Episode 17: Graphic Design, Freelancing and AI, with Adelaide Leeder

Ep. 18 w/ Adelaide
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to Ctrl Alt Exclusive, the show where we interview different people working in tech, talk about their expertise and experiences, and cover interesting news and recommendations. So if you work in tech and want a different perspective, this is the show for you. This week, we're talking about design with Adelaide Leyter from Ballys.
Go to Ctrl Alt Exclusive to find out more. Sign up to our newsletter for exclusive content and find the links for the stuff we talk about in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
Intro & Catch-Up
---
Mark: And we're back.
Michael: We're back.
Mark: We're back
Michael: we did one, we had the highest, was this highest two Yep. This is hiatus too. Yeah. We are definitely hiatus well over the summer. Making the most of it.
Mark: How you been?
Michael: Yeah. I've been, all right. So I'm off on holiday Friday and it's one of those, you know, whenever you're off on holiday that
week is just like, oh my God,
Mark: Where are you going?
Michael: Croatia.
Mark: Very nice.
Michael: Like every, everything's due to there tomorrow, and it's just like, oh my God, I'm so tired. It's gonna be good. It's
gonna make you appreciate the holiday even more, don't you? You leave it all behind. Then you're
Mark: Very much
Michael: oh yeah, I've deserved this.
Michael: So,
Mark: i've just come back from a truck festival
and the first thing everybody I've told apart from you who's been to Truck Festival says. You go [00:01:00] into a truck festival? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Not a, not a truck festival.
It's just it's just called Truck Festival.
They just happened to do the first ever one on a truck, and now the name's stuck.
Michael: yeah. it's good, isn't it?
Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it was really good. I mean, it was exactly what you expect from,
Michael: Yeah.
Mark: from a festival these days. Yeah. Good camping, but I also bought a massive battery,
Michael: Oh, okay. So yeah, I've been looking to this stuff.
Mark: It was great.
Yeah. I mean, you've got charged for days, but I bought a solar panel
so you can charge the
Michael: was it one of the like anchor sox, isn't it? Jack.
Mark: exactly that. It's a big hefty thing.
And Hillary was like, nah,
yeah. First of all, why? Second of all, you're not gonna need the solar panel.
That thing will last the edges.
But then you plug in the little. Car, like cool
box with little fan in it
and that really sucks the life out of it. But yeah, it means you get cool beers all weekend, so it's not too
Michael: Hey. Nice. That's really cool.
Mark: Yeah. Anyway Michael, we've
got Adelaide. So
Meet Adelaide
---
Mark: who's Adelaide?
Michael: Who's Adelaide? I lived with Adelaide for [00:02:00] three years at uni. She's kind of weird to think of her in professional way, I guess. But she's an illustrating graphic designer at Bally's. But obviously that's not where we met, but that's where, you know, we all met.
Mark: it was just a coincidence that you ended up working at the same company.
Michael: I think I must have
Mark: You must have said,
Michael: put, yeah, I think I put it forward at come and work here. It's great. yeah. But so long ago I've gotten off track, but she's an illustrator, shes a designer. She's one of those crazy people that does everything.
Mark: Nice.
Michael: can sing, she can paint, she can like. Play piano and everything.
So, yeah. And I think she's got quite a lot of side stuff going, including
Mark: Including us.
Michael: including us.
Mark: the actual designer of our logo,
cool. Very exciting. So yeah, designer for at least 10 years. Yeah. Shall we get a hold of
her and see how we go? Awesome. I.
Drinks & Catch-Up
---
Michael: Oh yeah.
Mark: There we go. What have you got? Michael
Michael: Got a Guinness ~needs no ~needs, no introduction.
Mark: Nope. I've got a hazy G in, is that a little [00:03:00] tiny glass of Port Adelaide?
Adelaide: It is actually just a tiny little glass of wine. 'cause then I feel like I'm drinking less, but I just pour more
Michael: you have like 16 of them
Mark: Very nice. ~I've ~I've actually recently joined a WhatsApp group called 1 million Beers, please. Where they count up their beers in the aspiration of eventually reaching a million.
Michael: Between the group. Right? Between you.
Mark: you post a picture of your, your,
beer and you just ~kind, you just add the, ~add on
~The hi ~the highest number.
Michael: What's that?
Mark: I joined at like five and a half thousand in maybe March and neither on 13 and half thousand, which is not bad.
Adelaide: Do you know you don't know these people. These are just strangers.
Mark: I know one person in the
group and the rest of, they're all strangers, but you kind of get to know them overseeing their drinking habits ~over, ~over some
Michael: Is there any chat or It's just like a beer
Mark: There's a
small amount of beer related chat people, you know, you have beer of the week, you know,
you best pictures. But yeah, I've become an admin of the group for my
excellent contributions.
~So~ off with
Michael: Yeah. Cheers to that.
Mark: Yeah. But yeah, that's been good. Anyway what have we been up to, Michael? What have you been up to ~this week? Yeah.~
Michael: ~I have been learning Golan.~
Mark: ~Is it suck?~
Michael: ~What I, does it suck? No, it's,~
Mark: ~It does suck.~
Michael: ~I haven't coded, haven't really coded for a while. And it's different, isn't it? It's the ~
Adelaide: ~coded for a while. I thought that was your job.~
Mark: ~It is its job, but it's all terraform and it's not real~
Michael: ~Yeah. But like programming languages and.~
Mark: ~It's just very fancy configuration. Right.~
Michael: ~I've been trying to learn this stuff at, like, I've been trying to get up before my kids and learn it. So it's like quarter to six in the morning and I'm looking at going, what the fuck is this? Like, is a slice and a struck and a subroutine and it's, yeah it's,~
Adelaide: ~how I feel about the whole code word in cold. Well, this is a good~
Michael: ~we're gonna edit it~
Adelaide: ~how I feel~
Michael: ~mark~
Adelaide: ~cold world. I meant to say code world and it came out as cold. It's how I, it's how I feel about it in general, which is why I don't do it.~
Michael: ~Yeah. But~ I've I was [00:04:00] like, okay, I wanna learn a language. I can get back into Java, but, you know, wanna do something new and go is the, I was like, is it, is Go or Python? The biggest platform engineering language? It's go. Okay. And then it's asking chat GPT how many hours would it take someone with a program backpack to get proficient and go and said about 80 to a hundred hours,
Mark: A hundred hours.
Michael: 80 to a hundred hours.
Mark: Yeah. Yeah.
Adelaide: bad.
Michael: I was like, I'm gonna try and I'm gonna
Or don't bother, which is, fuck it.
Adelaide: PT to code things now.
Michael: Yeah. But I dunno I've seen a few people doing it and I really worry not with everyone, I'm not saying this is true of everyone, but I'm not convinced that some people that are doing it know anything that's going on.
Adelaide: Oh, I would say the majority of people using it don't know what's going on.
Michael: does that not, like, I really worry that if you were sat next to a designer and like you've spent, I dunno, presumably spent decades learning your craft, they [00:05:00] just sit there and prompt something.
Adelaide: Yeah. It's
Michael: Does it worry you or you like, no, that's cool. ~Like I'm the idiot, or.~
Adelaide: No, it's soul destroying.
Michael: Okay, so I'll just run 'cause it's good because, are we gonna get onto something? Sorry. We gone down the rabbit hole. So, but I, yeah, anyway, I've been doing, here's another one, mindful coffee drinking.
Mark: mindful.
Michael: Yeah.
Mark: So what you just, when you're
having a coffee, you just have a bit of a harder think
Adelaide: I'm just laughing because I knew my 19 years old
Michael: I'm still the same.
Adelaide: come.
Michael: so so~ I got to a, ~I got to a point of having it like over 10 a day
and I was like,~ I,~
Adelaide: What? Oh, do you know what I thought you meant like that you just sit down with a coffee and have some mindfulness?
Michael: well, kind of, it's like I was drinking and every time every person I talked to would be like. Oh my God. Like, how are you still alive?
Mark: Well that's 'cause
Michael: then, yeah, so I was like reading this post and someone was like, you know, ~they were they were~ talking about mindful drinking.
I dunno if anyone you knows or tried mindful drinking and they're like, I'm just going to you. This is another funny thing. I, [00:06:00] we have a really fun work thing on a Friday called Mandatory Fun. And for half an hour we just chat and there's like,
Adelaide: Oh,
Michael: only rules are, but it's a tongue in cheek.
Adelaide: oxymoron.
Michael: It's tongue in cheek. And we talk about stuff and I was explaining how like mindful drinking where you like drink to enjoy it instead of like getting like pissed at this person I was on the call with, she's Spanish and she's like, it's not mindful drinking. That's how every country in the world drinks apart from the English.
~Like it's just normal drinking's~
Adelaide: yeah,
Michael: just you guys that like
Adelaide: yeah.
Michael: and drink into your throne up. So,
Mark: excessive coffee
Michael: yeah,
Adelaide: Where did I, I work with a lot of young people now because I dunno if you know, but we're actually old now and
Michael: Surely not.
Adelaide: like one of the oldest in the team, and they're all in their thirties and twenties and don't get any of my sort of cultural references or anything. But we went, we had our summer party the other week, right.
And ~the, and one of the, ~one of my colleagues in his, I don't know, late twenties, early thirties, he [00:07:00] said, ah, I'm gonna puke tonight ~like an am, ~like an ambition.
Mark: ~I mean, no, I puked a lot of times, but~ I never said I am gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna happen the way that we see it was always like, yeah,~ that there's a~ lot of free beer at this. There, there's potential that I could, you know,
get quite drunk here. There's never like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna chunder, I'm gonna paint the town red.
Michael: Oh~ dear.~
Mark: ~No,~
Michael: Minds. Minds
Mark: Yeah. The closest I've got to is counting all of my~ ~
Michael: ~Yeah. ~
Adelaide: many coffees are you down to
now, Mike?
Out of curiosity?
Michael: What,
Adelaide: Nine.
Michael: nine and six Red Bulls? no. Today I had the
two. I did have a monster engineering, but don't judge me.
Mark: Make your mind up. Are you 45 or
are you
Michael: So I say mindful coffee. I didn't say mindful
touring, like I'm obviously trying to like hack around it. I only had seven teas.
Mark: I only found out recently
that there's,
it's a not insignificant amount of caffeine in Pepsi [00:08:00] Max
Michael: okay. Yeah, most of the
Mark: like, like quite a lot. It's like basically just half a Red Bull~ and I was like, Shit. And~ I get through a lot of Pepsi Max. Maybe this
Michael: Yeah, don't see, don't judge me.
Mark: I've been miscalculating my caffeine for years. Anyway, um, Adelaide up to anything exciting this week.
Adelaide: This week I'm going on holiday on
Saturday. That's about as exciting as my life gets. Just putting work down actually. Uh,
Mark: not, Uh, it's not cro is it? Where are you going
Adelaide: No, just Somerset. We're doing a staycation. We are.
Mark: Just Somerset. No, that sounds, uh, sounds lovely.~ No, I've just been to a truck festival camping, but camping in, you know, festival style qualities. So, you know, you, you've got the, so, you know, always that conundrum. um, we decided we're gonna make the, most season.~
~That's the tent right there behind me. I ~
Adelaide: ~Wow, ~
Mark: ~to put it away. It's just sitting on the couch. I'm like, it should, we should let it air out. And I've just let it on the couch and been like, uh, give it a week, whatever, a week. But the intention is to go to the cots camping, ~
Adelaide: ~that's actually, we camping in the cots worlds on the way, so see you there. ~
Mark: ~Very nice. Yeah,~
~this is, yeah. Possibly. So.~ Alright. Shall we, uh, shall we get to it?
Michael: Just
Adelaide: yes.~ ~
Michael: ~for ~
Adelaide: ~burping. I'm really sorry. ~
Mark: ~I've decided like, for the longest, for the longest time doing this, I was like, gotta be professional, on time. And then realized afterwards, you know, mark, you do edit it afterwards, like, quite a lot. You could always just cut this shit out.~
Michael: ~yep.~
Mark: ~So anyway, um, yeah.~
Interview: Adelaide's Background & Career
---
Mark: So who's ad lid?
So normally we have person that knows the guest the least. Do the question asking So that, uh, that, that Judy falls to me. So first up, how did you meet Michael?
Adelaide: I met Michael at university.
The first thing Michael said to me
Michael: Oh, God, dunno. Just, [00:09:00]
Adelaide: the very first
thing is like,
Michael: is like mutually assured
Adelaide: hi.
I'm Michael. Just so you know,~ ~
Mark: ~you~
Adelaide: I'm
not gay.
Michael: I don't remember that.
Mark: I don't know why you have, I don't know why you don't introduce that yourself that way to
Michael: did, that's my, that's my LinkedIn headlines.~ LinkedIn ~
~headlines. ~
Mark: Yeah. Just by the way
Michael: what, can't think what the reason behind that was. But anyway,
Mark: ~Must've been the ~
Adelaide: ~You had, yeah, you ~
~had,~ you had curtains. You had,
Michael: Everyone like curtains.
Adelaide: ~back then, but you had curtains. ~
Michael: ~Okay. ~
Adelaide: and your mom bought.
Mark: that off.
Michael: Yeah. Still, I'm not sure what
Mark: You little spoiled mommy's boy. Well, did
Michael: Nah. Should have done on shit is on.
Mark: her, the washing
while she drops off the shopping?
Adelaide: that did happen.
Michael: We had to, this is funny, we had this chat when I, when, when, remember when you started Bies and I was like, look, we could, we could destroy each other. So let's just like,
Adelaide: I know.
Michael: let's make a pact
Adelaide: yes, it's true. No.
Michael: me and Adelaide have actually never met.~ So this is all, all bullshit and~[00:10:00]
Adelaide: No. Mike is one of my oldest friends. You are my oldest friends.
Mark: be like
Michael: God, 25 years,~ ~26.
Like Jesus.
Adelaide: Makes me feel ancient.
Michael: Yeah,
Mark: Yeah. Um, so do you know any of our previous guests?
Adelaide: I know Nikki.
Mark: Yeah. So you guys all live together?
Adelaide: We didn't live with Nikki. She was on our course.
Mark: Yeah.
Adelaide: gone on to do spectacular things,
Michael: Yeah. She got her, got her bath out here in the, yeah.
Mark: Yep. It looks pretty. It looks pretty hefty.~ pretty. It~ Um, so you're, uh, you're an illustrator and designer, which makes me think of like hand drawings, but obviously a lot of us digital. Um, do you ever need to write code yourself? Or it's all just using programs and graphical user interface.
Adelaide: no. I suppose it used to be in the old days that if you were generalist, you were, ~um,~ you were king. But now it's more,~ you know, if ~you're a specialist ~than you are.~ So I'm ~sort of used to,~ I used to be all into code and, and building things and animating the code and everything, but it's kind of fallen by the wayside.
~So yes, no, I'm sadly just all into art, and so I actually like it that way. I'm terrible at coding. I'm ~
Mark: ~drawings, ~
Adelaide: ~if you're a specialist no,~ I'm sadly just all into art, and so I actually like it that way. I'm terrible at [00:11:00] coding. I'm just not, I haven't got a maths-y brain. I've got an arty brain.
Michael: So ~here, here's a,~ here's a weird link. Actually had, and Don, I told you this ~when,~ when Mark was first trying to get people together for the podcast,~ people together for the~ like, I know a guy called Ben Clinch. And I was like, I know that name. Why do I know Ben Clinch? And I looked him up and I was like, oh my God.
Adelaide: FY
Michael: is the guy we made
a
interactive CD for.
Adelaide: we made him a, a website, I think for his band.
Michael: What was that? Was that like a uni thing or a
Adelaide: It was our final project, so we, so we submitted our dissertation and then ~we submitted submitted our dissertation and then we submitted~ a final project. I thought it was so weird that uni, you know, you were coding, I was designing, and then we, we sort of ended up in the same company doing the same thing for ages.
Michael: True.
Adelaide: But no, they, yeah, that's what we did. I was so proud of that project and it didn't score very well.
Good. Mark for mainly because, do you know why I ended up helping a lot of~ other~ people?
Projects instead, instead of working on my own, I think, I seem to remember you [00:12:00] did pissed off that, uh,
it was
Michael: didn't get good grades and I
was alright, but.
Mark: so how did you start out professionally? What was your first job at a university?~ ~
Adelaide: what did I
do? I think I buggered off to drama school and decided I was gonna act for a while and then decided, no,~ I don't,~ I don't wanna do that actually. ~And, uh,~ and went and worked in a hideous place.~ ~ I went to work in a really terrible place in East London where I had a. A
boss who used to throw the furniture and the computers the TVs, throw them at the staff.
Mark: Jesus.
Adelaide: And so then I ended up working, sort of doing a backwards commute working on the coast, but living in London. So eventually ran out of money and phoned Michael and said, you know, that company work at Please, please, so that any vacancies.
And yes, ~that's, this is ~
Michael: been what, how many years ago is that now?~ ago is that now? ~
Adelaide: ~2009,~ 2010. Around
then
Mark: Okay. And you're still there?~ Or did you have a break at some point? ~
Adelaide: ~I~ I
went away And had children and then, um, I actually came~ children and then, um, I~ back just freelancing. They said, oh, we just need someone We know you can freelance for three months. [00:13:00] That never~ ends. Well, you never,~ ever leave. So I'm still there.
Michael: As a, freelancer. ~as a freelancer or a ~
Adelaide: As a, as a permanent member as well,~ part-time member of staff.~ But you know~ how it is. I, I think,~ you know since you've gone, Mike, I don't, there's no one there from when I first joined, you know, four years ago. Fast turnaround.
Mark: Yeah. Changes a lot.~ Um,~ so what are you working on at the moment? Anything Interesting.
Adelaide: At work or at play?
Mark: At work? At work?~ At work. ~
Adelaide: ~At work, I'm~ doing well. I'm, yeah.~ What~
am I doing Going back to making games,~ haven't made games in a long time, so that's really nice.~ I do prefer that side of it. And,
Michael: a.
Mark: I hadn't even thought about all of the, ~like,~ Large scale, graphic design stuff, website stuff. all I had in my head was games Must all be games, but I guess it's not
Adelaide: ~Yeah,~ scaled back and the
games weren't, so the company split and all the games went to sort of one side of the company and then we were sort of left with the less fun side. But yeah, making a few games, that's always the, that's always the fun side. That's minute. That's nice.
Mark: Uh, favorite game you've ever designed?~ favorite game~
Adelaide: Save game.
I have designed an Alice in Wonderland game once and that was,~ that was good~ that was good fun. Anything that, just where you get to draw a lot
Mark: ~u h,~ kitchen, when I moved into it, [00:14:00] the, ~uh,~ tiles were all Alice in Wonderland, said, that's gotta
Adelaide: I was say in a good way or in a,
Mark: Not well the house was also painted, like~ every wall was like~
Adelaide: these are like the houses you see on Right move that
go
Mark: Yeah, it was kinda creepy. Um, no, it, it went, I painted everything white and just got some sort of, something But yeah,
Adelaide: Were they the Disney ones or the, the
original Louis Carroll.~ ~
Mark: ~think~ they were more original. They were, they weren't like they were like actual drawings,
Adelaide: ~Need to, I, ~
Mark: ~But just on sort ~
Adelaide: ~them ~
Mark: ~some of the tiles, I know they're, they're still there, but they're sticker that looks like different tiles, ~
~Yeah. Um,~ so do you still create designs and illustrations as a creative Or does that feel like work now?
Yeah.
Adelaide: I think you are very lucky in your~ job if you are drawing something that you genuinely have a~ job if you are drawing something that you genuinely have a lot of heart in. I think to do a good design, you have to find the enjoyment in whatever you're doing.
If you, you know, even if it's something that at first glance seems boring, you've~ got find~ something in it which excites you.
Whilst you won't, you.
know, you've gotta get through the day. You've
Mark: It'll just come out boring.
Adelaide: Exactly. You get the best work if you find the excitement in it.~ best work if you find I do. You still there, you've always got space for your own projects, But ~
Mark: yeah, yeah.
Michael: ~Would, would you have any, uh, red line, would you? Would you have any moral, moral,~ we, we asked this for [00:15:00] Nik ki, didn't we?~ ~ Was there anything you wouldn't do?
Adelaide: Oh yeah, no, yeah, of
course, of course. I would.
Oh, she says \
working
for
a gambling company. Um,
Michael: Can we, can we have a, can we have a weapon illustration?
like like~ ~
Adelaide: ~I ~ ~who illustrated porn~ I had an ex-boyfriend who illustrated porn
Michael: mm-hmm.
Adelaide: and I always found it. I just was like, ~I can't, I can't get it. I can't get into the kind of like,~ 'cause it's quite hardcore. can't, can't. It was kind of manga style
stuff and I was just like, I yeah, it was, It was to
sell and, and I was it.
Mark: oversized
Adelaide: Yeah. And it was just a bit beyond me. ~I I can't sell the person, but I can't get,~ I can't get behind that. And there's, oh, I mean, to be honest, sometimes you get clients in~ and they just sound~ so highly strong and demanding that you think, I'm just not sure. I just wanna go on this kind of three month with this, with this character.
So yeah, I do say I do sort of suddenly become very busy sometimes.
Michael: ~What, what, are you, ~
Work Ethics & Proudest Projects
---
Michael: what are you most proud of that you've done?
Adelaide: That's a good question. I'm of actually. making a little bit of a move now [00:16:00] into props making for film and I'm really, really proud of those things. 'cause actually it, there's, there's always a little bit of an element of cheap with digital, but if you, if you can hold something that you've~ sort of ~made, there's
Michael: you~ say more or is it still~
Adelaide: ~There's no, no, I'm just, ~
Michael: ~you~ say more or is it still
Adelaide: There's no,
I'm just, I'm, uh, it's sort
of, it's what I'm really, really interested in is making things little real. And there's no cheap,~ And there's no AI That's~ there's no AI there. It's right there in front of you.~ of you. And that's what I kind of like~ And that's what I kind of like about it. I like that if you've gone back to pencil and paper um, it's really proof that you can do it.
And sometimes I keep challenging myself. 'cause as we know now, to just cut corners and use AI as a tool to get stuff done. So ~it's,~ it's nice. ~It's,~ it's the most sense of reward. ~I mean, ~weirdly, the, the projects I'm most I've drawn for my kids and that kind of thing. The things~ that~ probably no one will see. Those are the things I,
because
they've got the most
personality in. Yeah. Yeah. I write the stories
for my kids and then you can get to put everything in. your own style, can't you? You're not doing it for a client. You're doing~ the~ the style you love~ the,~ that you'll only see and their [00:17:00] kids will see, and that's~ it.~
~But~ the
Mark: Makes me feel like a really uncreative person. I would ne I'm not sure I would ever do that. Yeah. But it sounds great. Like, it sounds like a excellent childhood memory.~ childhood memory.~ Um, all right. Shall we get onto some, uh, quick fire questions, Michael?
Michael: Okay.
Quick Fire Round: Design Preferences
---
Michael: spend a day doing 2D designs, or
3D, 2D.
Mark: Uh, when you're starting out with say, a character design, do you prefer pen and paper or a digital notepad?
Adelaide: I'm trying to get back to pen and paper I probably end up using the iPad,
Mark: Are you a pencil
nerd?
Do
you know all about pencils?
Adelaide: Oh, I got, I've collect them. I've got boxes of pencils.
Michael: ~Like a, Oh two B. ~
~two B. ~
~say that ~
Adelaide: ~See the how well we know each other. ~
Michael: ~Yeah. ~
~Yeah. Would~ Yeah. Would you, would you rather design a single important logo or a whole series of illustrations on a theme?~ design a single important logo~
Adelaide: Oh, whole series of illustrations Logos. are sort of bread and butter stuff, pay the bills for illustrations of the fun
bit.
Michael: presumably, 'cause there's more
Adelaide: It's just more fun to do, I guess. It's kind of like, [00:18:00] would you rather bake a loaf of bread or spend ages decorating a cake? You just get more reward out of the, you know, spending more time doing the fun stuff.~ out of the, you know, spending more time doing the fun stuff. ~
Mark: Cool. ~ ~ what's the difference between after effects and flash? Because I don't know.
Adelaide: Flash died,
Michael: Did After
Adelaide: time ago.~ ~
Mark: ~there's, no longer a flash. ~
that is the old flash. There's not like a new flash thing that's still a program that
Adelaide: They, yeah, Adobe animated. They
replaced it, but I haven't actually had an opportunity to use it since going into illustration. I used to love flash, I used to love frame by frame animation,
Michael: Nikki
love Flash as well. And she was
saying, it was like, she was like, oh, I'm really liking all the, there's no thing,~ there's ~
Adelaide: ~I agree with Nikki.~ It's, it was it was also just like a very basic flip book animation. You just had to know how things moved and you, and~ moved and~ and you, drew it. Whereas I suppose you could do a frame by frame with After Effects, but it's now all tweens and you
know,
Michael: bizarrely, my best mate was over from China with his wife and
she was like, oh, I've
Adelaide: I thought I was your best mate.
Michael: [00:19:00] I've
gotta
study tonight. You were, you were a big changed at the start. Um, but~ she~ said, I've got a study tonight.
I've got an exam tomorrow in Flash. oh, this must, this must be like some different thing also called Flash. And I was like, what the, and she's like, yeah, that, like,
Adelaide: Like the bathroom
cleaner. What?
Michael: 2025. Someone out there is doing
exams in Flash. I
didn't even realize you could install it on like, what
is it installed on? Like, which, which browsers are, you
can't,
Adelaide: Yeah, I honestly thought it was
completely obsolete. How is that
Michael: confused. Very confused. ~ ~
~your, what's the biggest misconception~ what's the
Client Horror Stories & Misconceptions
---
Michael: biggest misconception your freelance clients usually have when they approach you for work?
Adelaide: Oh my~ God.~ Where do you start? I get a lot of, ~I get a lot,~ have a quick five, I just have got a quick five minute change for You can just bop that over and it will be, it won't be a five day change. And I love the way they just always decide how long it's gonna take you. I mean, before ai, some of these sounded a lot more ridiculous than they do now, but I had people send me sort of digital [00:20:00] photos of like the back of a baby's head and go, this is my niece, can you just turn the baby's head round so it's facing the camera. No. And they'd say, but it's, it's a digital photo. I'd be like, I know, but you can't do that. And be going, why not? Or I dunno. Things like um, can you just change the green by one? And you go, okay, one darker, more cyan, more yellow. Just by one. You are a designer, you know what to do. Quite often you end up sending back the same green and they go, that's better.
That's so much better.
Michael: is, is clients from health still going?
Because I tried to look up the other day, I
Adelaide: I dunno. But I
Michael: sure there's a, Reddit. there's probably a sub. It isn't
Adelaide: I had a client once on Christmas morning asking for changes.
Mark: And you.
Michael: good. Good.
~ ~
Michael: ~good. Good.~
Adelaide: I did actually. Because if, if someone calls in Christmas morning you just think, oh my god, someone's in a And e.
Mark: just to say Happy
Christmas? No.
Okay. hi. We're Michael and I as clients compared
[00:21:00] to the average client.
Adelaide: Oh, the best. I actually did, a, I did a, presentation at work and I quoted you guys as some of the best clients ever.~ clients ever. And shall I tell you why?~ Because I did, I, so, I did, do this massive mood board, which is always like the best way to start a project if you're not sure what, what direction~ people want to~ go in.
You just,
Mark: Oh yeah. I give really weird feedback.
Adelaide: you just get kind of like, hundred images and you say, right, these are all these images that I think might work. Tell me what you think about them. And Mark basically hated everything, like, most people just go, oh yeah, I like the, kind of like the, the ones on the left or the ones, I quite like these pink ones you, you wrote next to every single one.
And the disdain that was coming through was making made me laugh so much. Because you also, you wrote next to one of them,
hate this. Hate it. I feel like I'm in a clown's house.
Michael: yes.
Adelaide: And I was like, do you know what this is? But that's why we got to where we got [00:22:00] to so quickly because I think you liked like 2% of what I sent.
And I'm like, this is perfect. Because you know exactly what your client wants. You know exactly what they hate, which is actually as valuable as what they, they like. And because you were so specific, I think it was like round two like, yep, that's what we want. It's
great. The worst thing is when clients sort of select, I don't know, like a picture from Disney 1930s and then some CGI thing from, I don't know, you know?
Tron and then you, then you go,~ I'm not,~ you know, and they say we are just like these five things. Um, can you just sort of mix like Latin American in, with ancient Egypt~ you know? ~
~and they say we are just like these five American in, with ancient~ and you go, alright, I'm, I'm not,
Mark: Can
Adelaide: no.
~So, you know, it's, I think that the towards my mood board~ you know, it's, I think that the hatred towards my mood board was much appreciated. ~ ~
Michael: What percentage of the work you've done [00:23:00] do you not show because you are so embarrassed? and you're like, I'll do it. ~But, 'cause I ~
Mark: ~mean like on the website? ~
Michael: ~cause we, we did a tiny bit of work for someone together. ~
Adelaide: ~Did we, who?~
~ No, ~
~don't say ~
Michael: ~old bass teacher. ~
Adelaide: ~Oh yes. Oh, does he listen to the podcast? the podcast?~
Michael: ~no, he, he like, ~you know, when someone's got really, um,~ ~ warped view of what they think looks
good.
Mark: Yeah,
Michael: think you were like, I'm gonna do this, but I'm never gonna own up
to it in any way.
In
any way. So like, how, how much stuff have you done, do you think, where you're like, I won't show that ~ looks ~
Mark: ~because you've, you've got a really, a really nice website with the kind of showcases, bits and stuff that you must like. Right. like. Right. ~
Adelaide: ~Yeah. ~
Mark: ~down, I'm like, my Luca isn't in there. ~
~She must think it's shit. ~
Adelaide: ~Oh no, I just update it like once every five years. It'll be in there in ~
~2029.~ Um, it's, no, I would say probably
30% of everything I do makes it through ~to actually, and only a tiny~ and only a tiny bit of that to the portfolio. Because you're right, the problem with design is every client thinks they're a designer. And I kind of envy people who are in sort of jobs like architecture or coding, where, you know, people just go, oh, you're the expert, I'll leave you to it.
Um, everybody thinks, everyone feels they've got an eye. Actually a lot of people don't. Even, a lot of people in the industry don't have an eye.~ industry don't have an eye.~
Mark: ~At least I like to, at,~ like I'm doing a website at the minute for, for myself and I, I've, I've already come into it with a preconception that it doesn't matter how hard you work in the idea market, it's going to look a bit [00:24:00] You should just do it so that it's functional and then ask somebody else to design
it better at the end when it does all of the stuff you want it to do. Yeah. Kind of go into the, ah, I've, I've just done it so many times. I've done it so many times. I'm like, you know, ~ times. I'm like, you know, it's the same when I'd to make, like slides in a presentation~ it's the same when I'd go to make, like slides in a presentation in the slideshow.
I think to myself, just, you know, do the slides good, like Google do in their presentations.~ the slides presentations.~ Don't put all of the words on bear that in mind when you make the slides and then I make the slides and I'm like. I put too many words on it again, didn't I? Yep. And like, but I need all these words. Oh, well ~fuck it.~
It doesn't matter that much. And that's kind of like, with the best of intentions, it's just not going to look nice. ~So at least I know that I've got like,~ but I can count the number of ~designers on one hand. No, sorry, the number of ~software engineers on one hand that would make a bit of user interface that would come out looking nice the first time.
And I'm like,~ make a bit of user interface that would come out looking nice the first time.~ yeah, that guy, we
get that guy. 'cause he actually does nice things. But I, I make it
ugly.
Adelaide: ~Well,~ what I was trying explain to my competitive daughters is that you can't, you know, you, you, if you're strong in one area, you kind of gotta be weak in another [00:25:00] area. That's what makes you strong in that area.~ area. So, know,~ you can't be an all rounder, you're good at, you're good at the maths and the coding side 'cause that's the way your brain,
Mark: Probably. Yeah.~ ~ ooh, number seven, which will bleed into a lot later, but obviously AI image generation has come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years. Does that make you nervous in terms of employment that companies and clients might just accept those in place of humans to do that kind of work?
Adelaide: I think I have a real love hate relationship with ai. I do use it it a lot of work and ~I'm trying to sort of look at it with, I'm trying not to,~ I'm trying not to look at it as an old person.~ I read recently that you get to a certain age where you naturally start~ to reject new technology and it's the closer you get towards your fifties.
I don't wanna be one of those people. but there's certain aspects of it that are scary. I think if you use it~ brilliant~ it's a brilliant tool. For example, as a designer, if you had to show a client what something might look like, you know, like a style of photography you were going to use or a style of illustration you were going to use, you had to troll through stock photography for days.
And, um, now it's almost like going to that kind of stock photography website And going, okay, just [00:26:00] take me to the photo where. You know, the girl with red hair is sitting in the sunshine holding a green bottle and or it can be that specific and you can sort of use it as a launchpad~ ~to ~kind of like, ~this is the kind of thing it's going to look like.
The danger is if that people run with it too far and then. Claim that as their own, which would be just as bad as claiming stock photography~ ~as your own. But that always happened
and there were plenty of people out there who, ~you know, took,~ stole other people's designs and claimed it as their own, or, you know, did the bare minimum as their own.
And I think it's just, it's probably just a bit more of the same. We've just got to have integrity. ~You've got to look at your design and you know, in your heart, you know, if you've got that feeling of discomfort, whether you did it or you pinched it. Um,~ and I think as long as you have that integrity to use it as an inspiration, but not use it for the output or at least you know, you can use it for the output.
You can do amazing things with AI as you can put in a sketch and, and convert it into another style that you know who's done the majority of the work. So I think as long as we use it that way, people have been freaking out about advancements in [00:27:00] technologies forever. Like I had this other PO other podcast the other day that Socrates really didn't think the written word was a good idea.~ idea.~ He thought that, that we would
Mark: Waste of time.
Adelaide: yeah, he thought that we would all not be able to remember anything because we'd just depend on reading and writing and that ~um, ~we wouldn't be able to come up with any ideas of our own because we'd just be reading it all. And it was, you know, writing was for Socrates And I was, like, okay, so
Michael: Look, look how deep our podcast just got.
Adelaide: yeah.
Mark: Socrates could
never have
imagined Instagram reels.
Adelaide: yeah. I'm gonna try and embrace it for what it is, but use it correctly. there are gonna be people out there who go, we are not gonna employ a designer. We are just gonna do it ourselves on ai. But~ But~ do you know what's amazing is already and I know if you're, even if you're not using AI every day, I bet you can look on Google now and just go, well, that's ai and that's~ go, well, that's~ ai and that's ai.
And did you see the um, south Park episode
The
other day? [00:28:00] Yeah.
Michael: Oh my God.
Adelaide: So,
Michael: Wow. That was,
uh,
I don't, I don't think I'm easily offended.
Like, not offended, but like, that was
Adelaide: shocking,
Michael: Oh, wow. away with it, Like,
Adelaide: I dunno whether they will, I'm expecting one of them
Mark: No, I feel like I'm definitely missing out.~ I, the only thing I watched~ I, the only thing I watched was the first half of the Ozempic one where Kaman tries to get thin and everyone's after.~ ~Everyone's after more and more
different strains of Ozempic,
Michael: is there any particular beat you talking about? Adelaide is the bit when~ Adelaide is the bit when~ Trump's
walking through the desert.
Adelaide: That's the thing, because he was walking through the desert and obviously my husband and I looking at each other going, is that AI or is that a, a lookalike?
Michael: work out either. Which one
was it?
Adelaide: We don't know, but ~what my point ~we're all asking it, but we are not just taking for granted that things are real all the time. Everyone is questioning whether things are real.
And I think as long as we keep questioning that, ~not, you know, um, ~and I'll keep telling my children,~ you know,~ no, you don't have to look like that because that's not a real person and ~that uh,~ that kind of, thing. Then we can keep some perspective on it.
Mark: l ast one, ~ go it is. Is that ~
Michael: ~I think it's me. ~
~job? If you could work on anything, something you'd~ what's your dream [00:29:00] job? If you could work on anything, something you'd like to have worked on, like Wallace and Grommet, Rick Morty, illustrate Harry Potter books,
Adelaide: Oh gosh. I just want to make props ~for, ~for films. That's
Michael: films. Okay. What film.
Adelaide: Oh, anything worse, Anderson.
~But I just did,~ I did. I'm a bit biased, so I just did a course with, ~um,~ his graphic
Michael: Alright.
Adelaide: did, I did. I'm a bit biased, so I just did a course with, um, his graphic designer,
Annie Atkins~ in~ Dublin. so I was a bit starstruck. That's like me, if you know, when they say if you could meet anyone, it would've probably been her.
Mark: Very Cool.
Breaking Prod
---
Michael: Cool.
Mark: right. Should we get to breaking prod? So a person that you know. Doesn't write software or manage programs. I'm guessing you'd never crashed a server to disasters effect, but I wonder if you've ever designed something and the client or project manager thought that it was just completely off target. Or if you've ever had a freelance engagement that just went completely south
or [00:30:00] alternatively, alternatively, the absolute client from hell. go-to
Adelaide: yes. Oh, I have a great client from Health Hope she never listens to this.
Michael: I was thinking this earlier and I was like, how much stuff do you, what Adelaide's on the podcast. I had a great, great relationship with her and oh my God,~ she hated me. ~
Adelaide: ~Oh, I, well, um, in terms of, ~I've had disasters where, you know, something's gone to print and they've printed like 10,000 of them, and then you notice there's a typo. Um. But you know, I think~ I think every, you, ~you speak to anyone who's really big in the industry and everyone has had one of those, like Annie Atkins in growing Budapest Hotel, all those famous Mendels Patisserie boxes, she put two t's on the boxes and it got, the whole film got shot with those and they had ~ like on~ to go back in post and take all correct all the spelling on something like 3000 of these boxes. So~ I think, you know, I'm~ like okay, it happens to everyone. And I try and tell myself that. But I had this one client, I met her, she was a parent in a, baby that both our children attended. And we started this job our [00:31:00] children were, gosh, she's probably gonna listen to this and sue me. Um, we ~ when we started this job. and when our children were five and I was moving~ had to be, our children were babies when we started this job.
And when our children were five and I was moving out of London, the job was still going and I still had not been paid. And um, amendments were happening. It was essentially to make a game for children and amendments were happening at infinitum. Person owed me several thousand pounds. And I said, look um, can I just.
Come on, just, I know that we're friends and everything, but would it be okay instead of if you paid me sort of at the end of the project, which might be in 12 years time, could I just take a little bit per month based on what I've done per month? I said, now I know we've got an agreed flat rate, so I'm not gonna go over that.
All I'm going to do is just ask that it be split into months so that instead of you paying me, I dunno, a thousand pounds after 10 months, you just pay me hundred pounds each month. Is that okay? Because um, I've sort of put down all my other clients' view and I'm not really [00:32:00] bringing in any money. She said, don't you try and finance your house, move by getting money out of me.
I know how this works. I don't pay my builders until they finish a job. So no, I'm not going to pay you until you finish the job.
Michael: That's not true. I,
Mark: yeah, I'm not sure I would've got, uh, all the way to the end, the end of this project
Adelaide: was, so, ~ ~
~was, so, I did, so I~ I did, so I basically
said, well, look, Ben, if, look, you're not pay me and I'm not convinced that you will, because it's been five years,~ um,~ I'm not going to do it anymore. Sorry, I'm going to move outta London and I'm not going to carry To which he said, right, well then I'm gonna have to start again with another illustrator who's not gonna, I be able to imitate your style.
So I need you to pay me ~ thousand~ several thousand pounds in the time that I've wasted with you I went, that's, that's not how it works. She says, it is, I've got a solicitor and I'm gonna take you. to court and get out of you for wasting my time. [00:33:00]
So I had a friend who is a solicitor, I was like, can she do this solicitor?
No, she can't do this. But she was so angry and so scary that I just. Did the rest of the job as fast as I possibly could, but I did the very passive aggressive, please find attached. I just couldn't, you know, no niceties, nothing, just it's, you know, get it, get it out of my
Michael: Did she ever she use it in the end? Did you or,
Adelaide: she did, did, very well, but,~ uh, I wasn't, it was,~ know.
I,
Michael: you don't keep in touch.
Adelaide: no, ~ was a~ no, but it was a fairly nightmare project. The problem is, is when you have flat rates, as, as anyone knows, people think they can make changes for as long as they want to because it doesn't cost them anything. Which means people can change the brief and you end up with a sort of completely different project than you started with.
I guess it's the same with coding, right? If you're making someone a website, you know, people see it and then change their minds and it must happen all over the place. [00:34:00]
Mark: does that wear you off doing flat rate work?
Adelaide: Got it. It should do, shouldn't
it? do, you know what I really, really do, value, and, and you've gotta, those things are a rarity and it's really, nice to work for friends and just have a nice working relationship.~ have a nice working relationship. So quite often I'm terrible.~ So quite often I'm terrible. I should take 50% up front. I don't, I just want people to have a nice experience and it to be a nice working relationship and then come back afterwards.
Michael: is there any trepidation there? 'cause I mean, working with friends can~ go~ go really badly as well. Like sometimes I kind of think, oh, I dunno. But like, out with ~like, you know, ~my mate. But
Mark: If we're doing real
Michael: Yeah, but ~if it, you know, imagine like, imagine it was like,~ imagine it was the three of us, we in the logo~ in the logo~ and you're like, Yeah, I kinda want my money now.
And we were like, we started playing hard. We could ~ were like, we playing hard.~ we could like. You know what I mean? This feels like this lady. Yeah. No, I just need a, a few changes and five years later you're like, oh my God, I used to get on with Mike and
Mark: they change their logo every week. I keep doing it and~ they keep~ using.
Michael: ~Just, I Just, wonder, wondered if you go into ~
~it like, ~'cause it sounds like you, you like to work with mates by kind of,
I dunno.
Adelaide: You~ do~ and you don't. It's a, it's [00:35:00] a, you know,~ you~ you get, especially with mates, I was painting portraits for people for while, for a have like a friend who'd be like, oh, can you paint a, portrait of, you know, a member of family or something,~ and~ you'll do this whole portrait and then at the end
Mark: like they, they sit several
hours and you'd literally
Adelaide: not from life, but usually I'm given a photograph
or something like that. And then at the end they'll go, oh yeah, I'm not sure I gave you the right photograph. And you go, okay, so I'm gonna need to start again then. And they go, yeah, but now, now I've I can't pay you anymore. And that's the difficulty because then when they're a friend you know, you know their personal life, you know their heart up, you know they're struggling. just can't be that person that goes, well, no, you have to pay me double. You just end up going, okay, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, sure.
Mark: But a bit faster this time.
Adelaide: Yeah. ~ did. ~
Michael: ~the trailer ~
Mark: ~she goes, she's gonna be listen, walking around your house, got two big topics, uh,~
Freelance Design: Main Topics
---
Mark: Alright, ~uh,~ I got two big topics, uh, freelance [00:36:00] design and the changing times of ai. ~ ~
Michael: ~off to it's nice. I think ~
Adelaide: ~flow started really going into sort of teenage ~
~ Can you guys I'm not packing ~
Michael: ~We were kind ~
Mark: ~through some of So, um,~ So, yeah, I thought the freelance design would be good. start off? How did you get your first client? How did it come about? How did you get your first bit of work that wasn't full-time employment, but somebody says to
you, can you
do a thing for me?
Adelaide: Slimy necessity, I suppose. I think I really started freelancing when my kids came along. ~It was, it feels like, well,~ well, it was only like 11 years ago, but it felt like a really different world then in terms of having kids. No company was sort of willing to give you time off if your kids were sick or anything, or allow you to change your hours to pick up from nursery.
And so when I got pregnant, I just had to quit my job. ~I didn't really have,~ I didn't feel like I had an option and then think, how am I gonna bring in money? I think my first job ~was probably, ~it's just people who know, isn't it? ~It's always, ~I've actually only ever worked by word of mouth and it's always been,~ only ever worked by word of mouth and it's always been, at the time, it was~ enough.
I was managing to fill all my freelance days with work, meeting people outside of a school, oh, I'm a designer, that kind of thing. And I think my first job was actually for ~my, ~my sister's company, and it was. amusingly, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. So I [00:37:00] had to lot of female anatomy and it was the kind of work I was working from my parents' house 'cause they were looking after the, the, kids.
And it's the kind of work where I had to cover the screen when my dad walked in. I was just,
Mark: It's like, are you, are you drawing fannies? is this
Adelaide: I really, I really was drawing, I drew a lot of fanny ~I ~
~really ~
~was drawing, I drew fanny~ and it wasn't nice because it's all, it's all sort of how to operate, ~how to sew them, how to, you know?~ you know?
Mark: It's not like, uh, you're an artistic interpretation. It's like real to life. Draw, draw the best possible, most~ ~
Adelaide: ~nice all, it's all sort of~
Mark: but yet not just draw a Just draw
what it looks like.
Adelaide: Exactly, and I don't believe it
or not have much experience of what they do look like. So I I remember there was one day when the, she was saying it's not it's not quite realistic enough~ going on Google~ going on Google having to take all.
Michael: so is this, is this in a book somewhere then? Is, is this like, have you got pub
published work or.
Adelaide: ~It's actually all, it's to help. I've got a, ~I've got a very lovely friend who's a midwife [00:38:00] who refers to these illustrations sometimes. It's essentially helping midwives and, and~ friend who's a who refers to these sometimes. It's~ surgeons, you know, on how to deliver babies or some of it's horrible,~ know, like fixing mutilation, all that kind stuff. ~But I, you know, it's a noble, it was a noble thing to do.
I think I ended up giving them something like 500 illustrations I did for them in the end, an awful lot.~ illustrations in the end, an awful lot.~ Those are the kind things that don't make the portfolio. ~They, they make ~
~up the bulk of the work, but they're not very pretty. ~
Mark: did you manage to find somethi ng that you love in those drawings?
So what does the typical process look like from like first contact? ~ typical process~ So you say, oh, I'm a sign, and they say, oh, I need a thing.
What does it look like from that point to final payment? What's a typical exploration and whittle it down
into getting it to a final.
Here's the work that you wanted for
some money, please.
Adelaide: fellow designers always take 50% on front and don't do what I do. I think it's a good idea. There are so many projects that I've started and then clients just get ~dis~ distracted and they go on to other things, especially sort of busy people who are working their own businesses. they don't need it there, and then they will, you know, I've [00:39:00] got designs that are half done that I've never been paid for because you just, job never finished.
You send something off for feedback and they never replied. and that's it. You've spent hours on it, but you'll never see it. So take 50% upfront, I would say, and, and prove that you're worth it by showing your portfolio. I think the first thing to do is, ~you know, as I did you you,~ research research and you, mood board.
Mood board, you send people a lot of images because the main thing you want to find out is what makes your client tick and what excites them visually about sort of, you know, design. And that's really, really hard to just find out through just words. know, you have to send them a lot of images And see what kind of thing they love. '~ stuff,~ you are obviously going to find that enjoyment automatically. You're gonna, you're gonna draw the things that. That, you know, set your heart on fire,~ but you have to find~ out what's set your, your client's heart on fire.~ ~
Michael: ~Do you~ do you remember how long you mood boarded for us or~ ~
Adelaide: ~takes about, uh, a~ couple of days.
I don't tend to bill
for that because it takes me ages,~ you know, a couple of,~ a couple of days.
~finding it~ finding all the images so that [00:40:00] then you save so much time afterwards because you then really know what they want.~ really know what they want. Um, and then~ after that, I suppose it's, you know, ~draft one, draft it~ depends on the client.
Some people.~ You know,~ You know, if you're designing for another designer, they can usually see what you mean by a pencil sketch. But ~I would say most people don't, um,~ most people need something more polished than a pencil sketch to kind of see what you're talking about. I've had so many clients ~ you're talking about. I've had so many~ going, I love the logo, but can it not be in pencil?
I'm like, yeah, it won't, it won't be, it won't be in pencil. You know? Um, so I've learned now to try and get it to a fairly polished state so that people can interpret. It's just a bit easier for people to see the vision.
Michael: ~Do.~ Do you talk to a lot of other freelancers? Do you know how they work and how you compare or.~ ~Do other people charge for mood boarding?
Adelaide: I know the, the rape per hour varies hugely. I know I'm on the lower end of the scale, but I just~ end of~ can't,
I've.
Michael: I think, I think you're too nice to be a freelancer
Adelaide: Yeah, yeah.
Michael: like
Adelaide: I've just, I've got friends, friends who, [00:41:00] you also know Mike, who, who charge 80 pounds an hour and I just I mean, even I don't think I'm that good to do, you know what I mean?
I just would feel ~ who charge pounds an~ so incredibly cheeky asking
Michael: I'm,
Adelaide: of anyone
Michael: I'm do, do you remember many, many decades ago dark pixels?
Adelaide: Yes,
Michael: Dark? Like, so dark, dark pixels was this idea that uh, me, Adelaide and her husband would work together and Harry would be the kind of business front,
Adelaide: Dunno why we tried to involve him. He's got not a creative bone.
Michael: I'd kind of, I kind of assumed that he would be the person playing hardball going, no, you're gonna pay for your mood boards. Whereas if they went straight to Adelaide, he'd be like, nah, it's fine. It's like, love to help out. But in the meantime you're doing hours of unpaid pro bono
work, like
Adelaide: I've actually got a friend who is a~ a friend freelance~ female freelancer, and she doesn't have anyone sort of hassling people, but she has another email address, which is a bloke's name, and every time she needs to ask for money, she emails from the other email address
and
pretends to be somebody [00:42:00] else.
Michael: That's such
Adelaide: weirdly, her theory is
that people respond more to men than women, and I hope that's not
true.
Mark: yeah, I mean, I hope it's not true, but I imagine it's true
Michael: That's really interesting.
Adelaide: She says if she emails as the bloke, she gets~ if she emails~ paid.
Mark: straight away.
Adelaide: Yeah.
Michael: Wow.
Mark: ~Grim. Um, yeah, I I I really, ~I really thoroughly enjoyed the, the whole here's roughly what we want.~ 'cause I think we sent,~ I think Michael and I sent like five each of like podcast artwork that we liked and said this is kind of roughly where we're going. ~And when you got the mood board,~ you also had this real knack of.
Replying at the perfect time. 'cause I am naturally really, really impatient. ~Um, as, as a and said person I'm really ~like desperately impatient. And it just so happened that every time I messaged I'll mess Michael. I wonder an add deal. I'll get back to this. You
had just
messaged at that
exact moment and I was like, that's freaky.
It happened like three times in a row.
I was like, but yeah, I really, I really liked the, the mood board thing there was ' so many different things. It's like, try out all of these styles and see what you like, ~ these styles~ yeah, you're right. Like loads of them were like, I was like, I hate this.
Michael: I~ think one, I ~
~think one of them, you~ said, this
gives me a headache or something, or it makes me feel
[00:43:00] sick. Like
Adelaide: But I loved it because you get a lot of direct~ it~ clients. There was something, in the way you were wording everything that was funny.~ And so~ I found myself laughing at it all.
Michael: So it reminded me of the anchorman one where that person's like, do you remember the person sprays the ~ reminded me of the~ aftershave? And that lady's like, smells like a nappy, like a burnt, like
do you remember the bit, like smells like bigfoot's dick? it was like that
random like,
Adelaide: I was like
that.
Mark: I think it worked well because by the second round we were like, yeah, there's six. And
And they were all like,
those are great.
Don't, don't dislike any of those.
Michael: I, if someone said to me like, what would you think of a, that kind of brown palette, retro logo thing, I would've been like,
nah,
that's like
Adelaide: Yeah.
Michael: And by the
end I was like,
Adelaide: Imagine Imagine if I'd have just pitched it. I'm thinking Brown.
Michael: thinking retro, I'm
Mark: I'd have said, get
on Todd.
Michael: but that's 'cause I don't have a visual brain. So,
Mark: But I mean, it's worked really well because
they were like, some of those ideas ~were, were,~ were great and now we [00:44:00] basically use them as the basis for the cover art. Basically. If I've got a meeting that's like dull and doesn't require my input, I'll be like, maybe I'll just draw, maybe I'll just draw some squares ~and shit~ while I'm listening to this person chat.
Shit. In~ this meeting,~ um, do you get a lot of repeat work with clients
coming back for more?
Adelaide: Yes, actually most of my clients are repeat clients which is.
Mark: Yeah. How do you work
Freelance: Pricing, Rates & Process
---
Mark: out what to charge?~ ~
Adelaide: ~Ah,~ usually it it, I end up being told off by a fellow designer going, have you not changed your rates in 15 years? And I go, no. And they say, well, it should be this.~ And then I slightly,~ for the people who are regular clients, I slightly undercut it because I feel like, I dunno, I owe them something in return.
I usually say, okay, it should be this. But for you darling,
Michael: I ~ there's a theme in ~
~the chat here where, but you're just getting ~
~abused because you're too ~
Adelaide: ~yeah, ~
Michael: ~do you ever~ ~ thought~ do you ever think to yourself, I could really benefit from someone being. the bad cop
~ ~
Adelaide: ~are you. ~
Michael: ~but~
Mark: I had love to be the bad cop. That'd be
Michael: I'd be like, Adelaide, I said, you'd do it for free. He'd be like, what my God, what you like,
Adelaide: I do have more faith in
Mark in this situation. Yeah.
Michael: no. Get Mark.
~Like ~[00:45:00] when, when we did the feedback on the mood boards, I think one of the things that struck me was ~like, feedback~ I had really similar thoughts to
mark on stuff, but I don't, I have the filter where I'm like, I'm not sure about it.
Mark's like, it looks like a clown's. ~ ~It's fucking like,
Mark: Yeah,
Michael: so shit.
Mark: I'm gonna have to go and find that feedback now.
Michael: give up. As it wasn't like, No, it wasn't like, that at all. It was like, I, this is not to my taste.~ Um,~ so you're working out what to charge~ you, you,~ you arrive at a number. Is there ever like a way out of like what the client expects?~ So, so when, when,~ when you did our, for example, you didn't really say at the start, it'll cost
Mark: this much, but I don't think so. Michael and I sort of talked about, he said, how much you gonna spend?
And I had to figure in my head, I was like, eh, anything over that would be a bit much ~for, you know, the,~ for the thing we're trying to create. But yeah, it was fine. I was like, yeah, that's great.
Adelaide: I've switched to a day rate. I was on an hourly rate and someone said, no, that's something you do in your twenties.~ hourly rate and someone said something you do in~ You're now on a day rate. And I went, oh, okay. Really? Because otherwise you do get a lot of [00:46:00] bitty
work.
Mark: people don't understand ours. They'll be like, this'll take you no time. But they understand days,
Adelaide: People on Sunday, and I love my clients, but you do have the old Scatty client who says,~ ~
Mark: ~days, ~
Adelaide: ~People on Sunday, but also you do~ I've just, I'll need you on Monday. And then it comes to two o'clock on Monday and you still haven't heard from them~ haven't heard from~ and you've put aside the whole day and you pick up the kids from school in an hour.
So, you do have to start thinking about day rates. 'cause otherwise whatcha gonna do, build them for half an hour.
Michael: What if, if you are doing designy stuff for games or something interactive with the backend, is that just design illustrations ~to have a different,~ it's not illustration, right? Illustrations static, what do you call it?
Adelaide: I suppose~ I suppose you'd call it graph design illustration.~ you'd call it graph design illustration. It's a very blurred line in between
the two because we have a set of graphic designers at work, and I am actually the only illustrator, and it tends to be where it just sort of merges into what looks like more of a.
Michael: To tell you why the question ~just, I'll ask it now and we can move around later. Like,~ you must design stuff and, and some techies to make it, do things.
Adelaide: Yes,
Michael: Do you [00:47:00] sometimes give it to, they go, ~fuck~ no way. Like, I can't do this. Like,~ how do you, ~how do you know what's possible when you design?
~Like, do, do you have an idea you just do it and then people make it work? ~They work it
Adelaide: it's, yeah, I, I think it's probably the latter is in just shoot for the~ me. That's such a but, you know, but then, ~um, scale back then if you have to, but, it always goes best. I got this rule when~ I work~ that I never say no ~ ~and I just nod~ ~really confidently and then behind the scenes okay, have to try and work
out how, how, to actually do it.
But it's.
Michael: Oh, so it's the other way round. So the people are, the tech people are coming to you or,~ tech people are coming to you or, ~
Adelaide: ~Well,~ Well, we,
yeah, we do work~ with, we~ with, we do outsource and you do send to tech people and then
there's~ always gonna be a compromise along the way where~ people say, well, we can do it, it's gonna take three months to do it. So you then end up scaling
Mark: And the project manager's like not a chance.
Adelaide: ~it's always, ~it's always a yeah, two and fro, isn't it? I guess you just, it's an open all the time and you just make sur e the communication's there and,~ communication's there~ and you also just have to be really empathetic. I think. You know, it's if you just go in my way or the highway, you're never gonna get anywhere.
So you just have to be~ ~compromised. ~Okay, how can, if it can't work this way what can I do to help make your life easier? And that kind of thing. ~
Mark: ~yeah. Okay. is it mostly illustrations and logos or things with a work? Michael, you asked this question. I've asked like loads of questions. Go for it.~
Adelaide: ~Just gonna repeat what you said.~
Michael: ~this, this is the thing I was trying to say earlier. Yeah.~ Is it mostly illustrations or [00:48:00] logos or is it~ is it things~
~with a,~ do you prefer that to something where there's some. Backend element to it, like something's gotta work. ~presumably it's if, if,~ if you give someone the logo, it's one thing, but if you're expected to be part of something where things move
Adelaide: Oh, someone's got to animate it or make it
interactive or
Michael: yeah. Presumably that changes the game quite a lot. You can't just, you know, like if you're doing a website, someone's like, well, I've tried to integrate that, but I can't. ~And ~
~this is the thing I was trying to say earlier. Yeah. Is it. mostly illustrations or logos or is it ~
Adelaide: I have got that
awful thing where I feel like ~just, ~just let me do it. I can do it better.~ just, just let~ Do you know what I mean? like I have sometimes just trust issues with handing stuff over. And it does often happen if you hand things over to people who are coders and they're not creatively minded minded, they can take your beautiful illustration and animate it in a way which just looks ridiculous, ~ lots of time.~ so I do, I love the autonomy of having full control of a project 'cause then you know exactly what it's gonna look like at the end and it's all yours and everything. But having said that, there is something so wonderful with when it works with the team and you're a little cog and [00:49:00] you pass it your design along the little conveyor and you see it develop and all of a sudden it's something completely different.
I guess it just depends who you are working with really.
Michael: Do you get, do you get a lot of website, work
Adelaide: I tend not to pipe up these days when people say, who designs websites, I just tend to look around, go, oh yes who
Michael: yeah,
Adelaide: me designs
Michael: because you know, it'd be a massive time thing or.
Adelaide: oh yeah. I think it is,~ just, ~
~it's, it's the real,~ it's like designing, um, forms or something.~ It's, it's, no, it's ~a real chore. nothing that
~ ~
Adelaide: ~design my own.~ I think also now there's just so many platforms where you can do it yourself that there's almost sort of no excuse. People could jump on Squarespace and drag in their stuff ~and with all the templates,~ it's so doable. That's what I'd be doing anyway. I am not good enough at ~sort of~ HTML and CSS to be doing it from scratch.
I'd be jumping on a Squarespace or Weebly or something and doing it that way.~ I'd be jumping on a Squarespace or Weebly or something and doing it that way. So, ~
Mark: ~yeah. ~
Adelaide: ~so~ on a bit of an offshoot, do you still do this work if people are kind of want it?
If, are you asking?
Mark: Yes. Quite. Yes. [00:50:00] Fine. I'm asking. I've got a, I've got a, a, very boring web portal that needs a bit of design and if it ever functionally does what it's supposed to do.~ portal that needs a bit of design and it~
Adelaide: No. Yes for you, mark? I would of course. 'cause you're a wonderful
client
Mark: lifesaver,
Adelaide: You know which, which of your friends are the most pedantic ones and which of your friends will? So~ ~
Mark: ~Um, yeah. Uh, So~
~you've got your own freelance stuff, small business. Do you do your own accounts or do you pay an accountant? ~
Adelaide: ~I pay an accountant. Do you want to know what his name is? ~
Michael: ~Chris.~
Mark: ~guess so. No, I don't, I'm not trying to ~
~find an accountant. I'm just curious. ~
~He's got a funny name.~
Adelaide: ~He's got a brilliant name. Do cut this out afterwards because it's not fair on him, but his name is Mike Hunt.~
Michael: ~Oh yes. ~
~Did you use him for the ~
~gynecology work? That was ~
~Mike, Hunts. I'm gonna need to get ~
Mark: ~that's right up your street. ~
Michael: ~something close to home like.~
Mark: ~Uh ~
~Okay. ~
Adelaide: ~the best accountant though. If you ever need anyone, he's the nicest guy and every time you go, Hey Mike. He goes, you go. Okay.~
Michael: ~I, I used, I used to know someone, that name I want, it'd be crazy, but the same person. And I didn't get it for a while. Like, I knew his brother and he was like, oh, like, you know what? My brother's called, he's called Mike. And I was like, and then one day I was like, oh, oh. Like he was like delayed. But three weeks later I was like, oh, I get it now. The ~
Mark: ~shortsighted parents.~ last one, uh, in this mini segment, ~ your favorite bit of equipment.~ I feel like I've walked past the design games, desks at games, just many times, ~ they're not~ They're
drawing on the big, I think that's it
behind you, if I'm not mistaken.
Adelaide: That
was, yes.
Mark: with a pen, but this, it's not a, it's not a screen ~ at the, you're looking at the, computer screen while~ you're looking at the computer screen while you're drawing on the thing.~ ~
Adelaide: ~basically,~ It's a Cinq by Wack on and it's basically, it's a drawing
tablet, but the screen is you, you get versions of them where they're sort of like a giant track pad and you still look at your monitor, but that is, it's got a monitor within it so draw directly on it
Yeah, I do, I do love it.
But lately, as I've said, I'm falling in love with analog again, so collection of of paper and pencils is [00:51:00] fast becoming the most exciting. Bit of a case. Mouth
Michael: Your
fa favorite milligram pa favorite milligram paper to go with your
pen?
~ ~
Adelaide: ~it's gotta be a heavy~ Oh, favorite milligram. Oh, it's gotta be a heavy paper. Something like
Michael: a, like a, like a 200, 2
Adelaide: Yeah, two 10 gsm.
Michael: Okay.
Mark: Nice. That's a treat. ~ Uh,~ So the other thing I've got is the changing times of ai. so
AI's Impact on Design & Illustration
---
Mark: how do you think AI has impacted your industry? Have you noticed, in the tools that you're using, are there like new AI features being added to the tools that you
use most often?
Are they like quite prominent? So ~what what kind ~
~of, ~what kind of stuff?
Adelaide: Every time you go into Photoshop and Illustrator, now there is something now that, that AI can do, and I had just heard the other day,~ now there is something can now~ what's it called? Harmonize. So you can now drop, say a picture of a dog onto a sofa, and it's a photo of a dog from, I don't know, the middle of the day. And the picture of the sofa is, I don't know, an inside tungsten lit sofa.
And you drop the dog onto the sofa and you click harmonize and it re lights the dog [00:52:00] in the lighting that the sofa has to look like the dog as part of the image.
Mark: So that would previously have taken you like ours.
Adelaide: It would, particularly, you know what I find the saddest is the AI that, that Google are putting in, and Apple are putting in their photography software on phones.
Mark: Yeah.
Adelaide: Um,
and I know this sort of like, I know everyone freaks out at these new technology. People freaked out about photography once upon a time.
~ photography once upon a time.~
~But~ now you can change, now you can go through sort of 20 of your photographs and change everyone's faces~ on one image~ so that everyone looks their best.
And the thing I find about that is like, that's not a moment in time. It didn't exist. It didn't happen. And I know it's a weird fixation to say no must~ know it's a weird~ capture this millisecond that we all had together.
it's odd that
we're did that, faking.
Mark: is
actually real. I, I saw this. They, they pushed this in the
Michael: cinemas. There was a thing they did in the cinemas. I haven't seen it for a while, but whenever you get to film. They would have a advert beforehand about Google stuff, and it would be, [00:53:00] it would be all these scenarios that they're essentially faked because, you know, it'd be like a couple taking a photo, but someone's in the background and they, they removed them.
And then there was one where I remember there's, there's a one where, where all the football players are in a~ like blinking and they them. ~
~and there's one where a guy's~ a team shot, but some of them are like blinking and they replace them. And there's one where a guy's dunking a basketball
and they, they make him higher.
Have you
seen this advert? They make him higher to make it look more impressive.
And I was like, every single thing I've just seen, I hate it.
Like it. I hate this advert. This is like, oh, you can fake everything. ~fake. ~
Mark: ~Yeah. ~
Adelaide: ~and errors, and the person in the~ There's a certain part of all of us that just really loves mistakes and errors, and~ the person in the background,~ the stranger in the background of your photo, who's photo bombing, it is hilarious. All those things make photographs magical.~ things make photographs~ Someone's hair blowing in their eyes.
Michael: someone's
stealing our cereal at a house party,
like which was natural photo. We got developed and like someone's in the background and they were opening a cabin and stealing the cereal, like, what the [00:54:00] fuck? Yes, I've got it. I'll send it to you. Like,
it's just
Mark: but I think, I mean the one, the the one, about, you know, you have a couple taking a picture in front of a beach front and there's some~ you have a couple taking a picture some~ dude off to the side
being weird or whatever. Like you can kind of see why they might be like, okay, get rid of that, the one that I find the most gracious is the simplest one of you take a picture of five people or 10 people all at once and they're not all looking at
the right time. And then you take another
one and they're not all looking at the right
time and you just super
impose 'em together. But it's, yeah,
Adelaide: yeah.
Mark: it's not, it's not real. It
Adelaide: Yeah.
Mark: that.
Adelaide: ~ photographs is for the~ Because the whole purpose of photographs is for the memory. You're not putting it in a
magazine.
Michael: What happens when~ when you look back on that? Like~ when you look back on that phone, like 20 years from time you can remember, you can go, oh look. Everyone was like really like,
Mark: perfect and happy
and amazing.
No, that guy was pulling a face at that time. 'cause he's a dick so back to your kind of AI features, are these features that are like supposed to make designers and [00:55:00] illustrators more efficient? Or do you think like that working towards the aim of just getting rid of the need for designers and illustrators?
Like, you don't need to know how to use this thing at all. Just click a couple
of AI buttons and you're done. You don't need to be, you don't need to have any skills
to do this.
Adelaide: ~ software now, do Isn't that interesting? 'cause I think a lot of this software now, do you remember? But~ I think even when I started uni, you know, Photoshop was not for the common man. You, you know, I mean, it's still a really horrendously expensive piece of software, but ~you know, ~anyone has access to it now and ~it's um, you know,~ it's kind of thing my dad uses or you know, ~you know, ~my mom might use every now and again to just send something out to family and it's. weird because, um, it's not a specialist bit of equipment anymore. It's incredibly useful and I've, there are designers who I work with who are so excited about all these developments and it does certainly shave a huge amount of time off your work if you're just trying to get from A to B.
it's a skill, photo brushing and all those things, which is sort of, yeah.
Not needed
so much anymore.
Michael: ~ clients who,~ So you know, ev everyone's got access now to, GPT type tools, right?
Adelaide: Hmm.
Michael: [00:56:00] Do you find that when you interact with clients, because they know what they can do,~ that~ that they have expectations from you? Like, oh I, I can prompt the logo in 10 minutes. Do, do they come to you and they, they now expect to be much faster because they can prompt something or
Adelaide: Do you know, weirdly, I've had~ I've had in the last, s~ logos I've been asked to do, I've had the opposite where people have gone, can you make sure it doesn't look anything like AI did it? And that's the um, that I found really interesting is they said, don't Google this. I had a client recently who did decals for boats and cars and they said, don't go on Google and look it up, look up any other examples.
'cause it's just a load of AI crap. I don't want it to look anything like AI did it. You get
really paranoid and go,
God, I don't,
how can I make sure? a reaction against ai?
Yeah. Oh,
definitely,
definitely. Reaction against
Mark: Oh Yeah, I think there's a, there's a, there's a, when you see anything online that, that's got like a tell to, or a feel to like, that's ai,~ that's ai, you~ you kind of instantly devalued a bit [00:57:00] because it's like, not effortless in the sense of classy, but effortless. It says, nobody really tried very hard to make this.
I probably could have made I devalue content. If I think, like, if
Michael: I start seeing
content that's got, um,
~ that's got, um, you know,~ the signs,
Mark: the worst one I've got is this
Beagle like the dog 'cause because I have a beagle and he's a chef and he just makes~ he just makes~ food with his thumbs, with his opposable thumbs.
He will make steak and move it around and put it on a grill. Or he working subway and operate the till and with his thumbs slide, a subway sandwich into your
microwave. And I'm like, what is this shit? Why is this arrived in front of my
face?
Adelaide: This is the thing. I think there is a bit of a revolt against ai. At the same time as it being embraced ~there's still so much de,~ despite the fact how amazing it can be if it is ai, But there's still so much it can't do that I can be hours trying to get, it's not very good still at logos.
Actually, if I'm trying to get something just to show someone as an example, there's so much of a human element that's [00:58:00] still,
Mark: So that kind of rings true as well. Like maybe you've seen this, Michael, but you asked Cha CPT to create a bit of code for you. And then you put it down and you look at it and you like, Ugh,
that's not quite what I meant. I know that you're a smart machine, but
that's not what I wanted.
Just do, do it different.
Michael: And it becomes like after you've, yeah. After you've prompted it six or seven times to get that thing. And then you're like, well, ~six or seven~ have I saved any time?
Adelaide: Yeah.
Michael: what I kind of knew what I wanted and I asked you and like you're like, there we go. I've done it. And you're look, you're like, that's not quite right.
And they're like, you're absolutely right,
mark. It's not right.
And you're like, I could have done it
by
Mark: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. Exactly.~ ~
Creative Redundancies & The Future of Design
---
Mark: Slightly different topic. what are your thoughts on redundancies? Because there's been some redundancies Do I mean, no one's immune, right? So certainly you see things like Microsoft, I mean, the kind of thing that I'm reading is, you know, Microsoft and Meta are making cuts here and there, and then people will ask, well, why didn't Apple make any cuts?
I'm like, ~because~ they didn't hire as much during COVID and everybody expanded far too much during COVID and now they're basically cutting [00:59:00] back to an appropriate size anyway. thinking about, illustration and design, I've kind of thought that maybe it might come up to three things.
Do you think that cuts in this area would be just corporations seeking higher profit margins genuinely bad economic conditions or just a perceived, a lack of perceived need for illustrators and designers? Do you why do you think like cuts happen in the design area?
Adelaide: I think it's the latter.
~ ~
Mark: ~things and then well, why didn't Apple make any and everybody expanded to things. like cuts happen ~
Adelaide: I think
it's an, underestimation of what is needed to be a creative. And I think, I mean,~ an, an under my~ my experience is that a lot of seniors get let go in favor for bringing in juniors who obviously cost less, but people don't expect there to be a drop in the quality of the work that then comes in. And of course there's going to be, because we all started off as juniors and we all know we weren't as good back then, we've learned.
~So, you know, ~what you pay for is people's experience. Even though a job might take someone five minutes your, they worked for 20 years so that it did take them five minutes. I,~ I~ do think that if you're, Creativity is grossly underestimated [01:00:00] ability.
I think it might still be the top TED talk It's talked about as possibly the greatest gift that anybody can have. ~ out of thin~ that's, that's an extraordinarily hard thing to do. And why it's not up there with sort of maths and academia is, is still puzzling some people, and myself included, you know, I've got two daughters.
One is an academic, one is a creative, the academic one gets celebrated massively over the creative one. Creativity is way down the list of the school's list of, you of what makes you a great student. It's way down at the bottom. But actually it's, it's something that you just, it's, it's hard to find.
And I do think that the redundancies are a result of people just not understanding. What these creatives are bringing to the table. And it's something that they'll just learn over. You know, they'll let these people go they'll outsource or they'll bring in juniors and then they do seem confused about why the quality of the work goes down. it's, it seems to be a vicious circle. It seems to be that a lot of creatives get let go and then a lot get [01:01:00] brought in to try and compensate and then more get let go again. And it's
Mark: Yeah.
Adelaide: of a crazy cycle at the minute.~ ~
Mark: ~Okay. Uh, then~ how, how do you think the field of, you know, illustration and graphic design be different in the coming years?~ ~
Adelaide: ~People have gotta keep ~
~up up with, I mean, I mean,~ with, I mean, this is what we talk about a lot at work is that you you've got to embrace ai. So every creative is now got to become someone who's proficient in prompting. And it sounds ridiculous, but there are people who I work alongside who are amazingly good at prompting.
~And then, you know,~ because the stuff that they can get out of AI is, is so much better than the stuff I can get out of ai. And I see myself as not bad at it actually. so I think it is, it is an art in itself and it's got to be embraced because you've just got to move with the industry. and now people are looking for people who can use AI proficiently. So I think that's going to be something that definitely comes into it.
Mark: I think the prompting thing is spot on because totally different use case. I'm, I'm asking it to give me some code rather than any kind of image. But I've certainly had people say, this is kind of [01:02:00] useless. I have the opposite effect on this.
So, so my, my prompting has changed a lot. When I write a prompt, now it's like three or four paragraphs I give it as much possible detail as I want and I
kind of. Work out what I don't want as well. So I don't do this. This is what I want and I expect it to work in
this. And I'll reiterate the same thing several times, and it largely does a great job. But I've seen a lot of people say, this is rubbish, and it's
kind of the way that they explaining that.
Right?
Adelaide: definitely. And it's all about the details, references, you gotta throw in a lot of references.
This is why, you know, it's still good to be a creative, you can put in a lot of your own sketches as well. Yeah, you can, it's amazing actually. you can do a, a sketch of the kind of composition you want~ and then it'll translate~ and then it'll translate that.
um, but no, I think it's, it's sort of like a language of its own, a little
bit like code.
Mark: Why don't I think about that? Why don't I just give it some of the code that I like? This is the
Adelaide: Yeah.
Mark: I like it
in. Do it like this. From now on, it's genius.
Michael: was the decision to get into,~ 'cause, 'cause prop,~ the proper stuff you do~ into, 'cause, is~ is a physical thing, right?
Adelaide: Yes.
Michael: Like, was that, maybe subconsciously driven by, you can't take that [01:03:00] away. here's a
physical thing that you
Adelaide: I don't even think it was subconscious. I think it was completely conscious.~ ~
Michael: ~that you~
Adelaide: ~I don't even~ In a world of ai, you can't
cheat this.
I've made a physical newspaper here and you can't, you know, it completely, completely. you know, every artist starts off as a kid with pen, pencil and paper.
We've all been pulled into the digital world. 'cause it's, It's so easy. It's instantly distributed to thousands of players or viewers or whatever, you know. I think it just feels a bit like going back to analog. There's something so appealing about analog now Analog cameras, analog watches everything becomes more appealing I think when it's sort of endangered a little bit.
Mark: Yeah.
Adelaide: and it's, what's fascinating I found about going into props is you learn about how people made things 50 years, a hundred years ago. I've been to sort of visit people who work letter presses and, and things like that.
And these letters that people made newspapers out of were carved by hand. You know, if you had to make a [01:04:00] font, you had to do it by carving it out of wood. And not even that long ago, up until the seventies, some newspapers were still printed by less press. that's incredible. I think that people could, it's almost like people back then had more skill than we could because they could carve wood in a straighter line than I can draw it by hand.
It's amazing.
Mark: Okay. do you think that, the changing times of AI and the, how your role is potentially changing, does it make you want to pursue freelance work more if you, your job perceived as
Michael: Disposable
Adelaide: Vulnerable.
Yeah.
Mark: Yeah. potentially vulnerable. Does it make you want to
pursue freelance work more as a as a more of a
safety net?
Adelaide: I play this game in my head every day. Do I want to go back to freelance? There's things about freelance that I really don't like too. So there is just, as we all know, so incredibly secure about a paycheck coming in on a particular day of the month. and I think you inevitably get paid more because even if there's nothing to do at work, if you show up, you're getting paid.
[01:05:00] If there's nothing to do on the freelance front, you're not seeing any. Income that month. it can, you can get dry spells, you know, especially in recessions and things. It's scary. ~ love,~ that's something I do love about freelance ~ um, you know, getting to choose your own hours and~ getting to choose your own hours and choose when you go on holiday and all those things swings, roundabouts,
Mark: yeah.~ ~
Adelaide: ~swings,~
Mark: Is it easy to like turn
up the quantity of freelance work? ~Like if you wanted to ~could you easily do that or is that
~Like if you wanted to get more freelance work, could you ~
~easily do that or~
Adelaide: Yes, I can, when I, well, when I shut down freelance a little bit to, to be in a salary role,~ I had to go to lots of,~ I had to shut down lots of clients. I'm hoping that sort of thing could be reversed. You just have to be really bold, don't you? And, and ask. And it's amazing when you go out and say, just on the off chance, is there anything you need, the number of people who say yes.
I toy with the
Mark: yeah.
Adelaide: a daily basis.
Mark: something you haven't quite touched upon, because we've kind of jumped from one end of the skill to the complete opposite of salaried work to freelance. Is does contracting exist for designers like three month, six month contract,
Adelaide: It's, sort of project driven, isn't it? So I suppose, yeah, people say, we'll [01:06:00] need you for this project, never assigned enough time to it. So people say,
you know, we want you to make something that
really should take three weeks in three days.
always the way.
Mark: I think that's us for changing times of ai.
News: Online Safety Act & VPNs
---
Mark: Shall we get onto, uh, some news and then recommendations? ~Well, that's the point, right? Um, ~ the only thing I've got for news, which is, uh, maybe we probably should have been more prepared for this.
the, uh, the Online Safety Act. a couple of weeks ago, I, I got a bill from Apple for 47 pounds. I was like, what is this? So I went to my girlfriend and said, did you did you buy something? ~Did you sign up to something in the last week ~Did you sign up to something in the last week for a subscription that you didn't tell me about? No. I'm going around the whole Apple family. Eventually I get to the younger brother. Did. Did you buy anything?
Yeah. What'd you buy?
VPN.
Michael: Oh,
Mark: ~ ~uh, the online Safety Act has come in, which means You have to be 18. You have to verify your age in some way, shape, or form. I think it's come with much criticism
Michael: ~of extra subscription~
Mark: potential misunderstanding for VPNs.
I don't think they understand.
Michael: a lot of extra subscription [01:07:00] requests,
Mark: I am sure that, uh, Nord, VPN are doing well this last month. Yeah. Thoughts,
Adelaide: guys explain to me how this act, it actually works. The whole VPN thing, because I know, I and I hear people going, oh, this is only available on Netflix in the us, but just of VPN. Like I don't, I don't know how to do that.
Mark: I'm
in a great position to do this because I did this on my last holiday. I was on holiday in Greece and I was annoyed because I couldn't watch, ~ watch, um, mob ~mob land, which is great. ~ ~and I couldn't watch what I wanted to do. Here's how it works.
I create a computer virtually in the world that Google hosts for me, what I say, put it in London for me please. And effectively I create a special tunnel between that computer and my iPad so that every time I wanna make a request to the normal internet, it goes via that London server, first of all. So everything I do on the internet goes via that special tunnel to London
and then to wherever it was going.
So it looks like anybody else on the internet. I'm in London,
even though I'm in Greece. That's the gist of it. It's a virtual private network, so it's like two [01:08:00] things tied together. A private network would be like, It's just all of the stuff on our private network. But a virtual private network is across the internet. So the gist of it is you get this virtual private network that is just between you and something else, and this other server that I paid for in London, all my traffic goes through it. So it looks like everything I'm doing is from London.~ from do it.~
~So, and I'm,~
But when people talk about A VPN, they're really talking about a public VPN.
So basically just like doing that. But the thing I've just described is, uh, it took me, it took me like three hours to do it.
So, and I'm I'm an infrastructure engineer, so I should, you really wanted to watch that show.
yeah. Well, not, well, not so much that I really wanted, I, I, I had never done it before and I thought, you know what?
I've got all of these skills. I should be able to do this. I've done bits of this before. Can't be that hard.
And it wasn't, and I
was like,
Adelaide: I'm not trying.~ trying. ~
Mark: ~Nord, VPN. Yeah. Suck 'em. ~
but the idea of Nord, VPN is that, ~and~ you just pay them and it says, connect to the VPN and you're done. And it's easy peasy. where do you want your traffic to come from? and you'll say, I want it to come from the us or I want it to come from~ want~ the Netherlands, or I want it to come from
London or Ireland or anywhere or Australia. And it'll send all of your traffic
through that country.
Michael: ~And, then Netflix.~ You open [01:09:00] up Netflix and then Netflix is like, ah,~ Netflix. You open~ where's that traffic coming from? Mark's in the us. Let me present the US screen of Netflix. And then you get all the
different
Mark: Yeah, so this is sort of thing that's really important to Netflix because they'll only have content rights to show certain content in the US or content rights for, say, say they rent a show from channel four, they can only show that show in the uk. So if you're somewhere else, then they're not allowed to show it.
So they kind of need to know where you are to comply with their legal restrictions.
Adelaide: Right.
Mark: ~or maybe I'm not 18.~ So they'll just say, well, I'll just route all my traffic elsewhere. But not everybody has the technical skills to set up their own VPN, so they just pay for A VPN now and say, Hey, nor VPN, we're in Amsterdam the, yeah, the Online
Safety Act, I'm not sure if it has been well implemented or
not.
Adelaide: I can't say impacts me much
personally, no, actually, no. Having said, having said that, I was having a conversation with my 11-year-old daughter today because they were watching friends and in friends, somebody references pornography and my 11-year-old judge says to me, what's pornography? And I said, well, [01:10:00] actually you are go against the average start that I read the other day because I read that now that all these kids have their smartphones, the average 10-year-old will be shown some kind of hardcore pornography
Mark: I was
gonna say 11 is a bit late, isn't
it? Well, well, no, it's not
a bit late,
Michael: Yeah, but
like.
Mark: yeah.
Adelaide: statistics,
so I
that's why I was saying to her, you are actually,
~late to the party~ in this question of what, what pornography is. So I gave her the sort of my explanation of you know, she knows what sex is. She knows, I said, you know, it's kind of like it's adults doing a performance of it because some adults want to watch that.
And I said, the danger in you stumbling across that is you just might not be ready for that and you might see something that really scares you. I think I did a good job, but in terms
of scared the hell out of me that they said the average 10-year-old will see something hardcore because their friends will bring in their phone and show them at school. So I think there is something at the minute that there is, and there there's such pressure. as soon as they go to high school, there's this, Can I have a phone? Can I have a phone? Where can I have a phone? all their friends have got them. All these other parents are [01:11:00] just obviously don't give a shit.~ parents are just give a~ So they all, you know, all their friends at are getting phones.
Mark: Michael's kids are in a special pact
with their school, right?
Michael: there's a, yeah, there's a, thing you can sign up to. It's just like a
Mark: No phones
Michael: Yeah, like a no, no phone thing.
Mark: like
Michael: and more parents sign up to it, the more it, normalizes
it.
Adelaide: of this. it but it. does make me think they've got this little thing in the palm of their hand. They've got access to everything in the world
instantly. Going down the adolescence path here, but something in me says we've got to be moderating this somehow a little bit, so that not just anyone can just, you know, be on parent controls, can just go and see anything.
So the parent side of me says, good. Then I can imagine all my friends who are in their thirties and forties finding a massive pain in the ass as well.
Michael: But it's,
you, you, I don't wanna call your brother out on a life, on a, on a podcast, but he's over 18. Right.~ but he's ~more of a privacy thing. It's not a, ~ it's more of a It's not ~
~like,~ He's not trying to get around an age limit. He's just trying to block
his traffic from yeah. cause it's like,
I, I have [01:12:00] a, I have a VPN and it's whenever I'm on a public wifi network, my phone will switch me on the VPN to protect my traffic.
Like, it's not, it's not a, like there's a lot of uses other than
Mark: the closest I've got to that is apple's, built in
iCloud, hide my IP
Michael: Fair enough
Mark: thing. but paying another big public company for A~ company~ VPN
Michael: when you know you can do it for cheaper.
Mark: ~None. None, none. Only that,~ yes, you can technically do it yourself cheaper, but also like do you know anything about that
company?
Michael: true.
Mark: Like ~anything more than the people ~that you're trying to, to hide your IP address from? Are they gonna be good companies? Is that VPN provider now gonna know every website you go to
Michael: Yeah.
Mark: to them now, they're gonna resell your data in some way, shape, or
form?
That's a bit like, I don't know, I don't trust them anymore
than
the next person. So
that, that's why I'm don't, don't normally tend to go VPNs on this work stuff anyway. yeah, that's the end of the news because we didn't, um, I. Get her act together. Yeah.
Recommendations
---
Mark: next recommendations, um, fun stuff. What are you listening to? Music, podcast, audio books, [01:13:00] tv. You can recommend anything at
all.
I'll go, first to, to give you a flavor of, it's been a while since ~ ~I feel like I've, I've forgotten like a month's worth of recommendations, but, um, I'll try my best.~ I'll try my best.~ I got a new book which I've misspelled, the Psychology of Money. There's lots of little stories about money and how people have treated it differently, and it's been hugely
interesting, really, really enjoying it.
definitely
definitely worth a read. I'll, uh, pick
Out some
Michael: where did that come from? Out of
Mark: Spotted it on a shelf in the window of foils and said,~ in the window that one. I was in a real rush~ I was in a real rush because I walked in and the guy said, just so you know, we're closing. Like, no, I want to go home. Great choice. Yeah. Daddy pressured me and I bought one other because I, it's like he's rushed me. I don't have time to choose another book quickly, so I just chose one that I knew was on a bestseller. I like, I'll go with this, so I'll, I'll report back on that once I started. but yeah, went to Truck Festival, seen loads of bands. one was called Tongue where this man sings about the most tedious of stuff. My favorite song was called Dyson Air Blade, where he s where he sings about going into a service station bathroom and having wet hands and ~the not being any tissue paper.~ And the best machine for the job is the Dyson Air Blade. [01:14:00] So yeah, that was, that was pretty great. I'll, I'll put some tongue in there, so to speak. And I've been watching Here we Go, which has an all star cast
from combination of peep show afterlife, the IT crowd, and
Gavin and Stacy.
Michael: That sounds good. Who from the IT crowd of interest.
Mark: Jen.
Jane from the IT crowd, Gerald from Peep Show.
Michael: Yeah.~ ~
Mark: ~from the IT crowd,~
~Uh,~ I dunno the guy's name, but he is the newspaper editor guy from Afterlife
and, uh,
three Sticks, Pam from, uh, Gavin and Stacy. pretty great. ~ ~ it's kind of shot slightly in the start of peep show, but it's uh, it's good watch. Yeah. What have you
got, Michael?
Michael: ~ I kept my audible, audible ~I've, uh, I kept my audible, audible subscription
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Michael: and, uh, I'm listening to, ~ on~ It's Irv Welsh Men in love?
so it's the follow up from directly after transporting.
Adelaide: Oh wow.
Michael: because there's a sequel, which is the film's called T two, but there's a
gap,
Mark: Oh,
Michael: is like in the Gap. so it's like Ah. has just ended
and it's all of the characters and what they're doing. It's good. person who's in
the rating it is has got all these like~ like~ really different voices.
Mark: Yeah.
Michael: to to do the different characters and stuff. [01:15:00] Yeah.
So that's, that's been good. typical like Irving Walsh kind of stuff, and my dad was oh, would I enjoy it? mm, I don't know. like I'm like, definitely feel, like feel awkward, but,~ do this~ I haven't watched that much. I've been trying to do this ghost stuff, trying to like, commit to it. we got a now TV deal and I watched Joker the second one.
Mark: Yeah.
Adelaide: wow.
Michael: Um,
I
Mark: I mean, the first one was
Michael: first one I really
liked the second one's.
Mark: statement to it.
Michael: I
think people, it's the one where it's kind of a
musical.
people were really like mixed up. People didn't know how to,
Adelaide: musical. people didn't know how to react to it. It's got Lady Gaga.~ ~
Michael: ~it kind of, ~
~how to react to it. It's got Lady Gaga. ~
Yeah. And it's like
a lot of the scenes just break into a musical number. And I
think people would just, I think people were just like, I'm not sure about this. ~to, But yeah, I think it's still worth a watch, I think, 'cause it's like ~
~at the, the person ~think it's still worth a watch, I think, 'cause it's like at the, the person who's done it has tried something really different and I think that's commendable going back to the creativity thing.
Right. But then I, I
Mark: Yeah.
Michael: dunno if it lands, some people really like it when there's
mul things, but.
Mark: yeah, I wanted to ask you your TED talk on creativity. was [01:16:00] that?
Adelaide: Gosh, I'll have,
Mark: find, wanna
find that one,
Adelaide: it was about five years ago, gonna have to do this Googling quick.~ five years ago,~ It was the number one TED talk. the time, the most list, the most watched or listened to was basically that it's just an under celebrated gift. Okay. So I think it's Sir Ken Robinson.
Do schools kill creativity?
Mark: Is this the one about, ~uh, when he sends this kid this, when when,~ when, when he asks this kid to draw a house ~ what kind of house is it? house. And they~ and they ask what kind of house is it? A spooky house. And they draw all kind of weird stuff. and then eventually they go to school and come back and they ask him to draw a
house and they just draw
Michael: a
a box in the triangle.
Mark: the little square
windows and it looks like every
other house.
Adelaide: This was delivered in 2006. That's how old it is, but it's still, according to ai, the mo, the number one TED Talk of all time. I found it amazing ~actually,~ well it's 'cause it digging me up as a creative
Yes. someone on our side.
Mark: Anything else to recommend?
Adelaide: ~No, I just finished everyone's ~
~everyone's watched. I just,~ I was a bit late to the party and finishing watching Severance season two. Did you watch it?
Mark: I did,
I really had a bit of a, a dip in the middle. Again, this happened to me the first season. I watched like two episodes and I was like, this is kind of [01:17:00] weird, and a little
bit long and drawn out.
And somebody said, no, no,~ you should, you should, you should,~ you should continue with that. And I was like, all right, okay.
I'll give it a go. and it was great. And then season two was kind of similar, like episodes five and seven, I was like
what's going on? Why am I still watching this?
Adelaide: went nowhere
and then it,
came back last minute.
Mark: yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Adelaide: I ended up sort of on a bit of a rabbit hole on how they made it there's so much done in post. The majority of him running down corridors is, for example, on a treadmill, and they've put, ~they've put all the, the, you know,~ the corridors rushing past him.
He's just on a treadmill. I was listening to Ben Stiller talk about it 'cause there ~was a severance podcast as well. ~was a severance podcast as well. Most of the winters thawed before they were done filming. So they, all, the snow and everything is all put in in post as well.
Mark: it's weird because I heard that's like by far and away one of the most expensive TV shows ever made, which people always say it's a bit weird. Apparently it's much, much more expensive than
Game of Thrones.
Adelaide: ~What~
Michael: ~really? ~
Adelaide: What
Michael: really?
Adelaide: the
Battle of the
Bastards was like $10 million or
something, wasn't it?
Mark: yeah, it's the average cost for one of these episodes
is extortion high.
~ ~
Mark: ~episode,~ Uh, yeah, severance cost $20 [01:18:00] million per episode,
which is just. Per episode, $20 million, which I thought it was a scene. The one thing I heard about it was you know, the scene where there's they go into a room and the room's quite big, like a warehouse size and it's a hill with goats on it.
And they would meet the weird goat people. Apparently they like the hill and built the room around a real hill.~ ~I thought that's just stupid. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Wow. Great. It's technically ~very interesting~ very interesting and it was a great, bit of hill. What a waste of money.
Adelaide: Commitment to the cause.
Mark: to do that. Gotta be an easy way
Adelaide: Mike, were you saying you've been watching Untamed?
Michael: ~I, I, ~I watched Untamed. I was just, I I really, it was kind of,
plot was right, just seeing Yosemite, like the the shots and stuff.
Adelaide: Yes.
Michael: just amazing, like, massive, like panoramic Capitan and all the sort of.
big excite.
I thought it was really cool
Adelaide: I may have been distracted by Eric Banner,
but I'm sure the background was also very nice.
Mark: I, uh, I got one other one. I got a new, a new gadget. a nano leaf light strip.
Check it out.
Michael: you put on, now I
Mark: I
can't really show yet because
you're facing away. But, It's a little LED [01:19:00] strip of lights that goes all the way around my desk~ my desk~ that makes it kind of glow purple and which is just kind of
cool.
big fan. ~Well,~ there's loads of different themes ~and you can have it on Christmas. ~I was thinking about getting one of these for a while and I've finally done it and yeah, No regrets. ~It's cool. Very cool. Anyway, um, that brings us towards the end. Uh, last segment we've got, it's a joke.~
Adelaide: ~A joke.~
Mark: ~Louis Hamilton went to an orphanage last week. It's just dreadful looking into those hopeless eyes, said the kids. Uh, that, that's, that's all I've got. ~Adela, you've been absolutely wonderful. I've really really enjoyed
it. So Thank you
ever so
much.
Adelaide: Oh, you guys have been wonderful. Thank you~ for having~ for having
me.
Mark: it's been great.
we're thinking of getting
together for our
20th episode at some point. Yeah, we'll get there We'll get there at some point.
Yeah. Eventually. as ~long as we can, uh, keep up the momentum. But ~yeah, we'll, uh, we'll definitely be in touch.~ be in touch.~ thank you ever so much. It's been
Michael: Thanks Adela.
Mark: And we're done.
~Yeah.~
Michael: back in the saddle.
Mark: Very much so.
Michael: ~I had, I was nervous. It was so weird, isn't it? ~It was so weird, isn't it? I was nervous at the start. I've known
Mark: you
Michael: you for decades, Adelaide for decades, But still a bit like, uh, like
Mark: Oh, I dunno how to talk to them. ~ I dunno how, ~Yeah.
Michael: was on the train this morning thinking like, I know nothing about design.
Mark: Yeah. I was ~the ~kinda thinking the same thing. 'cause
Michael: and I was like, what do I, I don't, but it's cool.
It's really, really I think that actually more interesting the design was the freelance element
Mark: Yeah. ~Yeah, very ~
Michael: so much of that is your personality in dealing with [01:20:00] clients ~f ~forgetting the actual like work you do and obviously that's important, but like the business side of it.
Mark: because there's not much freelance work in platform engineering really is there?
Michael: really
Mark: and far between.
Michael: what would you do?
Like~ we, mark,~ we, mark, we need, we need a base image, gonna pay you by the hour
Mark: I'm a~ Hey,~ platform engineer. You know? It's like, oh really? Because I need, I need a docker
Michael: Yeah.~ My, my mate. ~My mate needs a, needs a pipeline. ~Can you,~ it'll only take five minutes.~ Like why not? Well, I know why not, but like,~
Mark: ~It's not, ~it's gonna take more than five minutes to make a pipeline of that complexity, my friend.
Michael: But the business side is,~ how do you, ~like I, I was surprised she didn't charge for mood boards.
Mark: Yeah.
Michael: ~It's~
Mark: yeah. It's part of your time and
Michael: I spend a few days now. Don't like, oh,~ Don't like, oh,~
Mark: No, when I've done some freelance work lately~ call it freelance work, it's, ~to me it's just work, right? You just do it at a different time of the day. But yeah, it was for a friend there was some elements of it that were eventually going to need a design, and I said.
Don't get me to design it, it'll look rubbish. Get the designer, but then the everything else is kind of true. You're doing it for friends, so you don't want to, you don't wanna rip them off. But at the same time, you don't wanna do it unless it's worth at least a certain amount of value to you because it's not your thing.
you want it to be good, and you want them to get a good experience, and you do want them to be wildly overcharged.
Michael: you've got a [01:21:00] mortgage and family
and yeah.~ Those sorts of, it's, it's, it's ~it's the time element of it, right? Because it take, because if you've got a full-time job you've gotta go and do it out outside of work, ~ ~
Mark: ~yeah. Because it take, out ~there's a huge time element to that where you're thinking, God, I'd rather not be doing this.
And it's really is ~button, like~ compared to your contract day rate, it's buttons. So I'm like, this is gonna take ages to do exactly what he wants, ~but, um,~
Michael: it's interesting to hear about prompting in design as well.
Like I have no idea what Photoshop's doing these days. It's quite cool to
Mark: The thing I find most fascinating was they, they, put in their own work and say, well, here's what I've got so far. ~Here's what I've drawn.~
I've drawn these five things, and you just give it a digital image or even a picture of a sketch and say, this is what I'm thinking. Can you
Michael: This is my style.
Mark: something more refined that I can then take out of chat? Bt ~ Bt put it in, I don't know, ~put it in Photoshop and then ai it a bit more in Photoshop and then put your own final personal touches on it to get it just right.
Sounds like a great workflow, ~but then it, yeah.~
Michael: Do you feel like a creative,
Mark: no, I I feel like I've got~ no, I feel like I'm, I've got a, ~a mission and I know what good will look like and it's what my interaction with CHATT PT are, just how do I find the fastest way to get it, to be the right quality of, because so much of the work I'm doing on my personal thing at the minute is just make this API do exactly this.
[01:22:00] So it very much so, like, ~I know there's a, ~I know what right is and I know what wrong is, and ~a, then I'm like, a,~ if it's my code and I care, I'm a horrible perfectionist. Like the indenting on the sequel has gotta be correct. It's got to be, all the investment goes into how do you go as fast as possible. So the interactions with Chachi Pier get. As close
as possible~ to this,~ to a start point. And then I will do all of my crafting on top of it and it'll be great and neat and tidy, but I'm the only person gonna see that tidiness. But it has to be great and neat and tidy so that I can go fast, because otherwise this'll take my entire life. no, the prompting thing was really interesting as well.
So yeah, loads of interesting stuff. Just a lot of stuff about design that you don't think about, like. So many times when you're doing a bit of work, if you have to do the user interface, you just say to the designer, tell me what you want it to look like. I mean, I can make it look exactly like how you want it to look, but I can't come up with a thing that looks good on my own.
~ So whatever you want.~
Michael: It's, it's funny when you said you have this suit in your head ~and then you're like, I'm like,~ I'm the same. I'm like, oh, it's gonna great, and
then I
sit
down and do it. Like I
can't I can't translate,
Mark: you're run outta a patience and you're just like, oh, just, that'll do.
Michael: I guess that's the difference that someone like that can, what they see in their head, they can put it down to where I'm like, nothing ever turns out like I want it to.
Mark: [01:23:00] maybe my CSS is just slightly rustier, but I think more likely is I'm just a bit impatient and I'm like the CSS bits that make it really shine and nice and delightful, like that's a polished bit.
We can
Michael: It's a different, it's a different job, isn't it,
Mark: it's a very different job. ~ Yeah, that was great. ~
Michael: yeah, we
Mark: ~Uh, Michael, who have we got next time? Tahir ~
Michael: ~I think the, oh, uh, ~
Mark: ~Did we have two people lined up ~
Michael: ~the, the people that have been interested have been Tahir and Tom Ash. ~
~I feel like for Tom Ash, we've already got a, who do we have next time?~
~I think we've already got one in the vault~
Mark: ~Let's just skip the whole, who do we have next time? ~
Michael: ~we can always do it. Just before the next episode,~
Mark: ~Alright, let's, let me, ~
Michael: ~No, it has to be on the, did you,~
Mark: ~Nah, we ~
Michael: ~it's on the episodes, but is it really like, ~
Mark: ~It's not essential. yeah. ~
~But yeah, before we do the spiel. Oh yeah, let's do the spiel. Get the spiel outta the way first, then we can stop this recording.~
~'cause otherwise I'm gonna have to edit it. Alright. Who's turn is it? ~
Michael: ~Do you want me to see it? So I'm looking at the, the spiel for 16, so this would be 18, right?~
Mark: ~Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just do exactly the same as that.~
~But, uh, get rid of the~
~Yeah. Team. Yeah.~
Michael: ~This has been episode 18. ~If you wanna find out more about the show or see our show notes, go to www.ctrl-alt-expletive.com/eighteen or subscribe to our new newsletter where you get weekly.
Update from us with links directly to our news and recommendations. There's a link for the newsletter in the show notes. You can follow us on Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Blue Sky, where we post trailers and exclusive content.
Mark: And that's it. Thank you.
Michael: Cool. Bye-bye.