Advertise on podcast: Design Your Life with Vince Frost

When we think of life on earth in the context of the universe, being human can seem absurd. That’s what British artist and illustrator Paul Davis thinks. When he was 17, growing up in Somerset in England, his father died suddenly. But he’d already taught him everything he needed to know about space, time and human existence.  Davis’ sometimes controversial work has been widely published and exhibited. He’s regularly commissioned by international broadsheets and magazines, has created animated idents for BBC Radio 4, and his handwriting has been used in animated adverts for American Express.  The artist’s craft is born from a deep curiosity about the idiocy and beauty of being alive. And a compulsion to make art as a form of therapy. He doesn’t just want to make art. He has to. And he’s not shy about being satirical. Despite a long battle with alcoholism (he’s been sober for over six years), his work has made him a London icon.  Listen in as Vince and Paul discuss his experience of alcoholism and thoughts on AA, drawing Trump giving himself a blow job, and how to know when you’ve pushed it too far.  https://www.instagram.com/paulcopyrightdavis/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The craft of graphic design has changed dramatically since the 80s. Computers. The popularisation of branding. Over the past four plus decades John Rushworth, the design behemoth Pentagram’s longest serving partner, has seen it all. Despite these seismic shifts, he believes the thinking and innate human ability it takes to do truly impactful work hasn’t changed.  Rushworth has had a huge impact on the world of design. He’s delivered graphic solutions to clients across almost every industry from Polaroid to Great Western Railway with his in-dept approach to design. Working closely with his clients, he works to draw out what it is that truly makes them who they are. Then turns them into strategically focused and visually compelling brands. He’s also had a huge impact on Vince Frost – he was his boss at Pentagram and the person who has influenced his career and design philosophy more than any other creative.  Growing up in working class Yorkshire, he’d never heard the word design. It was a student teacher at his, “if I’m honest, pretty bad school,” who’d studied the craft that set a task to design an album cover that his eyes were opened. At age 14, he was good. At his Preston College of Art graduation show he was picked up by Conran Design Group. A year later he moved to Pentagram, just in time for their 10th birthday party. In 1987 he became the studio’s first associate and two years later was the first employee to be invited to become a partner.  The creative has been member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 1994 and a Director of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund since 2012. His work has been exhibited worldwide and has received many international awards including a gold medal at the Lahti Poster Biennale and multiple D&AD silver pencils.   Listen in as Vince and John discuss the business of design, the impact of computers and AI on the design process, and what Vince learned working under him at Pentagram in the 90s.    https://www.pentagram.com/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the past decade, the debate about the role of books in our increasingly digital world has been a hot one. This devotee of the printed form is unequivocal. She believes content online has simply pushed publishers to make better books.   Emilia Terragni is Associate Publisher at Phaidon Press, the world’s leading publisher of books on art, design and culture. Phaidon turns 100 this year. Terragni has been there for 22, specialising in books on architecture, design, food, fashion and art, and is considered one of the most influential editors working in the field today.  Born and raised in Como, Italy, by a creative family where books were incredibly important, she ran away aged 19 to study in Venice. A PHD in fine art set her on the path to a career as a curator or art critic. But it was during her time in the archives of the Vitra Design Museum cataloguing the work of architect Mexican architect and engineer Luis Barragán that she met with Phaidon, and the rest is history.  Listen in as Vince and Emilia discuss working together on Nan Goldin’s iconic photography book The Devil’s Playground in 2003, the privilege of working with the prolific British graphic designer Alan Fletcher to his dying day, and being named The Queen of Cookbooks by the Wall Street Journal.  https://www.phaidon.com/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Which parts of our heritage and childhood form who we are and impact what we do in later life? If you spend your childhood wallpapering your bedroom walls with drawings of Europe’s great buildings, are you desisted for a career in built environments? Does being a self-confessed neat freak make you better at simplifying complex problems? In this case, the answer is resoundingly, “yes!”.  Carlo Giannasca is a multi-award-winning graphic and three-dimensional environmental designer who is a sough-after thought-leader and speaker at universities and design conferences worldwide. For almost four decades, he’s been engaged in helping people and their communities reimagine and implement new possibilities for work, learning and life.   He’s also Partner and Managing Director of Frost*collective. During his 20-year professional partnership with Vince, he’s transitioned from Creative Director to Managing Director, and led major environmental graphics and wayfinding schemes for Qantas’ terminals and headquarters, the International Towers at Barangaroo and Sequis Tower Jakarta.  Listen in as Vince and Carlo discuss; getting his start in the 80s with Australia's first iconic designer Garry Emery, how sneaking out of a hotel in Venice aged 10 on a family holiday and having to find his way back alone impacted him, and what it means to earn a 4th dan black belt in karate.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buckminster Fuller and Cedric Price were mentors when Peter Murray OBE was studying architecture in the 1960s. Peter Cook and the Archigram Group were idols, “they were the Beatles of architecture at the time”. Not a bad selection of teachers for someone interested in the craft from the age of ten.  Since then, Murray has had a huge impact on shaping the city of London. Although he qualified as an architect, he didn’t become one. His calling was to carve out a huge career writing about and promoting it. He founded the design and architecture magazine Blueprint and the global communications company Wordsearch. And curated major exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London. He also started the London Festival of Architecture - now a significant annual event in the cultural life of the capital.  Murray has written and published books about architecture, been a Mayor's Design Advocate, Chairman of the London Society and a Visiting Professor at the IE Business School in Madrid. He is Chairman of the Temple Bar Trust and has gathered a huge list of accolades through his career. Including the OBE he received for leadership in the arts, architecture, city planning, design, publication and charity in 2021. He’s also a keen cyclist, raising money for charity each year through cycling, and advocate for active cities.   Today, his time is focused on the New London Architecture centre, which he founded in 2005 as a centre for debate and discussion about the changing face of the capital. Some might say London is a better place to live thanks to him.  Listen in as Vince and Peter discuss working in design media in swinging 60s London, how his wildly successful studio Wordsearch came to be, and why, when you see an opportunity, you have to take it.  https://nla.london/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. One person who has lived through the changes with her dream job intact is Katrina Strickland. The journalist and author is editor of one of Australia’s most widely-read magazines, Good Weekend, which appears in print and online every Saturday in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. After realising that the law career she’d studied for didn't float her boat, Strickland secured a cadetship in the business section of Melbourne's Herald Sun. Later, she transitioned to covering and editing the arts before moving into magazines, first at The Australian Financial Review, where she edited its monthly glossy magazine for three years, and then, six and a half years ago, to Good Weekend. For someone whose father warned her, when she said she wanted to be a journalist, that, “many journalists are alcoholic no-hopers”, her determination and consistency has paid off. In 2013 her book, Affairs of the Art, about the role those left behind play in burnishing a late artist's reputation, was published by Melbourne University Publishing. Today, her gratitude for and commitment to a career she considers a huge privilege show no signs of slowing down.  Listen in as Vince and Katrina discuss why human stories make for the most-loved content, the brutal pace of working on a weekly publication, and what can happen in the black window between when you go to print and when your publication comes out in the world. https://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Landing a job at the London architecture firm you idolise right out of college is a good sign for any young architect, particularly one from another country. Landing the Great Court at the British Museum as your first project is another. Any architect starting out with these two achievements under their belt would wonder, ‘Where to from here?’ Daniel Goldberg is known for his progressive approach to designing from the inside out, with a focus on spatial theory and anthropology. His childhood interests of art and the technical aspects of how things are built have evolved into a wildly successful architectural career focused on the psychology of the way people want to live.  As Founder and Principal at State of Craft – the multi-disciplinary global design studio famous for their integrated approach to architecture and interiors – he’s worked on some incredible projects including The Shard residences in London and One Sydney Harbour. He’s won the John Barrett Award, was nominated Young Engineer of the Year in 1999 and has had his work published in leading design magazines around the world including Wallpaper, Detail and Architectural Digest.  Listen in as Vince and Daniel discuss what he learnt in his formative years working for Sir Norman Foster, why designing a yacht is akin to designing a small world, and Edward Hall’s 1960s science of proxemics spatial psychology theory.  https://www.stateofcraft.co.uk/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After inheriting a Nikon F3 camera from his photographer uncle in his teens, Andrew Quilty set about casually documenting life. Later, when he was studying photography in the day, and working in a bottle shop at night, a regular took an interest in his work. He turned out to be a photo editor at the Fairfax media company; this was a time when Australia newspapers were punching above their weight on a global stage. Fate had set the wheels in motion for a life and career Quilty never could have imagined. Today, Quilty is a multi-award-winning photojournalist whose work has been published by The New York Times, BBC News and TIME Magazine - and garnered accolades worldwide. He’s won a World Press Photo Contest award, a Pictures of the Year International award, a Sony World Photography award and six Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, the highest honour in Australian journalism.  On a two-week assignment in 2013 to shoot the Afghani cricket team he fell in love with Afghanistan and spent the next eight years living in and documenting the wartime country and its people. He’s travelled to two thirds of the country’s 34 provinces and produced two books on his time there. The first ‘August in Kabul’ is a novel about America’s last days of occupation, and the second ‘This is Afghanistan’ is a visual record designed in by Vince Frost with Wing Lau. Both books are published by The University of Melbourne - ‘This is Afghanistan’ will be released this month.  Listen in as Vince and Andrew discuss; the ethics of beautifying death and tragedy, how recently media have become fair game in war zones, and the story behind his harrowing Walkely Award Winning photograph and article ‘The Man on the Operating Table’.  Buy 'This is Afghanistan' - https://www.mup.com.au/books/this-is-afghanistan-hardback  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Not many kids dream of designing a billboard one day. It was at age 11, when he picked up his first commission from the printer (business cards for his equally entrepreneurial teenage brother), that he realised he was hooked on design. Soon after, a school careers night opened his eyes to commercial art, and his future was set. Some would call it a singular talent for designing original ideas. If you ask him, it’s down to hard work and luck.  Ant Donovan is a multi-award-winning creative who has attracted widespread attention throughout his career. As Partner & Group Creative Director at Frost*collective, he’s helped some of the world’s biggest brands find people-centred solutions to difficult problems. Ant has had a huge impact in the design space over the past two-plus decades globally. And if you're Australian, there’s a very slim chance you haven’t been impacted by his work.  Ant's career in design has taken him on an amazing journey, from flying in a helicopter above the most populated city in the world to riding a hovercraft in the remote wilderness of Australia’s outback. His first ‘real’ job was as Art Director at the critically acclaimed photography and culture bible, Black+White magazine. Since then, he’s worked with a diverse range of organisations and industries; from large-scale corporations, tourism bodies and retail giants, to iconic cultural institutions, not for profits and one-person start-ups. His passion and relentless drive to make work that matters is what gets him out of bed.  Listen in as Vince and Ant discuss designing layouts for David Bailey, Rankin and Testino aged 22, what drawing an entire typeface by hand with a Rotring pen can teach you about design, and how to find original ideas in today’s oversaturated world.  https://www.frostcollective.com.au/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Australian art scene has dramatically evolved over the past decade. A place that was once seen as belonging to wealthy collectors has opened up to absolutely anyone who is interested and inspired. ‘Front page news’, once dedicated to sport, has recognised the important place of art in our everyday lives.  Kym Elphinstone is the Founder and CEO of Articulate, Australia’s leading communications consultancy for culture and the arts. She’s represented many of Australia’s biggest cultural institutions including the National Gallery of Australia, Carriageworks and the Powerhouse Museum through to more than 12 temporary public art projects for John Kaldor as well as grass-roots festivals and art fairs platforming emerging artists. She’s had a major impact on the profile of the arts in this country.  She cites her background in law as a formative experience but one that didn’t offer the creativity she yearned for. In London in the early 2000s, she realised she needed to pursue her first love: the arts. After moving to Sydney, she soon took up a role at the MCA, and a few years later found herself starting her own business with the Biennale of Sydney as her first client.  Listen in as Vince and Kym discuss the difference between art and design, why it’s important to only work with people and on projects you believe in, and public art as placemaking.  https://articulatepr.com.au/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Architects are often drawn to designing buildings that are iconic because they’re incredibly sculptural or different. But it’s designing what he calls ‘Everyday Buildings’, and making them better, that makes this one tick. His firm believes it’s these background buildings that often make cities special.  Paul Monaghan, who co-founded the incredibly successful architecture practice Allford Hall Monaghan Morris in 1989, is an internationally acclaimed architect whose work is focused on redefining the built environment. He’s the Liverpool City Region’s first Design Champion, advises government on how to promote high-quality design for cities and is a generous educator and speaker. He’s also committed to helping young and disadvantaged architects get a foot in the door.  Listen in as Vince and Paul discuss; growing up in 60s Liverpool with his dad’s set squares in the living room when The Beatles were still around, the power of being able to sketch an architectural idea by hand, and the incredible task of working on the UKs House of Commons.  https://www.ahmm.co.uk/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Warehouse living gained popularity in the 60s and 70s in major urban centres, particularly New York. Industrial buildings were empty, and artists loved their affordability and vast open layouts. But it wasn’t until the 80s that Australia caught on.  Jeff Provan co-founded Neometro, Melbourne’s long-standing design-focused and socially led development group in 1985. He is an active and integral figure in Melbourne’s design community with a raft of accolades for his approach to design, construction and sustainable development.  Jeff’s ongoing commitment to creating homes that make people happy, connect them with their local community, and improve health and wellbeing has a huge ongoing impact on how people live in the city. And his philosophy for creating places that will stand the test of time and be loved by the people who live in them is summarised in The Framework For Healthy Buildings, which will be published in October.  Listen in as Vince and Jeff discuss the eternal appeal of warehouse living, designing buildings for people to love, and the elements needed to create a truly healthy place to live.  https://neometro.com.au/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.