Creative Chit Chat - Dundee
A podcast of conversations with brilliant creatives connected to Dundee, exploring their journeys, thoughts and opinions. Hosted by Ryan McLeod.
Episodes
May 7, 2025 • 76 mins
This week I’m joined by Tom Metcalfe — interdisciplinary designer, researcher and educator.
Tom’s journey into design wasn’t linear — from rally driving to getting into product design at DJCAD through clearing at 21. Since then he's had a yo-yo relationship with Dundee. From Dundee to London (via New Designers and Random International), then Bristol for 10 years and now back. Along the way, he’s developed a design practice rooted...
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April 30, 2025 • 65 mins
Jolene Guthrie, founder of the knitwear fashion brand Jo-AMI (pronounced Jo Amy) joins me this week, talking about how you make knitwear cool, comfy and considered.
From internships and positions with the likes of Hayley Scanlan and Tom Pigeon to working with major fashion houses in London, Jolene has built a career rooted in hands-on experience and a deep love for knitwear. Why knitwear? She’s drawn to its magic—how and you can c...
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April 23, 2025 • 79 mins
In this episode, I chat with graphic designer Alastair Walker. After spending 13 years building his career in Manchester, rising through the ranks to creative director, Alastair took a step back to reassess. A four-month break in Vienna gave him the space to reflect and a desire for change eventually led him north to Dundee.
We explore the relationship between software skills and creative thinking, the importance of building long-...
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April 16, 2025 • 7 mins
TLDR - I'm starting a newsletter to reach more listeners and avoid the social algorithms.
https://substack.com/@cccdundee
A quick update on where things are at with the podcast and what’s coming next. This season’s felt a little out of rhythm — not because of the guests (they’ve been brilliant) — but more because of what’s been going on behind the scenes.
In this episode, I chat about why things have felt a bit off, how changes ...
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April 8, 2025 • 75 mins
As Eilish grew up, creativity was part of everyday life — and she’s carried that spirit into everything she does.
In this episode, we dig into her journey from studying Interior and Environmental Design to shaping creative communities and spaces across Dundee. She shares what it was like balancing a job in a sports shop while trying to break into a design world that felt miles apart and how she found her path by staying grounded, ...
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April 2, 2025 • 49 mins
Part 2 of my conversation with Fraser Smith founder of EH9 Espresso and designer and Maker Camillo Feuchter goes much deeper into the construction of the Annfield Road cafe and the considerations of how the space functions.
We then move on to some classic podcast questions around success and failure. Then the bigger picture of Dundee as a whole and how it is becoming known for it's speciality coffee culture.
EH9 - https://www.e...
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March 31, 2025 • 66 mins
This is part one of a beautifully flowing conversation between two friends—both with an incredible eye for detail.
Fraser Smith, the founder of EH9 Espresso, and Camillo Feuchter, a designer and maker, first crossed paths through the EH9’s Perth Road cafe. Over time their relationship flourished into a collaborative partnership in the design and creation of EH9’s second home on Annfield Road.
Fraser’s journey started young—buying...
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March 26, 2025 • 7 mins
I'm excited to reveal that there will be 6 brand new episodes of Creative Chat coming out from next week with Fraser Smith creator of EH9 and multi-disciplinary designer and maker Camillo Feuchter taking me through their creative process of bringing the Anfield Road EH9 to reality. Then I'm chatting to Eilish Victoria, Creative Spaces Producer at Creative Dundee, Graphic Designer Al Walker, Knitwear Designer Joleen Guthrie founder ...
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December 6, 2023 • 60 mins
Ruby is the creative director behind Dreamland: happy, nostalgic fun clothing. Known for big bold prints inspired by TV shows and popular culture, in particular her upside down collection inspired by Stranger Things.
Ruby takes me through how she started out the label and why travel and people watching are central to her creative process. There’s definitely a thread of nostalgia that quite clearly runs through her work but it’s al...
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October 31, 2023 • 61 mins
Cat and Andy repurpose old skateboards into beautiful new products. They take me through their labour intensive process from old broken board to shiny new product. The episode is a fascinating insight into how they've learned and developed their woodworking skills from scratch and built the business up at the same time diversifying the product range.
I would recommend heading over to their instagram to see it for yourself as they...
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October 18, 2023 • 67 mins
Graphic designer, Duncan Barton takes me through his design process, position on current trends and how he's developed a career around the things he loves.
"At university they taught you to be 'the best designer in the world' not a jobbing designer"
Probably my favourite quote from the episode. You're just not taught all the day to day nitty gritty of being a designer working with real clients, dealing with feedback and churning...
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September 26, 2023 • 76 mins
With over 20 years experience in the fashion textiles industry Chris has a really varied and interesting career path. His journey starts from a really dark and troublesome place: at school during Section 28.
Chris hasn't done many interviews and I feel privileged he was trusting enough to come on the podcast and share his journey. When I set up the podcast I wanted to share as many amazing creative stories as possible. The good t...
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September 20, 2023 • 53 mins
A lead consultant at the Service Design Academy, Katie says that she fell into Service Design after doing a masters in leadership and innovation. We have a really interesting discussion around whether Katie sees herself as a designer and the complexity around design terminology. This also leads onto a topic I'd like to explore further run the future of how we make design skills a core competency in the same way maths or English is....
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September 12, 2023 • 70 mins
After a successful kickstarter campaign Alastair decided to start Lowtek Games a studio focused on creating games and tools to help dyslexic players enjoy video games more.
It was at primary school that Alastair got an early diagnosis of dyslexia creating real difficulty with reading. As text to speech technology became more readily available and with the rise of online video tutorials it allowed him to take a more hands on prac...
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September 5, 2023 • 84 mins
Design researcher Stephanie Crowe and Design Generalist Kevin Sinclair met and decided their love in discussing the failings of design in the world around them was enough to start Muckle Studios.
They take me through a journey of how they built a partnership based upon the crossovers in their skillsets and also what they could learn from each other. They are a balance of optimist vs realist and detail vs big picture. This episod...
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July 12, 2022 • 56 mins
Hear how a trip to Vienna where all the museums were unexpected closed due to the pandemic led to Elizabeth Ann Day and Luke Cassidy Greer creating an art dispensing vending machine in the Keiller Centre in Dundee.
It's been a long time since I've had two guests on the podcast and this week it's a real deep dive into the Volk Gallery project. One year on from installing and launching their art vending machine Elizabeth and Luke t...
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June 21, 2022 • 77 mins
This week we start back in the 80s where Rick takes me through his own creative career as well as the history of the skate scene in Dundee.
He went from college to a full time job as a graphic designer and then on to study Time Based Art at DJCAD. After staying around as a research assistant Rick taught himself how to cope websites and the rest is history really. He started up his own business and after several years running a co...
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June 14, 2022 • 62 mins
Stephanie Graham founder of Natla Jewellery and Dundee Community Craft joins me this week. Her goal is to make Dundee the recovery capital of Europe supporting recovery through teaching design skills. She takes her mobile jewellery workshops out into the community to deliver them. The workshops take people through a design process over several weeks but they also create a safe space where people can feel peaceful, feel good about t...
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June 7, 2022 • 67 mins
Hippies communes to funeral directors to Jennifer Lopez and Dior, Jennie grew up in Dundee, was drawn to Glasgow and inevitably London building her eclectic PR career before returning to Dundee.
Starting out in Pitkerro House, a sort of hippie commune on the outskirts of Dundee, this instilled the values of community and people working together on common goals from the very outset of her life. This has clearly had a big impact i...
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May 24, 2022 • 69 mins
We take a deep dive into some of the nuances of graphic design with Badbish Design this week, featuring how to vent your creative frustrations, the need for building relationships when giving and receiving feedback and why she would happily draw a hippo for £5,000.
Badbish's career started out with a frustrating time at art school but after picking up some graphics work for the bars she was working in, things started to change. A ...
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