knowledge. Here on the Design Beat podcast we interview inspiring creative women in the design field to share their stories and encourage others to GO FOR IT. 

In this episode we do some quick "favorites" questions and talk a little bit about who we are, what we do, why we started the podcast, and one important thing about social media that we find a little sad but also a little bit awesome. 

And while this episode is a more casual and, let's be honest, LOL-y than our normal interviews, we're excited to be here and hope to see you around for future episodes. Keep doing what you're doing and designing to the beat of your own drum—we're here to cheer you on.