My Life In Design Podcast

This week Claire is joined by legendary bookmaker, Irma Boom, who marks our 100th episode in the series. Irma Boom is the most widely renowned and laureated book designer in the world today. She's commonly known as the 'Queen of Books', having created around 600 of them. In her bold, experimental style, she challenges the convention of traditional books in both physical design and printed content. She was the youngest ever recipient of the Gutenberg Prize, and since has received over 50 more awards. A selection of her books are held from the permanent collection of MoMA and a personalised Irma Boom archive has been set up in the University of Amsterdam and the Vatican Library.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at D&AD’s London headquarters.

In this episode, Irma talks to Claire about:

+ Treating book design as an artistic, idea-led practice rather than simply designing a cover 
+ The role of collaboration, creative control and persistence in bringing books to life
+ Creating for brands like Chanel, and researching the history of books through archives and libraries, including the Vatican Library

This week, Claire is joined by Tim Perry, a trained industrial designer who led the agency Webb deVlam through to its sale in 2016. Before that, Tim worked in design strategy at the height of Nokia’s success. He has judged for D&AD and Creativepool and is now a consultant, working with leaders of independent design agencies to help them grow. He has also developed a series of training courses focused on the business side of design.

In this episode, Tim talks to Claire about:

+ His time working at Nokia at its peak selling over a million handsets a day - and the impact of the iPhone launch
+ His move into packaging design, then scaling an agency and navigating the complexities of its sale
+ How he moved into design strategy consulting and advising independent agencies on growth
LINKS:
Red Setter
Dba
TP Consulting
Signal Awards

This week Claire is joined by Greg Quinton, the co-chief creative officer of Design Bridge & Partners. Greg’s team has won over 2,000 awards at the highest level in design, over 380 D&AD pencils, including two black and over 20 yellow pencils. They’ve won 30 Cannes Lions, including the Grand Prix and Greg was jury president there this year. He served two terms as D&AD trustee and chair of education and is a coach at Imperial College London. He’s the co-author of the updated A Smile in the Mind, a graphic design university course favourite and has worked on brands such as HSBC, London Symphony Orchestra, The National Gallery and Aston Martin. 

In this episode, Greg talks to host Claire about:

+ His luck in having creativity as part of the DNA of his family and being a right-brained person 
+ On the importance of finding your passion and not chasing the money 
+ How he doesn’t believe in perfection and that we’re all a work in progress
LINKS:
Red Setter
Dba
Design Bridge & Partners

Kicking off the 10th series of My Life in Design is typeface designer Henrik Kubel, co-founder of London-based type foundry A2-TYPE.
Henrik’s work spans cultural, editorial and brand identities, with major projects including bespoke typefaces for Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and Rail Alphabet 2, created with pioneering designer Margaret Calvert for Great British Railways. He has also designed type for organisations including The New York Times Magazine and The King’s Trust, with his work recognised by D&AD, the Type Directors Club and ISTD.
In this episode, Claire talks to Henrik about:
+ His discovery of type design and why custom type is so vital to branding
+ Knock-backs, education and the importance of self-belief
+ How he’s embracing AI right now - and what he thinks the future holds for type design

LINKS:
Red Setter
Dba
A2-TYPE

In this bonus episode, recorded live at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, Claire met up with Roger Sho Gehrmann, the VP of Partnerships at MassiveMusic. One of the pioneers of audio branding, MassiveMusic shapes brands through music, sound, and voice, including names like TikTok, L’Oreal, Colgate and Philips. Roger has become known as 'the sonic branding guy’ and here he shares his trailblazing audio brand journey.
Roger shares his career from a ‘jingle’ obsessed childhood in Australia, to art school and to forging his own creative path with skate videos leading to his first major career opportunity.
He discusses the concept of sonic branding and the importance of sound in communicating brand values and emotions
He also shares his advice to young creatives entering the design and branding industry