THE BEATNIK DESIGNER

Hey Reader 13 years ago. May 19, 2013. I was bouncing on an exercise ball watching the Eurovision Song contest with Scout (my dog) watching me intently. She knew what was happening. By 4am I was listening to Bob Dylan, eating almonds, waiting for Miss Tilly to arrive. At 7:18am on the 20th, she came into the world eyes wide open and a cry that filled the room. 13 years on, she's still letting out belters that fill rooms, only this time on stage in front of hundreds, completely fearless. ✨ And...

Hey, Reader! Let me start by being honest with you about something... AI is making me feel behind in a way I've never felt before. Not behind on one thing, but behind on everything. Every week there's a new tool, a new workflow, a new way I'm apparently supposed to be working. Every time I think I've caught up, the goalpost moves. And, it's not just me. There's a whole clutch of designers, creatives and business owners on the bleeding edge of technology who are also feeling behind. And I...

Hey, Reader! There’s a green glue stick on my desk that is quietly changing my life and I'm loving it. Six months ago, I conducted a tiny experiment; ripping images out of magazines and gluing them into a sketchbook. I started in September. One page a day, for thirty days, as an experiment. What came out was colour and collage and something that felt surprisingly close to joy. I kept going. I couldn't stop. If you're someone who used to create things and stopped, you'll know the specific...

Hi Reader, A quick note to let you know I'm starting a new creative challenge on 1st May and I'd love you to join me. It's called the 31-day Joy Experiments Stamp Challenge. Every day in May, you cut one tiny stamp from a found image... a magazine, an old book, a scrap of wrapping paper... and stick it in a sketchbook. That's it. 15 minutes, maximum. It's simple. It's analogue. And it's surprisingly joyful. I'll be doing it every day and sharing as I go. If you want to join in, or just follow...

Hey, Reader! I've been subscribing to a ton of newsletters lately. Some for research, some for learning, some for shopping. I've been purposefully studying them and noticing the ones I open every single time, the ones I delete without reading, and the ones I skim and then promptly forget about. I've now got 3834 sitting in my inbox! It turns out the difference between them has almost nothing to do with design, frequency, or how big the list is. It comes down to three very small things that...

Hey, Reader! I spent the weekend in the garden. Clearing weeds. Cutting back the tulips and daffodils that are done for the season. Sewing the seeds. Getting everything ready to grow. And the whole time, I couldn't stop thinking: this is exactly what building a business looks like. It takes time. It takes a lot of experimentation. And it's so easy to give up just before the thing you've planted starts to bloom. Last week I shared the M-A-P framework with you… the three questions you need to...

Hey, Reader! One of my goals for 2026 is to invest in my own learning. Getting coaching, getting crystal clear on my brand and marketing business, and actually doing the work to grow, not just talking about it. So last week, I did exactly that. I spent four evenings at a Monetization Summit, listening, learning and taking notes. Four hours each night, from 7-11pm. No recordings, no replays. You had to show up live, and I was there every night (and thoroughly exhausted by the end of it - I'm...

Hey, Reader! Happy Easter to you, if you were celebrating. The weather was glorious, so I hit the nursery, got some plants, compost, hanging basket inserts, and got to gardening. I cleared out the beds. Pulled up the old leaves that had been sitting there since autumn, yanked out the weeds that had got comfortable over winter, and turned the soil properly for the first time in months. Then I planted some bedding plants and tucked in a row of dahlia bulbs... not much to look at now, but give...

Hey, Reader! I spent this weekend in the garden. 👩🌾 It's been weeks of grey skies, relentless rain, and that particular English cold that makes you want to stay under a blanket with a cuppa and do absolutely nothing. But this weekend? The sun finally came out. The temperature crept up to something vaguely human, and for the first time in ages, I spotted actual signs of life. Tiny buds pushing through the soil, brave tulips are opening, the whole garden quietly waking up from its slumber. So I...

Hey, Reader! Last week I soft-launched something I've been quietly building for months. The Personal Brand Visibility Scorecard. I sent it to this list first. No fanfare. No countdown. Just - here it is, tell me what you think. And you did. The responses I got back were everything I needed to hear. People landing on results that felt uncomfortably accurate. People saying "how did it know?" Women surprised to discover the thing they thought was their problem wasn't their problem at all. That...