Design Your Life with Vince Frost

Design Your Life podcast E023 with Vince Frost in conversation with London Design Festival co-founder and Director, Ben Evans.One of the most influential people on the London design scene, Ben Evans co-founded the London Design Festival with Sir John Sorrell in 2003. Now in its seventeenth year, the festival has grown from 45 events and exhibitions to around 400, with over 2,000 international design businesses taking part and audiences from 75 different countries reaching almost 600,000.A true Londoner, Ben has dedicated his life to the arts. He has been a Governor of the University of the Arts London and since 2017, he has been Chairman of the Mayor’s Cultural Leaders Board, a statutory advisory board to the London Mayor, and he was awarded an honorary degree from the Royal College of Art, where he graduated in 1989.For Ben, design is an “infinite number of stories to be told”. In this episode, Ben talks about the power of design as storytelling, the crisis of design education and the potential repercussions of a looming Brexit. Stay tuned for the next episode of Design Your Life featuring Umbrellium co-founder Usman Haque.  https://www.londondesignfestival.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E022 with Vince Frost in conversation with industrial designer and founder of Vert Design, Andrew Simpson.From glassblower to boat maker, eye-wear inventor to car designer and Chopper customiser, Andrew Simpson’s design career gives Jony Ive a run for his money. From the intimately hand-crafted to mass-produced industrial products, the range of Andrew’s output is phenomenal. He works across all aspects of industrial design, strategy and craft, including industrial and medical products, ceramics, furniture, lighting, consumer electrics, wearable tech, eye-wear, shelters and automotive parts, to find meaning and value in design. Born in Darwin, Andrew grew up in Sydney. A poor student but a natural maker of things, he found his fit as an industrial designer at a young age and after brief spells glassblowing and designing medical products, he founded Vert Design in 2005. Andrew’s experimental approach has led to a great diversity of design within Vert, where the expertise he’s gained through self-initiated projects has informed work with all sorts of leading Australian and global brands. In this episode, Andrew talks about his love of designers, designing for disability, the things he’d most like to design but hasn’t got around to yet, and his maddening habit as to believe that everything could be designed better. Stay tuned for the next episode of Design Your Life featuring London Design Festival co-founder and director, Ben Evans.http://www.vertdesign.com.au/https://www.frostcollective.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E021 with Vince Frost in conversation with British advertising legend and all-round creative luminary, Sir John Hegarty. One of the most successful, awarded and respected men in advertising, John is an international luminary of the creative scene. A household name in London, he’s an uncompromising creative person, accomplished author, rule-breaker and game-changer, who has spent six decades generating ideas that have changed the world. John co-founded TBWA in 1973, before starting Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with his friends and colleagues, John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. He was creative director of BBH for 30 years, where he created some of the defining campaigns of the decade, such as Audi’s “Vorsprung durch Technik” and “The Lynx Effect” for Unilever, which turned Lynx into a global bestseller, as well as the infamous ‘launderette’ campaign for Levi’s, which sold over 2 million boxer shorts in one year. In 2007, John was knighted for his services to the advertising and creative industries. In this episode, John talks about idiots in the industry and how the management running the show will inevitably lead to another creative revolution in advertising. “Creative people make the changes”, he says. “They need to come back and fight for what they believe in.” A champion of storytelling, a master of challenging the status quo and a true ideas man; on the list of inspiring creative people, he’s at the top. Stay tuned for the next episode featuring Andrew Simpson, Industrial Designer & founder of Vert Design.https://www.thegaragesoho.london/abouthttps://www.frostcollective.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E020 with Vince Frost in conversation with Andrei Dolnikov, Russian-Australian Interior Architect, Architectural Visualiser and Orthodox Hasidic Rabbi. Andrei Dolnikov came to Australia as an 11-year old Russian immigrant with nothing but his family, $2,000 and a Persian rug. After graduating art school in Australia, he made the pilgrimage to Israel where he spent six years living in Jerusalem studying to become an Orthodox-Hasidic Rabbi, rediscovering the spiritual roots that he had been denied while growing up in the Soviet Union. Now, Andrei is a visionary creative leader who specialises in bespoke, considered and memorable architectural images. He started his own business in his spare room in a small Sydney apartment, jokingly referred to as “Suite 9”, after working as a visualiser in Pittsburgh (USA). He has since guided Binyan – a now international studio with locations all over the world – to its place as a leader in the field. In this episode, Andrei reveals his story of discovering his spiritual roots, creating a business in a 2-bedroom apartment while studying full time, working as a practicing rabbi and caring for a wife and two kids. He shares how bringing together the “seemingly contradicting” threads of his life are what excites him most, and how he himself strives to break stereotypes by being a living contradiction: “I want to be the Hasidic *and* the hipster.” Stay tuned for the next Design Your Life episode featuring British advertising legend Sir John Hegarty!binyan.com.aufrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E019 with Vince Frost in conversation with Anthia Koullouros, Naturopath, Herbalist, Author, Educator and Founder & CEO of Ovvio Organics. Anthia began her pathway to Naturopathy as a 12-year-old child when she discovered the book How To Get Well, written by Paavo Airola in 1971. Growing up in a strictly clean-eating Greek household, she spent her youth mixing herbs and potions to cure all sorts of common ailments for her family and friends. After studying architecture for 9 months at university, Anthia made the switch to Naturopathy after meeting an influential family friend who practiced the therapy, and at the age of 22, she launched her own practice. Today, Anthia Koullouros is the founder & CEO of Ovvio Organics, a naturopath, herbalist, author and educator, determined to make good health simple. Using hand-blended, certified organic teas and tisanes, liquid herbal tonics and elixirs and refreshingly honest nutrition advice, Anthia has helped clients become well and happy for over 24 years.In this episode, Anthia explains how she feels like she was “born into the job” of natural therapy. She recounts her personal journey of learning how to “not let fear run the race” and to trust yourself when running a business. Anthia reveals her secrets for living well, where she discovered that: you have to work on yourself as much as your business, that you need to become comfortable with the uncomfortable parts of life, and advocates a slow-living approach where we are not controlled by our reactive impulses to fear. Stay tuned for episode 020 featuring Founder & CEO of Binyan Studios, Andrei Dolnikov.ovvioorganics.com.aufrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E018 with Vince Frost in conversation with Australian artist, designer, muralist, calligrapher and illustrator Gemma O’Brien.Over the past 10 years, Gemma has taken her passion for typography and built a flourishing career around drawing letters. Her bold type, expressive calligraphy and detailed illustration can be seen in advertising campaigns, editorial publications and large-scale murals in galleries and interiors around the world. A number of her projects have received the Award of Typographic Excellence from the New York Type Directors Club. In 2015 she was recognised as an ADC Young Gun and in 2016, named one of PRINT Magazine’s New Visual Artists: 15 under 30. She has collaborated with numerous global brands and publications including Apple, Tiffany&Co, Google, Adidas, Adobe, and The New York Times. Beyond her commercial work, Gemma O'Brien is a regular speaker at international conferences and also hosts hand-lettering workshops at design schools, agencies and events. In this episode, Gemma recounts her decision to quit studying Law and instead study Design, to today where she is a globally sought-after muralist and creative. She explains the value of listening to your gut and seeing the opportunity in being flexible, where she hasn’t so much designed her life as much as it has designed her.Stay tuned for episode 019 featuring Founder and CEO of Binyan Studio, Andrei Dolnikov.gemmaobrien.comfrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast E017 with Vince Frost in conversation with Frankie Ratford, founder of The Design Kids.Frankie always wanted to be a designer in Australia. Following a family holiday to Oz as a child, she made it her goal to study and work here and at 18 made the move from her homeland England to study design in Melbourne. After seeing Vince Frost speak at a design event Frankie became “obsessed” and was determined to land a role with Frost*collective. A few years in, she came to the realisation that full-time studio work was not her dream and decided to travel and reflect on what her creative purpose could be. Almost 10 years later Frankie has become one of the world's leading experts on the Graphic Design industry. Having founded The Design Kids; a global online/office resource bridging the gap between studying and working in design across 33 countries, Frankie has spent over six years on the road building a global design community of 140,000+ people from the ground up. Her new coaching arm takes advantage of all the knowledge she gained, looking at each of the nine business elements from a client perspective and industry perspective. She works with studios as an outside perspective to help get the right clients, position the studio where it needs to head, improve their digital presence and most importantly, their bottom line. In this episode, Frankie relives the moment when she walked away from her successful studio career to make discoveries about what she really wanted and was capable of. Here, Frankie shares her journey from the terrifying but deliberate choice to take the road less travelled and not follow the prescribed career trajectory she’d been told to follow, and how it made her realise the problems in the current state of design education. Stay tuned for Episode 018 featuring Artist and Designer, Gemma O’Brien. frankieratford.comfrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast Episode 016 with Vince Frost in conversation with Aussie-made-global icons Dare Jennings and Carby Tuckwell, founders of cult brand Deus ex Machina. Dare, founder of quintessential Aussie surf brand Mambo, and Carby, former creative director of Moon Design, launched Deus ex Machina into Australia’s cultural consciousness in 2006, with some neatly customised motorcycles and a quaint notion that ‘doing something’ is more fun than just ‘owning something’. Deus ex Machina (Day-us ex Mack-in-er; meaning ‘God from the machine’ in Latin) is a step bigger than a brand: it’s a culture. The pair’s openness and enthusiasm strike a chord with people, wherever they are, to celebrate a culture of creativity. In this episode, Dare and Carby relive the moment when they walked away from their highly successful careers, to launch something completely untested and daring. Here, the pair share their journey from what was just an idea to a now thriving global brand, and the secret to living their philosophy of success where: “there’s no ‘right way’ to do individualism, it’s all the same juice.”Stay tuned for Episode 017 featuring Illustrator and Founder of The Design Kids, Frankie Ratford. Deus ex Machinafrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast Episode 015 with Vince Frost in conversation with an expat Aussie in New York and placemaking guru, Steven Cornwell.Steven is placemaking champion for one reason: to give people a better life. He’s a former Melbourne boy turned New York expat who underwent the major life transition of leaving his eponymous creative agency in Melbourne to uproot his young family and live in New York City and take on the role of Chief Marketing Officer for The Howard Hughes Corporation. In this episode, Steven reflects on the major differences in Australian and American creative culture, finding a partner who understands the demands of the deeply human industry you’re in, and why he’s working to impact the future of developments to be more about giving people an ecosystem to “live a better life, not just urban sprawl.”Stay tuned for Episode 016 featuring Dare Jennings & Carby Tuckwell, founders of Deus ex Machina.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Design Your Life podcast Episode 014 with Vince Frost in conversation with one of editorial publishing’s most influential design figures, Chris Dixon.Chris is an editorial magazine designer who has worked across some of the world’s most influential publications including AdBusters, New York Magazine, and now as the Design Director for Condé Nast’s flagship title, Vanity Fair. He is one of the most interesting designers of contemporary publishing and has been a true leader in this period of designing for the legacy of print verses designing for future of digital. In this episode, Chris recounts his earlier career in editorial design, his film-directing-like approach, and his predictions for the role of the designer in the future of publishing during the most disruptive period of change for the industry. Stay tuned for Episode 015 featuring Aussie ex-pat and Chief Marketing Officer for global firm Howard Hughes, Steven Cornwell.Chris Dixonfrostcollective.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.