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© 2026 Designer in your Pocket | Juls Christie-Clark
Description
The Honest Designer Diaries is a podcast about what it actually feels like to work in design.
Hosted by Juls Christie-Clark (Designer in your Pocket) a brand designer and design educator based in Glasgow with over 30 years in the industry, each episode is a chat with a designer about a real experience or situation from their career.
Sometimes it might be difficult, sometimes career-changing, sometimes funny, and sometimes it’s the kind of thing you only talk about properly once you’ve found another designer who gets it.
Guests will include designers at all different stages of their careers, from new designers just coming into the industry, to designers who are 10+ years in, to the lifers who have been doing this for decades.
We’ll talk about agency life, in-house roles, freelance work, clients, confidence, pricing, rejection, comparison, personal branding, building a design career online, building one completely offline, and all the bits of the industry that don’t always get shared very openly.
Each guest brings one experience or story from their own career, then we chat about what happened, how they handled it, what they might do differently now, and what they’d say to another designer going through something similar.
The Honest Designer Diaries is for graphic designers, brand designers, freelancers, students, creative business owners, and anyone trying to find their place in the design industry without pretending they’ve got it all figured out.
17 Episodes
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In this episode, I’m chatting with brand designer Abi Lee about something we don’t hear discussed very often, how you keep a freelance business going when you’re grieving.Two years ago, Abi lost her dad very suddenly. While trying to process what had happened and support her family, she was also dealing with the reality of working for herself, where there’s no compassionate leave and nobody else automatically steps in to manage the clients, deadlines and bills.We chat about the guilt of trying to be everywhere at once, how Abi slowly found her way back into work and the impact the experience had on the way she now thinks about her business and what she wants from it.It’s a very open and personal conversation about grief, freelancing and trying to keep going when life changes overnight.You can find Abi and see more of her work on Instagram at @abileedesigns.Please be aware that this episode includes a conversation about the sudden illness and death of a parent, intensive care and bereavement.I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. If you’ve listened and any part of Abi's chat resonated with you, send me a message on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/designerinyourpocket_juls/ or https://www.instagram.com/thehonestdesignerdiaries/.Take careJuls
This week I’m chatting with editorial designer, speaker, host and Adobe mentor Kieron Lewis about all the different skills that can shape a creative career. We talk about why being a great designer will only take you so far, how important it is to communicate your ideas and why Kieron considers his people skills to be one of his biggest strengths.We also get into some of the more difficult parts of the design industry, from bullying and hierarchy in creative workplaces to imposter syndrome and being the only person in the room who looks or sounds like you. Kieron shares how voluntary work helped build his confidence, why junior designers need better support and how he created new opportunities for himself, including taking a chance and asking D&AD if he could host one of their events.And because we’re both print designers at heart, we finish with a very serious discussion about the correct way to greet a newly delivered book, which obviously includes inspecting the binding and smelling the paper.Connect with Kieron on IG:www.instagram.com/kieronanthonylI’d love to hear what you think of this episode. If you’ve listened and any part of Hannah’s story resonated with you, send me a message on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/designerinyourpocket_juls/ or https://www.instagram.com/thehonestdesignerdiaries/.I really hope you enjoy the chat.Juls
Chloe from The Chatty Freelancer and I have a habit of sitting in the car talking for ages whenever we meet up, usually after one of us has offered the other a lift home. We always end up saying we should have recorded the conversation, so this time we actually did.So we've set ourselves some big audacious goals we want to reach in the next few months and sharing our progress in this bonus series the Chatty Diaries.Follow along with us as we keep each other accountable where we'll be meeting up again to find out whether either of us has actually done what we said we would, which may be exactly why making this public was a terrible idea.Listen to Chloe's podcast on SpotifyConnect with Chloe on IG I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. Send me a message on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/designerinyourpocket_juls/ or https://www.instagram.com/thehonestdesignerdiaries/ .I really hope you enjoy the chat.Juls
When you’re good at listening, asking the right questions and understanding what really matters to a client, it usually makes you a better designer. It can also mean that somewhere between the brand strategy and the logo concepts, you accidentally become their therapist as well.This week, I’m chatting with art director, brand designer and content creator Wayne Fick about the client relationships that become far more personal than either of you expected.In this episode, we chat about:How designers can unintentionally become emotional support for their clientsWhy being sensitive and intuitive can be both useful and exhaustingWhat happens when you introduce a boundary after a client has become used to constant accessWhy skills swaps need an agreed value on both sidesPricing work when you’re worried about where the next project is coming fromDealing with micromanagement and clients who question every design decisionBecoming a content creator and YouTuber later in your careerStaying open to new technology without pretending every new tool is wonderfulFinding thoughtful, practical uses for AI while still questioning its effect on creative workYou can find Wayne under Created by Wayne onYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@createdbywayneInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/createdbywayne/visit createdbywayne.com, and subscribe to his weekly Meaningful Creationist newsletter.
Hannah Walker didn’t set out to become a content creator. She studied fashion design, worked in London and New York, then found herself back in the UK wondering what the next version of her career might look like.Hannah also shares how she plans content around big events without spending the entire trip staring at her phone, why she hasn’t forced herself into one very specific niche and how she’s attracting collaborations through the content she already enjoys making.There’s also plenty about procrastination, late-night working, filming yourself in public and the reality of having to give yourself all the encouragement and validation you once got from a creative team.You can find Hannah on Instagram and TikTok at @htwcreative, or connect with her on LinkedIn by searching Hannah Walker.I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. If you’ve listened and any part of Hannah’s story resonated with you, send me a message on Instagram at @designerinyourpocket_juls or @thehonestdesignerdiaries.I really hope you enjoy the chat.Juls
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