Most creatives have heard the advice a hundred times. Pick a lane. Niche down. Be known for one thing.

But what happens when the thing you're known for is just you? Doodles one day, glossy dimensional lettering the next, hot pink whenever the brief allows it, and a pencil hair clip you designed because you wanted one to exist.

In this episode, we talk with Jess Goldsmith, the Brooklyn-raised lettering artist and illustrator behind Chick of All Trade and the founder of Women of Type. On the surface, it's a conversation about clients, pricing, and portfolios. Underneath, it's about deciding how you want to work, then holding the line, whether that means walking away from a Super Bowl job or asking a client to tell you the budget.

It's part pricing masterclass, part cheese debate, and part Bob Lazar rabbit hole we didn't plan to fall into.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why your portfolio works like a menu and how showing work you hated doing is the fastest way to get hired for more of it.
• Walking away from a Super Bowl job, including the five-figure project Jess turned down, and what she did with the idea afterward.
• Why she tells friends exactly what she got paid especially after a friend landed a job she'd quoted at $10K and did it for $2,000.
• "You are the niche" and why the worst advice Jess and her friends ever got was to niche down, even when your many styles start to look like one person.
• Business cards nobody throws away from pretzel snack bags to a spinning-wheel-of-death plush with an NFC chip in its hand to a crayon-box matchbook for Adobe MAX.

Whether you're still building a portfolio or you've been freelancing for twenty years, this one reminds you that the work you choose to show, and the jobs you choose to turn down, shape the career you end up with. Also, the cottage cheese has to be four percent. Jess was very clear about that.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE

Jess Goldsmith is a Brooklyn-raised, NYC-based illustrator, lettering artist, and creative entrepreneur who works under the name Chick of All Trade. Her work is color-drenched, often pink, and moves freely between styles. She's a Webby Award winner, an Adobe ambassador, and an Adobe MAX speaker.

She's also the founder of Women of Type, a community that uplifts and amplifies women and nonbinary type and lettering artists, and the creator of the self-published Women of Type book, featuring work from around 130 artists worldwide.

Her newest project, Soft Skool, is a six-week program that helps creatives build the soft skills that turn talent into a paying career. It's open to everyone, and the next cohort is planned for January.

Website
https://www.chickofalltrade.com

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/chickofalltrade

Women of Type
https://womenoftype.com

Women of Type on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/womenoftype

Soft Skool on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/softskool

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Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this.

Brad Woodard

Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books.

View Brave the Woods

Dustin Lee

Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional.

View RetroSupply

Credits

Audio/video editing: Clara Wright
Cover art: Brad Woodard
Intro animation: Seth Austin
Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

Illustration is supposed to be a solo sport. One person, one style, one desk.

So how does a studio at the bottom of Africa keep a whole team of illustrators working under one name for fifteen years without the egos getting in the way?

In this episode, we talk with Clinton Campbell, co-founder and creative director of MUTI in Cape Town, South Africa. Clint tells us how MUTI grew out of a streetwear label he started with his brother, and why the early internet mattered so much when your clients are half a world away. Underneath it is a story about building a creative business that actually works, both financially and as a place talented people want to stay.

Part studio tour, part cooking show, and part three people trying to talk over a very long internet delay (don't worry, we edited the delays out).

In this episode, we talk about:

• How a streetwear label became MUTI and what those early years taught him about making creative work that also pays the bills.
• The rule that kept plants, toys, and photos off every desk at MUTI until a talented new illustrator brought in his wedding photo and the floodgates opened.
• Redesigning Scattergories, including the “just have fun” pitch he was surprised the client picked, and why so many classic brands keep getting redrawn.
• Why in-person conferences feel like the antidote to a design internet that has gotten more competitive, more critical, and more anxious about AI.
• The chef's presses a friend carried over from the States plus Christmas cards that arrive in July and Churchill, the internet-famous studio cat.

Whether you run a studio, want to start one, or just like hearing how good creative places actually work, this one reminds us that the best teams run on trust, not rules. Even the rule about plants.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE

Clinton Campbell is an illustrator, creative director, and co-founder of MUTI, a creative studio in Cape Town, South Africa. He grew up in Durban, studied graphic design in Stellenbosch, and started MUTI in 2011 with Miné Day. Brad Hodgskiss joined as the third founding partner in 2013.

The studio's illustrators and designers make everything from lettering and icons to digital painting and animation. Their clients include Google, Nike, Apple, Airbnb, Uber, TIME, and National Geographic. When he isn't drawing, Clint is probably cooking. He cooks at home, and his favorite kitchen gear includes a set of chef's presses and some made-in-the-USA baking trays.

Website
https://studiomuti.co.za

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/studiomuti

Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE

Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series

Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this.

Brad Woodard

Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books.

View Brave the Woods

Dustin Lee

Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional.

View RetroSupply

Credits

Audio/video editing: Clara Wright
Cover art: Brad Woodard
Intro animation: Seth Austin
Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström

The dream we were all sold was going out on your own. Your own clients, your own hours, your name on the door.

But what if freedom looks different once you've lived that dream for a while?

In this episode, we talk with designer and CROP founder Matt Dawson about his first-ever CROP Field Trip to Cleveland, his guitars and records, and a band that sounds like Weezer and the Pixies had a baby.

Underneath it is a bigger story. After seven years of running his own thing, Matt realized his priorities had changed. He wanted more time with his family, evenings that actually ended, and room to get excited about design again.

He began to see that freedom can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it's your name on the door. Sometimes it's a steady in-house job, a team that logs off at five, and the choice to say yes only to the work you actually want.

It is part gear talk, part record-store hang, and part permission slip to stop curating yourself.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Choosing a day job on purpose after seven years on his own, and why real freedom turned out to be saying yes only to the work he actually wants.
• Letting go of the logo-only feed and how posting records and guitars has led to better conversations with clients.
• Taking a group of designers on a field trip to Cleveland including a behind-the-scenes tour with the Guardians creative team and what to do with 10,000 bobbleheads that came back not quite right.
• A Kurt Cobain Jaguar he hopes to be buried with plus Dustin's Strat versus Silver Sky showdown and why Fender picked now to defend the Strat shape.
• A mystery question from Jason Craig that ends with a hotel door, an orange, and a running text thread between two friends.

Whether you're freelancing, in-house, or quietly wondering if your priorities have shifted, this one is a reminder that careers don't run in a straight line. As Matt puts it, you can't lay your career on tracing paper over somebody else's and expect it to match up.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE

Matt Dawson is a designer and creative director based in Austin, Texas, and the person behind Stay Gray Ponyboy. His work centers on brand identities and logo systems, for clients that have included Disney, Jeep, Adobe, Under Armour, the Atlanta Braves, and Toyota.

He is also the founder of CROP, a creative conference he runs with his wife in Austin. For the past decade CROP has brought creative people together, and this fall it added Field Trip, a smaller, hang-out-first event in Cleveland. The next CROP conference is April 29 and 30, 2027.

When he isn't designing, he might be creating something on his Jaguar, playing with his band LCLS, or checking another ballpark off his list.

Website
https://www.staygrayponyboy.com

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/staygrayponyboy

CROP
https://www.cropcons.com

Join the Creative Slash Newsletter and Get the 5-Part “Off the Record” email series FREE

Click here to get the five-part “Off the Record” email series

Note: If you're looking for hard-earned advice, resources from top creatives, and the products they can't live without, you're going to love this.

Brad Woodard

Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books.

View Brave the Woods

Dustin Lee

Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional.

View RetroSupply

Credits

Audio/video editing: Clara Wright
Cover art: Brad Woodard
Intro animation: Seth Austin
Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström