Latest / WiseNoise: The Creative Practice Podcast / WN05: Fraser Robertson, aka Lost Astronaut, on freelance design and illustration life
Transcript
- speaker-0: like it just never produces a result that's good and it's never going to because it's always like by definition creating an average of the things it's like taking for reference so it's never going to make something new it's never going to look great because it's stealing from someone or something else and like it just it just i'm waiting for it to turn to everything into like a gray blob because just by definition it's like it's eating itself and it's going to slowly start using itself for reference until it just becomes this singular circle in middle of the page or something, i don't know, that's what i'm hoping for speaker-1: It's just going to be, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be like the median of all genera... Yeah, yeah. It's... database will be what it has already generated. And therefore, and if that's constantly reverting to the mean, then it will constantly refer to the mean of the mean. Until we get to this like... Endpoint where like, yeah, it'll just be like, yeah, as I said, maybe just grey blobs on a page. speaker-0: Yeah, just like the... happens. speaker-1: Hello, this is Wise Noise, the podcast about creative practice. I'm Piers O'Halloran, graphic designer and owner of WiseLove.Studio, based in the northeast of Scotland. Welcome. I'm trying a new thing with the little hook there at the start. because that's what they do nowadays, isn't it? On the reels they'll give you the sort of hook, the juice, the creamy center. They'll show that to you first in our rapidly decreasing attention spans, which are about 2.7 milliseconds these days. But yeah, thought it was a neater way to open the pod. And it gives you a little teaser as to the ⁓ quality of my guest, who is Fraser Robertson. Fraser is a designer and illustrator from Glasgow, or based in Glasgow rather, he's actually from up around these parts. But I first met Fraser on the Scottish freelancers Slack channel, which kind of continues on a theme about these smaller communities popping up and using quality over quantity in the networking. So yeah, always a friendly voice on there. And we actually collaborated on a couple of projects and he was excellent. And I'm a big fan of his artwork. So Fraser obviously works with clients to design packaging, but has a very strong shop element and sets up market stalls with his own illustrations and posters and zines and general. cool stuff. He's just got a fantastic illustration style. As we find out, it's all largely based on the Lost Disney classic Treasure Island. So, yeah, I really am glad to sit down and chat to Fraser and get to the heart of his creative practice. We do go over some of these projects. So if you want to pop on to let me look it up while I'm here. LostAstronaut.Design is his website. So you can just go on there and check out his artwork as we speak. Before we get into the podcast, I want to encourage you all to sign up for the mailing list. The very first mailing list went out this week, Wise Mail. So you can find out about upcoming episodes and clips that I've put up on YouTube as well as the goings on in the studio. I also plan to have some digital assets arriving soon in the wise love shop and either discount codes or freebies to those. So, yeah, generally, if you're enjoying these podcasts, do me a favor and get on to the wise love dot studio website down at the footer. There's a little box there to pop in your email and join the wise male gang to be first to help me cut through the voluminous noise of the various apps out there and get to the real juiciness of the Wise Noise podcast. Right, here's Fraser. See you all at the end. speaker-0: you Just the chaos that's happening at me. speaker-1: Yeah, so is that fake? speaker-0: Yeah, she's just back from walk and she's like just had some lunch and she's now just doing her like, you know zoomies Which is not the great timing but she'll do 20 minutes ⁓ speaker-1: No, no. Pugs zoomies. That's quite the challenge for a podcast record. speaker-0: Yeah, be fine. It's not usually not noisy. It's just kind of her like something about and chewing things is not meant to so. speaker-1: I kind of get like that in the afternoon myself. ⁓ Yeah. So how are you? How's your 2026 so far? speaker-0: Yeah. It's been good, been good. Yeah, it's been good. was bit of a chasing my tail. I said yes to a few too many things kind of right off the bat or the end of last year. And so I've kind of been a bit like, Oh God, a bit too much. It's been fine. It's kind of like pasted itself in a way that's been nice. For the most part. speaker-1: Yeah, no, it's been quite quiet. But it's fine. It's just, it's helped me in that quiet period. I've been kind of mourning that I've been so busy all last year that I haven't had a chance to sort of update the website. So now is the time to end this. Now I finally get my wish. It's just been, there's jobs here and there. No biggies, no no major deadlines or anything. So it's been a nice kind of gentle start to the year. So I've just been. Yeah. One of the things was to always do a podcast. So here we are. So this is this is my one New Year's resolution coming true. But yeah, so I've we've been a few times at various design talks, et cetera. But I don't think I know your full backstory here, Fraser. So we're going to have like we're going to dig in. When did you did you study illustration or design a college and then ⁓ went freelance for their work to few jobs or what's the career path? speaker-0: go for like the deep lower. So I came straight from high school. I went into a course at Dunkin' Jordan in Dundee. I finished school doing like art and techie and maths and English and something else. What was the other one? Something else. And then a couple of advanced hires and things. And so was like, right. I'd always had an interest in like design of some form, but like at that high school level it was like you know, the usually kind of differentiation between those certain things or like the different disciplines. It was just like design of some sort or art of some sort. And so I've been to like a few of the open days and all that. It's like, you know, is it communication design? Is it like product design? At one point I was like my mom's a mathematician, my dad's a computer, ⁓ like engineer, like kind of holding things like that. So I've got that kind of technical mind. ⁓ but I was kind of swayed towards like engineering. of some form, there's like product design engineering and things. there's a bit of like technical sway there that kind of took my interest, but I ended up joining the course at DJ CAD for like the general foundation year and trying a bit of everything. ⁓ So you kind of do like just like broadly design, broadly art, and then you can specify to more specific disciplines if it was like, you know, an illustration brief or like a kind of communication design brief or textiles or something like that. So it was kind of slowly narrowing down what you were like interested in over the year. And then I looked back at the end of the year, everything I'd responded to was like all drawings. It was all illustration work. And so that was kind of fairly concrete, like, okay, I think that's what I'm going to do. And so I was in graphic design and like uninteresting kind of typography and things like that. More from like the kind of graph com side of things. which is much more rigid than like CAD modeling. it was kind of all around those areas. There was something there wasn't quite kind of uniform what that was. And the illustrations seem to fit the best. yes, I did that. And freelance for a few years, I graduated 2019. So I was kind of part time freelancing and part time job on the side working in a wee cafe. And then the world stopped for a bit like after speaker-1: Ha speaker-0: after I came and just graduated. So was like six months or so. I was meant to fly to Paris for a little solo holiday, my first little solo holiday. That weekend that COVID struck, that didn't happen. speaker-1: So you didn't go free that straight from college into freelance. Yeah. So you just play. Yeah. No, no. I just I'm saying that's interesting because I was just talking to you yesterday about like, you know, having to sort of get get into jobs and make your mistakes at somebody else's expense was ⁓ the phrases ⁓ that I remember Ken Garland used to talk about. But speaker-0: started playing it. speaker-1: But yeah, so that's that's fine. That's fascinating. But we're also I was also talking to ⁓ Guy Peter that was on yesterday and we were talking about ⁓ that you can't there's certain things you can't teach. You just have to go out and do and sort of like, you know, in college, there's a sort of certain sort of ⁓ bubble and you just actually have to go and get stuck into real world projects. And yeah, just learn how to swim. speaker-0: Yeah, very much. Like I take it on a few little pieces of work and like small commissions and things that were more like album covers and like occasionally some like like logos of friends of friends of family of friends and things like that. Like I think I even found like the first logo I got paid for for like a hundred quid was like just a logo is still being used. It's like not awful. It's pretty bad, but it's awful. I do think about going to mention them and being like, you want to speaker-1: ⁓ yeah speaker-0: Want to change that? Well, let's use that up a bit. speaker-1: Yeah. But so you were taking so a mix of sort of design and illustration jobs. And so when did so I think it was just maybe about a year or so ago that lost astronaut came into being. And that's your new moniker. So yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, actually, I kind of used Lost Ashenrod as my handle on Instagram since about second year of like uni. Just felt like a kind of thing to do. I don't know. There's a few people who kind of go under like monikers and things, but in terms of freelancing full time, this is the first time I've done it over the last year and a half. I've always kind of done it on the side of other jobs or other work. I did have one like kind of design role in a kind of social media marketing agency. And that's where I kind of got my majority of my like experience of design work. And there's a lot of like kind of small local clients and things like that. But I didn't have much of a design portfolio in that sense through that kind of exposure of working with clients. So there was a bit of both. There was like a kind of sink or swim of doing my own thing through uni and a couple of years after. But that was much more like illustration work only. And they'd like sell it at markets and fairs and met some connections through that. But then the other side was like from that kind of slow burn of work, I had a few bits of design that kind of got into that reposition and kind of worked up from there. And then another in-house role after that. And then that came to an end and then decided to freelance. So that's like the kind of trajectory that's kind of wiggled around a lot. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, well, I don't think any career is a straight upward. Most of them, when you kind of actually talk to people, there's like there's a few tangents and a few kind of ⁓ alleyways kind of walk down unbeknownst. But yeah, I'm sure just as you were talking there, I kind of realized that gig with a marketing company, your speed in the software comes into all these kind of like shortcuts and all these kind of skills in the software come. into their own because like, I suppose it's like a very fast paced environment, you know. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, for sure. speaker-1: And you started selling ⁓ your own work in like stalls and marketplaces as well. So that's like that's quite a difference, you know, especially when you kind of actually have to go out and stand there and sell your wares. So how has that progressed in terms of like your ability to stand at a stall and big yourself up? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, I kind of love it. It's good fun. And it was a weird kind of twist in the most recent markets that I was at were at, like, selling my own artwork, whereas the ones I'd done before were still my own artwork, but it was more like fan art, like kind of Comic-Con, something like that. So it was like a smaller mix of like a few bits that were just my own thing. And there's like a kind of local, the kind of university Comic-Con, like Dundee's. decon. So I sold it that for a few years. So I'm just finding it really fun, kind of connecting with folk and same kind of interests and hobbies and video games and media and things like that. And so it's quite nice to like connect with people there. But yeah, in terms of like jumping into like other markets and stuff, it's kind of very, very different selling your own personal work. And it feels like a bit kind of weird and like vulnerable, but also like really nice when people are like, I love this so much. Like it really resonates with me. It's like Yeah, it's really nice. Getting to the artist side of things of the illustration, more than like a design business side of it. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, there was something quite nice when I was a bit there's a sort of the full emotional gamut I found because there's a part of me was like, ⁓ I think my first few stalls that I ran in like a Stornoway to sell some of Loom stuff. Like when you first showed up and there's like hardly anybody about and you're there like and you put so much time and effort to set the stalls up. Yeah. Like you kind of feel like a tool. You just kind of go, ⁓ God, what am I doing? you know, then. But yeah, you feel like, you know, just I don't know, just nobody's coming up. Like there's hardly anybody kind of coming in or whatever. So it's just like it feels a bit deflating. But then like when people do start coming up and when you actually start making your first few sales and as you said, it's a lot of the appreciation you have for your work just comes like online. But when you can actually see people's faces light up as they're kind of looking at your work, there's like a massive gratitude. in that. And I do remember people because mine was like really colorful and I was just kind of so people would turn around and they go, I could just actually physically. Some people kind of just actually make an audible wow. This is like, yeah, yeah. Did you have a were you fairly proactive in terms of like talking to people as they went around or did you just kind of. sit behind your desk and read a book. speaker-0: definitely depends on the kind of energy. I think of the venue, like if it's quite slow and sleepy, then it's kind of, you just kind of, don't want to harass people at the same time. If it's a bit more like alive, it's quite easy to just like, I don't know. I was so messed up recycling the same words and feel like a bit like a robot. You're just like, ⁓ you know, feel free to have a rake through things like, you know, get your hands in there, just dig around and like have a look and you just say the same thing over and over and over. speaker-1: Yeah, speaker-0: You're like a weird adrenaline rush. don't know. It's just a very bizarre like, yeah, it's a very weird thing. I find it very exhausting. Like once you're done, you're just totally like gobbled and you're just like, the hell happened? It's like a fever chain for the most part. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, especially if it's busy. Like I used to have a thing like one of the things I've learned is that having freebies on your stall, that like, you ⁓ you know, because I would actually just have like these postcards with some of our artwork that were like, know, pennies, know, but it was just kind of like like flyers just put them out. ⁓ do you want a free postcard? want a free postcard? It's just kind of like it would hook people in because like, you know, you sort of generate a conversation then and it was like. As I found as well, it was a good way of not just actually selling the products there, but getting people sort of hooked in in terms of like getting onto the shop. And like I would actually see an increase in online sales in my shop like a few days after because people are probably looked at it kind of went like, oh, couldn't decide then. But then maybe kind of come back and, you know, they get themselves on the mailing list or whatever. And then they they're kind of. future purchasers down the line. it was just what I found that it's like it's a good way of just actually advertising what you do rather than just plainly about like actual getting the getting the units shifted, you know. speaker-0: Yeah, sure. I know I really need to kind of, it's the one side I kind of, not neglect, but I really just sell at the markets as opposed to like pushing like more of an online thing. Like I do have the online store, but don't tend to push it as much. But that's like the whole, how much can you be arsed with social media situation? I guess like it's enough to just like keep up to date with like work and case studies and that as well as doing like running a shop. speaker-1: Yeah, because yeah, because that's the thing with the online kind of stuff. It's like that actual selling the marketing of the stuff is like, you know, just it or else it sit there dormant. So, yeah, mailing lists, I find it really good because like, you know, you have a sort of captive audience. And I've just experienced from my time in Lume that like we used to have like a mailing list and just send it out. I would always like. every time I sent out a mailing list, was always orders come in off the back of it, you know, and I put little discounts or whatever, but you had to kind of keep that up. And we would often kind of get busy with the actual client side design work. And you're like, all right, you know, it's not as though you're just going to sit there and it's automatically got like the sales people, the po-rangers actually you have to put the hours in to kind of like keep gardening the kind of, as you said, socials and all that kind of stuff. So. Yeah, it does take that you think like, ⁓ I'll just make this illustration and then like, I'll make loads of money. it's like, yeah, let it come. But it's like, it's a full time job, this sort of the sales and marketing that goes behind running an online shop. So yeah, speaker-0: Maybe one day. It'll be an arm I'll figure out a bit more of in some point in the future. speaker-1: Yeah, no, absolutely, So, yeah, maybe are you aware of the phrase to blow smoke up your arse? speaker-0: I am. I am indeed. speaker-1: Good, good. I'm bringing it back. I've to support it. Yeah, I've got to make it the new expression for 2026. But ⁓ yeah, so. Yeah, this is my but basically to lightly massage your ego for a bit. And we're going to chat about projects that are on your site that ⁓ I really, really like. ⁓ I would just get the backstory of this that I find this quite interesting because ⁓ there's sometimes you do sort of see the shiny portfolio work. But when you kind of get into the gritty detail, you know, sometimes there's been a few. ⁓ I would say horror stories, but it wasn't as like smooth or as ⁓ linear a process as you would kind of make out on the website. And yeah, there's some challenges along the way. So Lost in Sauce. So this was a project for Closet Brewing, a classic hazy IPA called Lost in Sauce. So they got you to do some illustration, packaging work for their ⁓ IPAs. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's actually a really funny story. This one is they weren't planning on reading the label at all. And so it actually just kind of come off the back of a kind of pitching and like outreach course. Just like a wee thing to kind of refresh and kind of feel a bit more confident in like pitching you worked clients, have a bit more strategic with it. And and just took a stab. I'd seen a friend of mine had collaborated with them and it was kind of the first time I really encountered them. They're like a really tiny like micro or nano brewery. I think they call themselves based in Queensbury, kind of near Edinburgh. So I just shot them an email one day and was like, Hey, I've seen you've worked with a friend of mine. Would love to work with you guys. seem really cool. Here's some of my work. You know, let me know if it ever sounds good. And they came back with an email like within maybe like two or three hours. I'm like, this is really fucking spooky. ⁓ your branding is obviously lost astronaut. about to start brewing in two or three days time are like long standing beer lost in the sauce, which has an astronaut on the cam already. We on redoing the label, but it just feels so weird when we faded. do you want to do it? I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like what's, what's the, what's the brief, what's the vibe. And so that just started the conversation from there. Um, and yeah, so like there wasn't loads of room for, um, like changing the imagery of say they want to stick with the astronaut. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: on the, on the count itself. And within that, were just like a little free rein. ⁓ you know, they were very honest about like the terms of use, like it's still my image and licensing it is like, can print stickers prints. It's still my artwork. Just don't use it for another beer. just cause they're obviously such a small business. wasn't like a massive fee or anything. So like there was kind of catering there to, you know, merchant things like that. So, ⁓ but they were absolute like the light to work with. ⁓ speaker-1: You ready? Okay. speaker-0: and they loved it as soon as I sent the first concepts for it, which I don't think I've really got there. There's some sketches there, speaker-1: Well, yeah, it's got some stitches there, speaker-0: Maybe put in the other concepts kind of on that week case study page. Yeah. speaker-1: Amazing, man. Yeah. So it was like a home run. There's a I love the serendipity there that was just like, yeah, yeah. was kind of like it was almost like, well, we have to give you the label artwork job though. Yeah. speaker-0: You lost us from our hands here. speaker-1: Yeah, your whole branding is ⁓ catered towards that. I had a similar thing when I went to speak to Harris. I just set up like as Loom graphics and based on the island. And I went to see how our sweet Hebrides and they were like, OK, I was like, by the way, I've changed my name to Loom. And they were like, well, it's it's fate that you work with Harris. So, yeah, similar. ⁓ But this. This lost in the sauce then, is this the actual text here? Is this like a little bit of dribbly ink thing going on? speaker-0: It's actually Sriracha sauce. think it's a really nice kind of like chunky, chunky, doesn't like run away from you too much. That did the job. I've actually used that on a couple of other pieces since, because it just seemed to work so well, just in terms of like, just experimenting and trying things. And I've been leaning a bit more into like hand drawn type and kind of more playful, like just typography kind of things that are not super like rigid. And as much as I respect it, I've never really understood the full like speaker-1: sorry. speaker-0: the very tight geometry and very specific. I've never studied typography in a proper ⁓ book sense. ⁓ Total lives-based science for me. speaker-1: Of So but yeah, sometimes that stuff is it's the ignorance is sometimes really good, you know, works so far. Yeah. Because I remember like David Carson, who's like, you know, one of my favorite graphic designers. But I think he just kind of he didn't go to any ⁓ classic design courses, but he just started like designing and just was like he didn't realize that he was breaking loads of rules in terms of like not having grades or whatever. speaker-0: so far. speaker-1: And, ⁓ know, so and then he's kind of invented this whole kind of ⁓ genre of graphic design. But, yeah, so sometimes ignorance is bliss in that front, you know. But I do love that and I do love the kind of trend towards, you know, like the anti-AI movement kind of going on. So people are kind of tending towards things that look a little bit more off kilter and little bit more have mistakes. strips and all that kind of stuff that are actually, you know, there's a big, bigger need to actually show people like, you know, I actually drew this with my own actual hand. speaker-0: Yeah, blood sweat and tears are involved in this artwork. speaker-1: gives it more gives it more weight. Yeah, no, I'm talking too much. I'm going to I'm to move on as well because speaking of that, there's another the dripstone project as well. So this is this is really nice. And speaking of like handmade type, there's a really lovely kind of wordmark you've kind of got going on here on a suite of illustrations to go. So this is the full brand for brewing small brewers. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So was, um, this is just a kind of concept project that I did from, um, just like in a portfolio boosting course with inky goodness. Um, again, it was going to be a bit kind of strategic with like, what are the gaps or kind of areas in my portfolio that I've really want to like show off and making it's goose for and do like a kind of personal led project. Um, and I'd been brewing my own ginger beer and it's like really, really easy to do. Um, and I've always kind of wanted to put some packaging together for it. So after working with the closet brewing guys, it was just like, I was really enjoying that kind of format of like beer labels and kind of playing with that a bit more. But also to try and tie in a bit of branding and illustration and just fit all those things into one nice little package. So yeah, it was just just kind of good fun. I think it kind of started from with me brewing my own ginger beer in a wee cupboard in our kitchen. It just felt very like basement brood, very budget like kind of little goblin hiding away in a little closet somewhere like making ginger beer. Especially because it's all like natural fermentation and things. It's just like whatever grubs on the ginger is making the beer happen. So just kind of went with this really kind of earthy, kind of botanical, natural feeling thing that was quite kind of gritty and textured. And it kind of led into this like alchemy kind of vibe. And that kind led me on to like the gargoyles and kind of stone and the kind of old like stone built breweries and things like that. So it was a very visual thing in my head. And it was just kind of taking out all the pieces and seeing how they all kind of fit together. I'm really, really chuffed with it. I think this is one of my like favorite pieces of work that I've maybe done ever. speaker-1: Yeah, no, and absolutely. love how it does all toy together, you know, in the illustration. Yeah, because like sometimes. And I love how you're actually doing the word marks yourself, because sometimes I do sort of see brand projects where there's beautiful illustration, but the word mark or the sort of typography doesn't really, you know, they're a little bit not exactly kind of married together. You know, there's maybe two like the illustration might be quite quirky and then the actual typeface itself is quite it. Sometimes it feels as though it's an afterthought. speaker-0: kind of like lean or doesn't quite doesn't quite care in the same way yeah speaker-1: Yeah. And you sometimes have maybe illustrators who will kind of go, oh, I'll just plunk in a sort of logo here. It's kind of like, you know, it's the same way whatever your discipline is, is the other one is an afterthought. But yeah, I love how the two of those kind of marry up. And it's really nice. Yeah, I was going to have a look at some of your illustration work. to give an example of the kind of things that you sell on the stall. So there's like a really nice Rizograph print. yeah, yeah. speaker-0: I think you should... I love it. It's just like, yeah, there it is. speaker-1: Yeah, just this and I think it really shows off your illustration style. So in terms of that, your illustration style, who's kind of your influence is going on? Well, to me, there's a certain there's a little bit of ⁓ the 2000 AD kind of like a comic book style that I really loved where it was like slightly chaotic and like, you know, really heavily detailed on some stuff. But yeah, who's your illustration influences? speaker-0: Man, that's a hard one. I kind of find a lot of like illustrators on like Instagram and things that tend to just kind of fall. It tends to be a lot of like concept artists and like visual development artists for like film and TV and like animation and things. So I mean like early like Disney Pixar films for like when I was a child, I was just totally captivated by them. You the ones that are really like immersive, usually the ones that are like like the treasure planet and Atlantis are like two of my all time favorite films and they're just like, just phenomenal. ⁓ and that's like a whole other thing. I'm like how they were just totally screwed over because of their like whack and marketing budgets. But anyway, but like that kind of comic books and things like that as well are just, I don't know. I don't really know where to put my like inspirations from recently. I found the work of, ⁓ or not recently anymore, but Mobius, the kind of French illustrator. ⁓ yeah. kind of French side by illustration. ⁓ there's an artist who is Spanish. I remember Danny Diaz. He's a kind of, ⁓ character led like concept art and visual development artists. ⁓ it's all just kind of very character focused and kind of exploring, you know, queerness and sci fi and fantasy and just other worldliness. ⁓ Yeah, I don't know. don't really know who my direct inspirations are. I'm going to take a lot of bits from a lot of people and just going to absorb it all. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, well, that's, suppose, the best ways to actually just slightly cherry pick from different influences. mean, Jamie Hewlett is another one where I would kind of think it's in that sort of same mode. So remember like Tank Girl from back in the day. Yeah, that was amazing. And these work with gorillas and stuff like that were these characters where they're like. the outfit that they're wearing and the kind of little bits of accessories and all that kind of build up the sort of that, you tend to get the full kind of weird personality coming through from those. So this boys project was this a self initiated thing where you were just exploring sort of like maybe queer culture. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So was a bit of that. And it was mostly just, I found a lot of like drawing characters. I was drawing a lot of the same poses. So I tried to charge myself to put a bit of personality across and try and play with different, different poses, just things that aren't just like standing or kind of like a three quarter turn. And then also just kind of exploring like the whole project is, is kind of like a one of each color, the kind of form of say like a big rainbow. And I grew boys. So speaker-1: And is it like a kind of humorous play on like the sort of stereotypical ⁓ kind of gay men that you would find in the scene type of thing? speaker-0: ⁓ not necessarily. I don't know, I just kind of just started drawing. Like I just picked a color and then just went with that. Like there really wasn't much thought behind it to be honest. Sure. ⁓ yeah, I can always meant to try and turn it into like a, like a little zine or something ⁓ or if I do a little bit more with it. But unfortunately all those like really bright colors will just never print how you ever want them to. So it kind of died a little death that way. ⁓ but I'd still quite like it as like a little artwork. ⁓ yeah, lot of the work I used to do when I was freelancing as an illustrator was like tabletop role playing things like D and D Jason. ⁓ so there's a little publisher who was called Dungeons and a dime is now called stout stoked press. ⁓ and they produced like little speaker-1: Yeah, those speaker-0: story modules for D &D. So it was kind of like a preset story with some characters, of narrative beats for a dungeon master or the person like leading you through the game or the players through the game and kind of little snippets of like a mystery or like a problem to solve or a dungeon or something. And so we're a lot of like character artworks. I think that's where I kind of found that was sticking to all of the same kind of poses or things like that. ⁓ That kind of project was an extension of that, like not doing fantasy characters, maybe doing people who are more real. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But yeah, taking sort of the fantastical element of the style, but applying them to real world people, you know. Yeah, so you kind of get inspired by other zine artists and while you're standing there at the stall, probably like, you know, there's probably other people in the same room that you're like, wow, I really love this. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I was really lucky to have like a very diverse class as well in our like illustration class. We had a lot of really like fantastic artists. Everybody was doing something very, very different. I think our year was really quite like a broad spectrum. So it was like just nice to be inspired by my pals. speaker-1: Yeah, but a nice little mixing pot. You're all kind of influencing the other melting pot. Yeah. Yeah, I've got to show I've just for just for the purposes of the record, I go to show the bingo wheel. That's that's the really noise of the balls coming out. So to save our ears. I think in these latter episodes, I've just been pre-rolling some balls. OK, so as we said before, your destiny is already decided. You're locked in. So I'm just going to throw out some numbers from the bingo wheel of wisdom. I should I really have a little kind of jingle like did it did it did it did it did it? It's the bingo wheel of wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. Something like that. ⁓ speaker-0: It needs no more, no more, of that. It's perfect as it is. speaker-1: Done. Yeah, I just swivel around the chair and then I just turn around and I'm in the tux. speaker-0: a reveal or something on a big microphone. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely full Bob Monkos on it. Right. OK, let's let's have the numbers here. Twenty seven cat, a cat or dog. Well, obviously, would think we're thinking the earshot, I think she would kind of go cracked if she heard the word cat. ⁓ Yeah, I'm a dog. speaker-0: at well I probably should be like ⁓ they're both that loving both speaker-1: I'm a dog man as well. We've were on the other we had like two cats. They're if they're fine. I was fairly ⁓ interested in them. But I never really connected with them as much as I do with a dog, you know, so I don't know. speaker-0: creature. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're so, like, you just, they're such kind of independent creatures. They're like, anyway, I just, I just find them very manipulative slightly, you know, that they're only, it's like, anytime they come over a cuddle line, just kind of my first response to me, what do want? Yeah. Where is it? The dog, like I used to, when I came home, the dog used to actually just bolt to the door and just be like, ⁓ my God, I'm so happy to see you. speaker-0: There's always no superior mode. speaker-1: be like yeah there's like there's no no hidden agenda with a dog. Ten, can you cook? speaker-0: I can cook, yes. speaker-1: That's been a go for now. But do you enjoy cooking then? speaker-0: I actually do. love it. find it actually weirdly quite relaxing. Like my partner tends to come home from work and is all like stressed out and it's like the last thing he wants to do. speaker-1: And you're like, you're like the little ways in the kitchen. speaker-0: Yeah, although it's usually it's like, so I've been kind of veggie vegan adjacent for years now. Yeah. So it's like, I was quite enjoying a lot of plant based cooking and just figuring that out and like figuring out recipes and bastardizing them into something that's definitely not anywhere close to what they would be. But I wouldn't know any better. ⁓ speaker-1: Well, that's the thing about how you actually get into become better at cooking is that you you start following recipes and then after a while you just sort of kind of like take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the basics of it and then kind of like swap a few spices out and start to get a bit experimental. And that's where the real fun starts to come in. What's your signature dish then? speaker-0: ⁓ man, signature dish. I do make a mean vegan chili. It's good staple. No, no, I take it back. That's a staple. And it's like, it's always solid. ⁓ I make a vegan mac and cheese. There's no cheese in it. Not even a fake cheese or anything. It's just like a butternut squash and like blended up with some other odds and ends. Every time every like party like speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, especially. For real? speaker-0: And Hot Lot, it's like the showstopper. That's my 10 at 10 million. speaker-1: I need to get that recipe off your mind because I'm like, because I'd be veggie vegan adjacent as well. You know, I kind of I'm almost nearly vegan, I would say, except for the fact that like cheese is my sort of like I'm just too weak will to give up cheese. And then you go, ⁓ but there's vegan cheeses. No, there's not. There's So bad. Like, I just think if you're going vegan, then that means you have to give up cheese. I'm sorry. There's no alternative there because it's like I've been to like speaker-0: I'll it to you. speaker-1: all these vegan fares at any time I try it, like even like gourmet vegan cheese. was like, still tastes like feet. speaker-0: Yeah, it's no bueno. It's not for me. I've learned to live without it for the most part. I'll cave occasionally, but not that often. It's more just the fear now of dairy that actually I'm like, I've been so long without it that I'm just like, it's just not worth any potential repercussions. speaker-1: Yeah, no, man. just yeah, absolutely. I just I've completely given up on the whole dairy milk, especially like when and that's it when I actually have to sort of go to the boat and you're like, oh, we don't we just put like dairy milk into my tea. And I'm like, oh, God, this is so creamy. No, it just seems so like rich and like, too much. But anyway, welcome to the we're slowly turning into a vegan cooking podcast. speaker-0: That's great. speaker-1: That's funny for me. I'm pivoting. I'm pivoting. 46, one item on your bucket list. speaker-0: ⁓ one night in my bucket list. I would love to visit anywhere in Asia. I've never been to that side of the world. ⁓ I'm really not first. I think it's just just anywhere. know it's like very broad, like just tour the whole of Asia. That would be great. Or live abroad and travel like I've never worked and lived abroad anywhere. I think that would be quite fun. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, like- Yeah, I mean, like there is a thing I kind of missed the boat because slightly, was slightly in an era when remote working and all that wasn't as popular. then once that became popular, already had kids. So it wasn't an option. But I do know people who are like digital nomads and they will go on for like a month. And you have these places now where you can actually just kind of. have you can book a place and it actually has like a working hub and desk and Wi-Fi in these fairly exotic places. And I'm like super jealous. Yeah, maybe at some point. Yeah. So, but yeah, cool. Asia, anywhere in Asia. That's that's a pretty open ended. speaker-0: It was so broad. ⁓ speaker-1: That's all right. it's I've been to Nepal. That was like one Asian place I've been to and it was phenomenal. yeah, complete culture shock of it all as well as like, speaker-0: Yeah, I think it's just broadly just that whole side of the world is just a totally different totally. It's just that it's just the culture shocks. Just as such a different pace. Yeah. Quite enjoyable to, to speaker-1: Being amongst us. Properly feel a little bit out of your comfort zone. 22. What's your go to karaoke song? speaker-0: Damn. ⁓ God. ⁓ Christ. ⁓ I have a list on my phone somewhere, but I don't know where. speaker-1: ⁓ You have a karaoke list. speaker-0: I guess I get so like, like stressed out of the idea of like picking karaoke songs, but the one that I did that all, the one that's jumping to my head at the moment is, Oh, was it the four non-blondes? Uh, yeah, that one. But then the last time I did it, there was a lot of what's going on. we go. And there's a lot of oohs and ahs that I don't remember there being in the song. And so like, there's just a lot of silent parts where they're to be going, Ooh, ah, speaker-1: Hey Let's go. speaker-0: I'm like, ⁓ there was good one. speaker-1: Wow, nice. speaker-0: Here we go, here we we go, go, here here we go, speaker-1: You actually have a ⁓ list. speaker-0: I do, because I get so stressed out with the idea of picking something. I started writing it when I was drunk that it's spelled KWRAOKEE. So it's spelled karaoke wrong. KRAW-O-KAY. Murder on the dance floor. So Calisbexter. Sound of the Underground. Girls Aloud. What have we got? You're So Vain. Love Shack. B-52s. Oh, banger. speaker-1: Bye. Kawaioki. speaker-0: Thanks for the memories, Fallout Boy, Man I Feel Like a Woman Shania, Twain. There's quite a list here. ⁓ speaker-1: ⁓ you actually have like a man. can't believe you actually have a list of just prepared going into the karaoke. ⁓ my God. Quickly. Where's my list? ⁓ speaker-0: 16. speaker-1: Yeah, 16 Instagram or Pinterest. speaker-0: ⁓ man. speaker-1: Do I have to use? speaker-0: Instagram. Yeah, I use Instagram so much, but I I am a little slot for Pinterest. I like ⁓ I have like so disgustingly so many boards on there that I've never looked back on. But I just there's something so satisfying about just like collecting everything and just feeling like it's being organized. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. We're screwing away all these precious images. speaker-0: I'm going to say it like Pinterest is slightly more productive. feel Instagram is just like my soul's being like taken away from me. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, man, I do feel a little bit like that where I get more and more of that feeling like what was it when Christopher Columbus went to America and it was like the native Indians and they didn't want to look into a mirror because it was like it felt as though was like part of your soul was been like taken every time. I remember reading that in history and going, wow, that's totally mad. know, kind of how backward are they? Or like, you know, that kind of thinking in terms of like, you know, no logic applied to it. But now I kind of get that feeling. You've given a little bit like any time I like any time I kind of have put a query into chat, GPT or whatever. I'm like, ⁓ God, I can feel it. I can feel a tiny part of me. speaker-0: like. speaker-1: I've been taken away by the the giant mirror, by the giant black mirror. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that's the kind of feeling I get when I'm using ⁓ somebody's service and quote unquote services. They're harvesting my soul for their data mines. ⁓ Favorite movie of all time. ⁓ wait, I have to do the official 52. Favorite movie of all time ever. speaker-0: Thanks. Hmm I it has to be treasure planet, the animated treasure planet. Wow. It's just such a like core piece of me. I just love it to bits. It's just like the world building, the characters, the story, the visual is just phenomenal. Like I was just totally in capture by that as a kid and I never not will be never not will be. ⁓ speaker-1: Right. Yeah. I've got to have this year, an image board of this. like, if speaker-0: I think I also just fancied Jim Malkins like the main character. speaker-1: A crush. speaker-0: Yeah, like not understanding like that I was a gay man. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Because I'm not like a... speaker-0: and we hope. speaker-1: Yeah, it's amazing because like, it is a Disney film, but like it's one of those kind of like deep cuts, a Disney deep cut. speaker-0: Yeah, it was like that kind of honestly that era of like that Atlantis and the other ones. There's a few others that are like just of that era, just the character design of them all is so interesting as well. And like they just were really like high concept, like just totally different to any other Disney film. They were just so stylized and just like, ⁓ they're just beautiful. I think that like the specific style of the Atlanta stuff like that's like I draw like arms and hands. It's like very geometrical most and like, speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, I can see that now actually. That's a good reference. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, amazing, man, because I'm always trying to find good stuff to my... Well, my eldest daughter is 13 now, so she's kind of progressed away and is like wanting to get to 15's kind of films and more interested in getting into slightly scarier films. But the 10 year old is still kind of like, let's watch animation. So I might like Crack out there at Atlantis and Treasure Island, you know, she's a she's a mad comic book fan as well. So ⁓ I think she would try and engage her with that and set her off on her own little illustration career. speaker-0: Hell yeah. She's not obsessed about that. I'm severely disappointed. Not saying that like expectation out there right now. speaker-1: This is the best. She might kind of have a crush on Jim Hawkins. speaker-0: That's I understand. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, you relate. You had to relate there. Twenty nine. Last thing you bought online. Oh Christ. Is that a bit, is this a bit revealing? speaker-0: I don't know. Do subscriptions count? Because it's probably like dog food. speaker-1: Top food subscription, okay. speaker-0: Yeah, or no, you know what it is? It's this, I got a tripod for like recording studio space. Just don't put it down anymore. Like it does compare right down and like a nice little. Yeah. So quite ⁓ handy. Cause I have no idea. I don't, really don't buy that much. ⁓ I'm a bit of a like frugal ⁓ person. ⁓ speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. Amazing, yeah. Lovely. Yeah, yeah. Good to be frugal. I was actually thinking about I haven't actually made New Year's resolutions. kind of don't. know, one of the things for me is that I did this kind of meditation a while back, but it was like it was just what it was this like lovely Indian guy and it was just a big I can't I won't do the voice because I'll get cancelled. But it was like. ⁓ Just make yourself one percent better. was about to do the voice and all, like. But just like, know, tomorrow, just make yourself one percent better, just make yourself one percent better. And I kind of like, yeah, yeah. And I kind of stuck with me in terms of like, it's like when I do a meditation in the morning or like in the evening or whatever, I will just kind of one of those little things that pop up. Just look, today's been like really rubbish or whatever. speaker-0: It's not going to stop you but... speaker-1: Tomorrow, just be one percent. could do that. I'm not going to completely change my life tomorrow, but I can be I can make that little mental. So so instead of making New Year's resolutions, it's almost this little daily promise to go like one percent better, you know, so by order of mass over 100 days, you're going to make yourself 100 percent better. speaker-0: I really like that. Yeah, at this point, like when did you start this? Because surely you're like 3000 % better than the pierced it was, know, how many? don't know. That's like 10 years or something. That's crazy. speaker-1: No thing I didn't count on is that some days I go back minus 200%. speaker-0: Sure, sure, sure, okay. So it'll be like a total increase of like... speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I'm still I'm still in a net loss from when I started it. Anyway, I think what I was going to make this point that they were going to get out to the heavy dessert menu. Yeah, I kind of forget what I was going on about. Yeah, one percent better news resolution. Back to the plot of like buying things online is second, like not to buy anything new. Because I've seen that there was a ⁓ reading article about this guy who was like the whole year just went without buying anything new, obviously food and stuff like that. But like in terms of clothing, like furniture, all these things, it was like all tried to do like secondhand shopping or like these thrift stores or like a buy swap sell kind of things. And I was like, I thought to myself, maybe that could be my thing for the New Year's. Let's like do the whole year just trying to, wouldn't be a bit more, you would naturally be a bit more frugal because like you're obviously not going to spend as much on shiny new things, plus as well the environmental thing. just to try and change that way of thinking and just kind of like, anyway. speaker-0: I'm board with it because I'm pretty much exactly the same like partly our necessity. Like me and my partner moved in together and we both had like enough stuff to fill a flat. We also furnished the rest of the flat just like secondhand from like Facebook marketplace, things like that. ⁓ it's all like pretty decent stuff. ⁓ and he also loves like going down to the charity shops and things down where we live. And there's just like a whole fleet of them that I don't know. He's got some like mystical power that he can just manifest. what he wants and it just appears like there's been nights out or themed nights out that we've gone on for like friends birthdays and things and he's got an outfit in mind and he's like okay I'm gonna go down to charity shop and see what I can find and just finds exactly that. It's like witchcraft. don't understand how you do it but yeah we like really only buy secondhand for the most part. I really just I just yeah try not order off of like Amazon and things if I can help it. Yeah absolutely. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, speaker-0: Also, it's probably a necessity because everything's fucking expensive. speaker-1: Yeah, I know it's speaker-0: I'm moving in together and all that was like great, but it's also spending so. speaker-1: No. Yeah, we've been like obviously moving this year as well. And absolutely Facebook marketplace something coming, especially that last few months of the island. I was just like chucking everything up on Facebook marketplace. And now that we're on the other side now, we're like moving in. I'm like creating marketplaces around. We found an amazing dining table that's going to work perfectly. And it's like 200 quid. But it's probably speaker-0: think it's satisfying. He's not like the chances of the perfect thing rocking up are so much lower. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, all aboard the second hand or the yeah, they don't call it pre-loved. I think that's what they've realized. Yeah, yeah. Because second hand sounds like really a little bit shoddy and disgusting. Pre-loved, pre-loved items. That's that's marketing for you. ⁓ So have you perused the heavy dessert menu? speaker-0: I have indeed and I must say what a range of delicacies you have on here. speaker-1: Yeah, let me pull up. don't know why it always, you know, I was actually quite efficient this time. It's normally a bit of a struggle trying to find a heavy dessert menu. So on the heavy dessert menu, we have how to price your work, the AI elephant in the room, red flags of a nightmare client, specialist versus generous, self promotion without the egg, avoiding burnout, your design and how to sell it, things they never tell you about in design courses. speaker-0: Bye. Man, I have sat with this for quite a bit. Okay. With a hard range of questions. speaker-1: Well, it doesn't have to be like a TED talk. you know, we could just kind of chat about like ⁓ our both art takes on one of the topics. Although one of the things is that like I've kind of had a few episodes before and some folk are choosing the same subject. So I feel as though like there's some of the subjects where I'm like, I kind of don't have any more. speaker-0: Sure, sure. I mean, if you want to, you know, I'll give you like a veto or two, you know, if I pick someone you like, no, done that. I'm out of juice. speaker-1: No, I'm good. Your open menu. It's all, everything, the chef will prepare anything you want. speaker-0: Sure. I mean, have you hit the eye elephant? I feel like that's one I'm more inclined to. speaker-1: ⁓ let's crack open the AI. speaker-0: this elephant in. It's not very vegan of me but... speaker-1: So where, yeah, yes, eat this elephant metaphorically. So where are you at with the AI? Tell me, tell me. You hate it. speaker-0: It's like the worst thing. It's just, it's peak capitalism at its worst. I just, I just wish it would stop. I should stop getting shoved down my throat. I feel guilty and aware every time it appears that I've just like poured out 10 bottles of water that I've like killed a tree that a poor little monkey was living in. Like I just feel such a weight of like ethical like badness. that it exists and I hate it. speaker-1: And there you go. That's the end of the podcast. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. speaker-0: like it's such a tricky one because I don't know. It's I think the thing for me is like as an artist as well, it's specifically the generative AI thing is just so stupid and wasteful and like it just never produces a result that's good and it's never going to because it's always like by definition creating an average of the things it's like taking for reference. So it's never going to make something new. It's never going to look great. because it's stealing from someone or something else. And like it just, it just, I'm waiting for it to turn to everything. It's like a gray blob because just by definition it's like it's eating itself and it's going to slowly start using itself for reference until it just becomes this singular circle in middle of the page or something. I don't know. speaker-1: There's just going be, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be like the median of all genera... Yeah, yeah. It's... Its database will be what it has already generated. And therefore, and if that's constantly reverting to the mean, then it will constantly refer to the mean of the mean. Until we get to this like... Endpoint where like, yeah, it'll just be like, yeah, as you said, maybe just grey blobs on a page. And we will have we'll have destroyed all most natural resources on the planet just to get to that point. speaker-0: what's it for? What's it worth? But at the same time, I'm like, I for full transparency, like I have used chat GPT a few times. I got a good handful of times for like text based stuff. I've never generated an image yet and I don't intend to. I don't even want to like touch it because it just gives me the fear. I'm like, maybe that's me just being stubborn and like maybe just not embracing technology or something, but I just don't see the point in it. Like I can speaker-1: Right, okay. speaker-0: create an image myself in my own way, I don't feel the need for it. The one thing that I do find interesting is people using it for like mock-ups and things. And I get it. I get it for kind of pre-visualizing something kind of quickly, but then that kind of defeats the point of like if you can't sell an idea to someone through sketches and talking to them and like, you know, if it needs to be a beautiful, stunning, generated thing to sell someone something, they just care about the visuals and not anything behind it. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: and just find that incredibly soulless. speaker-1: I'm down with it. I'm down with it. Yeah, totally down with it because I'm trying to think of counterpoints in terms of like trying to play slightly devil's advocate and kind of put forward positives. mean, you know, and I'm just trying to think of my own experience in terms of like I obviously did kind of like jump into it and played around with mid journey and all that kind of stuff. Never, ever anywhere near, as you said, coming anywhere near something that I would use in any sort of final image for a project. And even that way of like I had a client and we were discussing ⁓ stock and AI and I was just like 100 percent let's never go there just because of the inauthentic nature of them. Like as in even before I came along with product photography or with photography of for companies where you were doing like I would always encourage like the obvious thing was to go to stock imagery and I would just kind of keep pushing in the fact we increase the budget, maybe get some actual shots done. You know, and this was just stock photography. This was just like actually humans going out, taking photographs of other humans, but just kind of it was slightly more generic. so I was still even even at that, which was actually range in some sort of authentic thing that it's an actual photograph taken by an actual person. So even stock photography looks far more genuine than AI stuff now. Like I was still always pushing for the fact of like, let's actually get some of the staff in the actual uniforms. Let's get people who are working on site or if it's a product, let's get actual photographs of the project. product and not kind of rely on sort of like 3D stuff or whatever, like, you know, just ⁓ our real world context or that kind of way where like, especially if it's a Scottish brand and you can actually tell that it's in Glasgow or Edinburgh or like somewhere in Scotland rather than like, yeah, generic Californian sky kind of thing. All these things kind of point towards like this is the real thing. And yeah, more and more as people go on, that's like one of the key things to a brand because speaker-0: a whole other difference. speaker-1: what you're trying to counteract is just like the people are very wary of everything they see online. So you're trying to counteract as much as possible to school. No, we're telling the truth. We're 100 percent. This is who we are. speaker-0: Yeah. You're like, we're like, think I actually saw someone's like a 3D render of something the other day. And like immediately just was like, that's that's AI generated by AI. And then saw it actually was like someone working really hard in cinema 4D. And I was like, Oh God, feel awful. Like our work into it, but it just looks like airbrushed. And I just hate the like, the feeling of it. It's just like, making you doubt everything. I just think it's such a slippery slope. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-0: either wanting everybody to like do the whole like work fast and cheap and good, whatever the three like, you know, that triangle of the iron triangle. And it just is such a slope to like, you literally can't have all three. Like one of these things has got to go. And standard, this kind of allows that. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yay! Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm fascinated because like like that, it's like things are rapidly changing so much as I'm kind of hinted at there in terms of like far more kind of behind the scenes videos. Like I feel those don't like you can't just put up the work in of itself. You have to sort of show sketches of you have to kind of like. Yeah, it's actually done. speaker-0: the original sketch to prove it. speaker-1: And that's so weird, you know, it's like, you know, the default that this was made by a human is kind of that's long. Yeah, long. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's kind of eroding. And that's a definite negative. There was even like I watched this YouTube tutorial because I was just interested in terms of like, can you actually make anything good out of this? speaker-0: Thank you. speaker-1: And it was this YouTube tutorial. There was this guy who, like, had worked advertising for brands and he was, like, making an advert for Beats headphones in, like, 15 minutes or whatever. And, and he was, like, showing all these kind of, like, AI tools to generate the ideas for the things. And then he was, like, going off, I forget, was it Google Vio or something? One of the AI models that they're, like, all fawning over. And I like the actual mood board or the storyboard that it came up with itself and the kind of concept for the marketing was all like that was fairly solid. And then like started generating the images and or the videos. And I was like, but this isn't and then we put the advert up at the end. I was like, it's so clearly AI is so clearly false and not just clearly false, but like the sort of genericism of what the images were. Like I felt as though like that's hardly the final advert. it like it would make for a really banging sort of storyboard to kind of if you wanted to kind of go to beats and kind of here, give me loads of money so that we can. Proof of concept kind of thing and go and but I still can't think that this is like, you know, that people are still using this as actual final output, you know, as in like the Coca Cola advert that was like. speaker-0: proof of concept kind of thing. ⁓ speaker-1: It was it was horrendous. it's like it's the most panned video, like in terms of YouTube comments. It was like thousands and thousands and thousands of people just go. This is an absolute travesty. And so I think like and like yourself, the general feeling is that a lot of people don't want this thing like or like, you know, it's just really offensive. But at the same time, as you kind of there at the start, you also have like mega multi-million-pound, trillion-pound corporate backing that is actually trying to shove this kind of like, this has to be your future. it's like, actually, no, thank you. speaker-0: Feels like a trap. It's really bizarre. speaker-1: Yeah, there's a there's a genuine kind of fight in terms of like artists and creativity is a general kind of kind of like tribalism kind of thing ⁓ of like to sort of it veering off and just people standing up against the the the the wave of AI. But yeah, I'm still in this kind of way trying to think of anything like the tools. There's some amazing tools in terms of Photoshop and you know, generative expand and stuff like that. I've been using that loads. And ⁓ yeah, occasionally there's like a remove tool now, which is really great. And you just dabble it and it'll kind of figure out. So there are certain tools which are like the power of AI looks like, ⁓ wow. it's always when you actually have an original idea or thought kind of going on there. But if you let it do the kind of actual full thinking, like. It's a giant photocopied machine. you only get you're kind of getting this like, yeah, as you said, this kind of mean or median of like whatever ideas are possible. But yeah, I. ⁓ speaker-0: I think useful bits, like you're saying, like there's some useful tools and like pieces and like, I don't know. Anyway, in some cases there is like an answer to how to do something like in, in as maybe I like slight hot take, I don't know. Like obviously creating text, like there is a structure in which words must appear to make sense. I'm not saying it's like, yep, great. Let it like write creative writing. It's never going to be creative, but there is like an answer to creating something of like speaker-1: Uh-huh. speaker-0: combinations of words or an answer to something that you know is correct and will work and seem like coding like generating code. It will work in a sense but it's not going to be creative. I think it's just like that understanding of like you can make something that will work but it won't be anything new. So it's I don't know like I do get there's like a kind of accessibility. That's like an accessibility because it's just making it up and you don't learn anything. Yeah I don't know. It's a it's a big old Elf into crack. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm fascinated to well, generally bear witness to it, but, you know, see how this kind of plays out, because I do think there's like this momentum shift kind of happening that ⁓ will be very similar to those days where like, you know, have you heard of this thing called the Internet back in the like very late 90s? Yeah, that'll just be a few nerds in the corner. kind of thing, and then it kind of revolutions every part of life. So I think something similar is happening, the sort of future we're being sold, I don't think that's going to. speaker-0: Yeah, don't think it's groundbreaking as they're making it seem like it's going to be. It'll be around forever, but. speaker-1: Like even the kind of, you know, there's sort of every update and every kind of these AI models, it's only kind of getting going back to that one percent better. Yeah. All those models are kind of plateauing anyway. So they're kind of like they're still trying to sell this amazing piece of technology, but it's like they have to like keep borrowing more money into it. Anyway, I just. I'm also fearful of the massive time bombs that's going to go off here. like, you most of the US economy is propped up by like these five or six tech companies that have invested so heavily in AI that it's like, it's. Yeah, there's got to be a way from the kind of ethical things. There's like real world economic ⁓ speaker-0: heading on it right now that fuel speaker-1: Apocalypse is that can happen. Yeah. So, yeah, the old AI. it just I suppose just the last we finish up, I suppose. Do you think do you think there's a real threat or if you felt recently like work is slowing up or people even clients that you might kind of had before you can see them kind of going off using AI or something like that. you you felt any effects of it? speaker-0: lately? Not really. I really don't feel threatened by it because I just like, again, I look, I've never fed my own work into it and I don't want to. I don't someone else could, but I don't know. I just, I just don't feel threatened by it at all. ⁓ I don't think I've really noticed affecting me at all. Yeah, no. I like, I think the people that I want to work with are the people who do value something being handmade and, and know that it's been created by ⁓ an artist and illustrator, a designer by hand. And I think that's like, I think there will be a big divide in like, it's good enough versus like, want something truly unique and thought through. And like human involved, think that will be like the big split. Yeah. And it's really not affected me at all, but it's just the presence of it everywhere just gives me a headache. speaker-1: Yeah, it's seriously like, yeah, you can't escape it, man. But yeah, a lot of the a lot of the woes and fears ⁓ about it, I share with you. like just even when I did find out that like even a chat chat GPT search takes up like a bottle of water. It's like it's like people are like and it's more the fact of like instead of actually using Google, people are just kind of typing stuff that they would use for Google into there. And I'm like, you don't need to chat, like, you know. speaker-0: Or like what do I feed my baby and you're like, why do you not know? speaker-1: Like, the hell? it's like, like there's a chat, there's more sort of like if you have like deep kind of it's more kind of like where do we go to eat or something in the restaurant? speaker-0: making just like resourced out and I just yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, Instead of nobody sort of realising that the kind of environmental effects and it's just like, yeah, Google could have answered that for you and it would have taken one tenth of the energy and power. speaker-0: Yeah. it's like even the fact that it gets itself wrong to make you or like it can, it you half the answer and then suggests, ⁓ did you mean this to ask another question to encourage you to ask more to use up the credits so you can start paying for it so they can start eventually making some money because they're so deep in the sink with it. It's such a screwed up like model. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ yeah, no absolutely yeah absolutely speaker-0: and let alone imagining things that just don't exist. Yeah. speaker-1: But hey, yeah, I think like a lot of these things, you know, it's like we sort of have to go through some sort of fire with this. then eventually, like I do have great faith in the humans ⁓ are kind of general logic and rationality that we will we won't all be fooled by this and ⁓ we will we will kind of, you know, the It's making me value said authenticity far more ⁓ and clients and brands and et cetera. They should value authenticity more. It's only like the more it becomes ⁓ flooded with the more these kind of channels become flooded with AI and the more value it's going to put on actual physical sketch than handmade stuff. And yeah. ⁓ Yeah, it's it's it's one of those things like you said about like vinyl records. You know, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense that you would where you could stream a whole album in really rich audio practically for free. You can stream like vast majority. Why would you like I was in the HIV like my daughter's obsessed with HIV and I quite like it because I treat myself to like a nice vinyl record. But But why would you spend like 30 quid on like two plastic discs that you're going to have to change over the album? It doesn't make any sense, they still like vinyl records are still here. They're still here. You know, people want well, I like even my daughter, ⁓ like when I like she's obviously brought up in the streaming age and she's a massive music fan and like she got like. money, but wanted to go. And even though she's like, listen to these albums like a thousand times, she wanted to go and get like CDs. She doesn't even have like a CD player, but she wanted like to get the physical, tangible thing that the artist kind of made, you know, and like read the little lyric sheets and stuff. And she still wanted to have that sense of engagement with the artist. And like, you know, she was so excited. I was like, it was so funny because we like we had to play her like a tiny little CD player to just kind of like. to actually play CDs because we didn't actually have like any CD player, but she just needed that sort of thing, that tangible thing to hold in your hand. And that kind of spoke to me of this kind of like it doesn't like marketing or consumer wise or like, you know, watching these things like Dragons Day and then you kind of question why people who's going to buy that, you know, or whatever. It does speak to this kind of slightly sense of this our need as humans to kind of connect with one another and have these physics. speaker-0: nice about the tangible like her little monkey brains understand touch more than like you're seeing and like interacting with more. speaker-1: the connection. Yeah. Yeah. And even that way of like tactile printed stuff, think, you know, that stuff and print marketing should have like more valuable in a work respect, you know, because that's what I keep saying to some clients is just like sometimes you'll cut through a lot of noise with like a really lovely printed thing that people can hold and feel as though they're part of the branch, you know. Anyway, it's kind of a walk in the park. Preach it. speaker-0: Yeah. Preach it. speaker-1: Fraser, that has been amazing, man. That was good fun. speaker-0: Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. speaker-1: Yeah, it was so nice to get your perspective on things and especially coming from an illustrative background. Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah, I think this podcast will be shadow banned by open eyes, fucking bots. They'll kind of go. Yeah, yeah, they'll come in and give us like one star reviews. ⁓ speaker-0: Bye. All right, come at me. crawl my website in shadow ban it. This steal all my artwork on my website. speaker-1: You Yeah, yeah, come on, Sanolpilin. I can take it. Bring it. Yeah, Yeah, cool, dude. That was, yeah, yeah, that was excellent. And great to have you on the show.