Design Life
Charli Prangley, Femke Van Schoonhoven
Design Life is a podcast about design and side projects for motivated creators. It was born after your hosts, two serial side project addicts, saw a gap in the podcast market for a conversational show about design and the issues young creatives face, that was hosted by two females.
This show aims to tackle the big issues designers face like getting paid, overcoming a creative block or managing time, to name a few. We want to open up discussion about things we wish we heard people talk about when we were studying, and we want to chat to you about the joys and the frustrations of working in the tech industry by day, and on our passion projects in the rest of our waking hours. We hope that by doing so, Design Life will give you a dose of motivation or inspiration when you need it.
This show aims to tackle the big issues designers face like getting paid, overcoming a creative block or managing time, to name a few. We want to open up discussion about things we wish we heard people talk about when we were studying, and we want to chat to you about the joys and the frustrations of working in the tech industry by day, and on our passion projects in the rest of our waking hours. We hope that by doing so, Design Life will give you a dose of motivation or inspiration when you need it.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 2, 2021 • 35min
213: Balancing work and side projects
How do we balance our side projects and our full time jobs? This is a question we get asked a lot! The thing is, time gets filled up very easily. You’ll never find the time unless you are purposeful about how you spend it. Today on Design Life we discuss how working from home, taking on more responsibility in our day jobs and having shorter blocks of time in which to get work done has made us change our priorities and find balance in new ways.
Jan 28, 2021 • 37min
212: Inside the design hiring process
This week on Design Life we want to talk about hiring from the perspective of the person doing the hiring. In the past we’ve talked a lot about finding a design job, portfolios, interviews and everything that the process entails but today we are looking at the other side of hiring.
What do you need to consider when hiring a designer to join a team at your company? How can you encourage a diverse pool of the right people to apply for the job and how can you whittle it down to the best applicant. If you’re leading a team and own the hiring process, or if you regularly get pulled in to help during the hiring process this episode will be useful for you.
Jan 18, 2021 • 29min
211: Ageism in the tech industry
In today’s episode of Design Life we talk about ageing and ageism in the tech industry. This is something we’ve started to think about more recently as we noticed there are a lot of people in the design industry in their 20’s and 30’s and a lot less in their 40’s. What happens to people as they age in this industry? As designers, we are ageing along with tech. Ten years from now will it be common place to have your entire design team made up of people in their 40’s, or is this a naive idea? We discuss finding role models, fuelling your ambition and what we can do about ageism in tech.
Jan 12, 2021 • 34min
210: Our plans for 2021
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Dec 22, 2020 • 34min
209: Reflecting on our careers & side hustles in 2020
This year has been a year like no other, which is all the more reason to look back and reflect on what we have learned and what has changed since the year began. In this episode of Design Life we chat about monetizing our side hustles, promotions, learning curves and finding gratitude in difficult times.
Dec 15, 2020 • 27min
208: Should you use a Notion doc as your portfolio?
From the outside it seems like a quick and easy way to share your work and who you are as a designer, with a lower entry level than customising your own website, but is it too good to be true? We share the results of a recent Twitter poll on what the design community thinks about this new trend, along with our thoughts on whether this is a cool and creative idea or something to avoid if you want to make the right first impression.
Dec 2, 2020 • 32min
207: Outsourcing work and hiring help for side projects
This can be difficult to do as a creator because you might have the skills to do the work yourself, but not the time. In this episode we talk about when to outsource work, how to choose the right person and developing a productive workflow.Flo WongAine Brennan
Nov 23, 2020 • 30min
206: How to have productive meetings
In this episode of Design Life we discuss how to have a productive meeting, remotely. This year has seen a huge increase in remote working and has challenged many companies to find new ways of doing things. We have all spent an hour of our time in a meeting (that could have been an email) at some stage in our career, but how can you avoid that happening again in the future? We share our experiences of running successful and productive meetings while working remotely and the importance of speaking up if things aren’t working.
Nov 17, 2020 • 44min
205: How designers could use Facebook ads to get clients
We chat about how to use social media advertising to get in front of clients as a designer, to drive traffic to your site and to remind people of your products that they’ve previously considered buying. There is lots of insight to be gained from our discussion with Mojca, including actionable steps to take, whether you want to start using social media advertising today, or in three months time. Support Design Life on PatreonFollow Mojca on InstagramThe Science of Facebook adsSuper Spicy Media
Nov 2, 2020 • 31min
204: Speeding up the design process
Do you always get the freedom to see your design process through from start to finish? On this episode of Design Life we talk about speeding up the design process or simply how to design fast. Keyboard shortcuts and being a software pro might help you to create a design faster but you need to look at the bigger picture to speed up the whole design process. Some projects need to get finished faster than others and there are a few things you can do to help make that happen, but if one project can be finished quickly can’t they all? We chat tools, timelines and how to ensure you’re still producing your best work on a tight deadline.
