Where did all the good websites go?

"Where did all the good websites go?" That question was put to me.

After working with a long-term coaching client for over a year, we had a massive breakthrough last night.

Our groundwork to date has been about mindset, about overcoming some challenging personal trials, and getting him facing the right way with his values and passions at the heart of his practice. This takes time, but now, with the foundations set, he's taken a huge step forward in telling his story.

It feels better than any of my own successes.

As he revealed a beautiful first draft, I struggled to contain myself. It was alive, it had a set of bollocks, and it screamed everything I've come to love about him through our work together. Unapologetic in its arrangement, its daring scale and shattering of template style open goals.

As I gushed all this onto him. He laughed and began wondering where all the good websites were, which triggered a chat about early internet creativity. Those Flash sites that welcomed you in blew your mind a little bit. The bad ones and the good ones were curated by humans, and no matter how flawed, insane, or playful, the curiosity flooded out of them like a thousand pop-ups.

Of course, clarity, UX, and all that stuff matter. As visual communicators, we know this. But surely we have to push it to some limits, break some rules somewhere, to inject some attitude, some personal experience, and point of view? Things have become so instant and so guided, which helps in some ways, but it removes the jeopardy, boxes us into replicable layouts, and achingly dull, clean websites.

Don't get me wrong, I used Squarespace for The Creative Condition's official site. I'm no developer, and my budget didn't stretch to full blank canvas customisation with my web developer. But it didn't stop me from telling the story in every corner of the site, with my own hand-rendered textures, and an unapologetic tone of voice, which permeates everything I make.

Because it's mine.

What's yours?

Anyway, my client was right. It seems odd that the ambition and imagination that characterised those early websites have not risen with the capabilities of the latest tech.

That makes me slightly sad.

But all is not lost. He's taken everything we've worked on in his life this past year, his self-discovery journey, and found a way to choose the right tech to serve his ideas, his soul, and you all have a real treat coming soon.

Trends or the unknown?

My work creating illustrations for E4's 'Skins' TV show animated trailer was my first step into the world of motion, my first outside of editorial illustration, in fact.

My hand was very much held by the patient and brilliant Mike Moloney, for which I remain grateful.

And a story I often tell students and coaching clients about the need for humour, play, and unconditional experimentation is that the ridiculous 'Tyson v Thatcher' poster won me that job.

Tyson v Thatcher was a ludicrous climax to a personal project making a series of old fashioned boxing posters promoting various speculative and, frankly ridiculous pay-per-view scraps. It was edgy, silly, and comical.

The director came to a group show for which I'd made some art, and in conversation, he broke down laughing, asking me what it was all about. It had tickled him and his partner, who then invited me to dinner, where they couldn't let it go.

In the end, the essence of the line work, and the smash-mouth approach landed with the edgy tone of Skins.

This is exactly why we should all be making bold, brazen work in a way that reflects who we are, and what we've seen and felt in this world.

There's no making that poster with that opportunity in mind. Engineering of that kind doesn't happen that way when it comes to joining dots.

So, which way do you go? Run for the trends, or do it with full-blast glee and share it to see what the universe has for you?

The Business

There's a local group who run pubs, hotels and restaurants. Their brand is different. You can be more than, less than, or different from, and different is my sort of positioning.

Their tone of voice is warm, their visual identity eclectic and rich, but characterised by the humans who run it enough for it to make sense in an endearing way. They're a small group o people at its core who aren't afraid to try things, be playful, welcoming and humble, yet strong in their vision, and it makes a refreshing change to the sameness of bigger chains. So in the shadow of those nationwide high street names who are more than, they are not less than, but different from. And so they grow. It's welcome in this city which, like most in this economic climate, is in a fight for its soul as the wealth gap widens.

Walking back past one venue this afternoon, I thought about the daily affairs of the people running this group, and recognised something valuable about running a business with multiple manifestations. I imagined them moving from outpost to the next, ensuring things were good on the ground, then retreating to some base, taking care of another aspect, be it work on the website, contractor affairs, branding, overall long-term steer of the company, and so on.

That's when I realised that my houses are not in order. I've spread my focus too thin, and instead of taking care of each 'venue', I've been too hasty in opening new one after new one. Illustration, for example, would have been my first venue. That was the profession I studied. I became an illustrator and the place thrived with regulars and occassional clientele. Then when that frustrated me in quiet spells beyond my control, I began to write about the experience. And on the side I ran a music 'agency' for want of a better term for the creative vehicle through which I put on club nights and supported bands alongside Dirty Freud. So, a little less time went into illustration upkeep because by now I had a competent agent at my back. As these exploits grew – podcast, books, lecturing, fiction collections, art direction on films – I ran after the next thing, and the next thing. Not with total abandon, but with enough gusto that I failed to employ a manager for any of the new venues. I didn't go back often enough to make new signs or websites, to carry out the upkeep required to achieve the consistency I see in this local group's endeavours. And so dust settled and most people moved on, or walked past. Customers amble by and make impulsive purchases here and there, but no marketing strategy brings more to form a stream. People remember that you do that thing, but it's not a part of the world they inhabit with any regularly.

And so, only some of the venues serve the bigger beast. But here, in this new moment of clarity after a period of overwhelm, I'm carrying out an audit on my many practices, taking small steps to design a puzzle in which the pieces fit. Where one activity informs the next, and overall, when people see those manifestations of a bigger idea, they know it's mine, and it might just make them feel enough to go and tell a friend. I care about all of my artistic practices, but alone, I am unable to maximise the potential of them in isolation. It becomes a hollistic challenge to unify and make each a part of a tapestry I, and my audience, can understand.

Small steps, steady gains. 

Rose Tinters

This morning was gloomy when I set out on the dog walk. Light rain, carpets of yellow and brown leaves, hoods up all over the show, all lacquered with a coat of unrest. Well, at least the latter is what I detected.

Just lately, I’ve been spending time in my head with a friend I lost two years ago. Just in the sense that when I meditate, or turn to thoughts of gratitude, he comforts me. He was always the more bullish and pragmatic of the two of us.

At college, despite his path of GCSE exams direct to building site as a trainee bricklayer, we somehow ended up two sets of double doors away from each other. Keighley College’s art department was, at that time, a gigantic industrial site repurposed to house not just arts and design students, but also a smattering of trades in the neighbouring block. I loved it. It meant my friend was there, and I’ve always seen great value in a diverse range of people in close proximity. We’re severely lacking it in todays divided society.

Those two years were glorious, but it occurred to me on this Autumn morning that I have, in fact, been wearing the rose-tinted glasses as I seek solace in the past. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Our minds have a way of handing us a candy-floss wrapped version of our past when our present is laced with pain or discomfort. As I looked around the park, my dog shuffling along as if at gun point, I returned to these memories and in this version of it, 2001 was also murky, industrial, and a bit bleak.

In fact, just a month earlier sits a very clear memory owing to it’s sheer surreal qualities. My brother bursting in the front door in his secondary school uniform, going, “Quick, put the news on! Someone’s blown up The Empire State Building!” My mum and I thought he’d lost it, but he was a smart, level lad, so we did as he asked, and, tragically, while he’d heard the wrong building, none of us will struggle to recall how 9/11 made us feel. It felt like Armageddon. For some families it was. But the point is, there were tiny and giant fears and pain and discomfort and shitty weather and negative emotions back then. I had a date that night, a cinema trip to watch A Knight’s Tale. Then back in college the next day.

As I dwell in this memory, a clear recollection of how doomy it felt when harsh rain hit the skylight windows of the corrugated roof that hung over us, 50 or so feet high, especially when I stayed late and it was just me and the caretakers. Somehow though, we all made it through with smiles and gidd anticipation of various adventures to universities nationwide, and now, despite a challenging time of anxiety, I’m taking steps to manage these thoughts with CBT, newly reintroduced strenuous exercise, and more non-booze socialising. And one day, I know I’ll gaze back on this time with the rose-tinters on, and I want those memories to acknowledge this battle, while rejoicing because actually, it’s still pretty fucking good to be alive and able to create, to tell stories.

Beanstalks in General

There was a question, but I missed it because of the clinking crockery being palmed into the dishwasher. The answer was uncertain, my wife wondering in real time as she considered this.

‘Oh… I don’t… I dont know, actually… I wonder if all beanstalks go to the same giant’s castle.’

No more plates and bowls racket. Just silence as I pick up my cup and frown. You can’t drop things like that on a person at 6.50am! But she did, they did, and now the sky castles are multiplying, all those angry cloud stompers with all their stolen gold, fee-fi-foing around the heavens. It’s like an oversized 1980s first division football fan fight in a car park, little working class cow-salesmen bolting every which way as size 482 Adidas Sambas fly at their petrified little bodies.

In the end, I shake my head, laugh, and try to move on.

Brain Lube

Dan Kieran, a local friend and author among other things wrote this great piece about taking a moment before attempting to create, to loosen up the mind, to tap into a sense of wonder and inspiration.

The trouble with showing up with an unwieldy to-do list now, as we try to be many things just to survive, is that we have to firefight to not get overwhelmed. So, reflection, immersion, play, and opening up to possibilities become the disposable rituals we can shed to ensure we remain productive.

I’ve been trying to follow Dan’s lead. He spoke of picking up a book and reading a few pages to enter a different headspace, opening that little door to flow and forward motion. But like many times before, the kids serve up a pure lesson.

One is on the kitchen table drawing Paw Patrol’s Marshall, the other up at the kitchen island drawing Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. They are silent, deep in flow states as my wife and I buzz around carrying out hundreds of tiny tasks to get them ready, everyone fed, and all of us out of the door on time.

TV is not an option on weekday mornings. Some days the huff and puff and ask us what they should do and we point to the wealth of puzzles, games, pens, paper, books, and toys on the shelves and say, ‘I don’t know, whatever you want.’ Eventually after admitting defeat, they’ll choose something and commit.

I quietly watch with a smile on my face, whether it’s Lego, My First Engineer set, art, or a board game because that little door opens. Sometimes they play together, other times alone, but the difference in the way they show up at school, ready to absorb the sensory experience, is stark to the odd weekend day when they are allowed an episode or two of whatever TV show they’re into. On those days it takes a little longer to get them out of their sluggish groaning. That’s fine – they’re human and it’s the weekend – but I apply this to my own creative upkeep. If I arrive and lunge straight for a screen or a pen and paper, I’m undermining my brain’s need for immersion and attunement.

The days that start with a page or two of a book that inspires or a good, deep chat on the dog walk tend to be the ones on which I find flow, and make better decisions.

This is no revelation or profound piece of wisdom. It’s common sense and bloody obvious, but the screens have been woven into every aspect of our being, that we don’t question the nature of their presence enough. As far as the kids go, whatever your point of view, go read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

Floundering, now

A friend of mine posted about AI agents. I heard Steven Bartlett talking about these. Fucking horrifying. I couldn’t tell you a great deal about them, other than the fact they’re another dollop of terrifyingly powerful technology that can do all kinds of things. He mentioned ‘cold outreach’, answering emails, all kinds of stuff.

Now, I’m an organisational shit show. I pay my tax, my bills, and I’ve never missed a deadline, but I could do with an assistant to crack the whip and handle some of the boring-but-all-important business stuff that helps keep things from caving in on our sensitive heads.

But to date – and I’m not saying I can’t learn – I’ve typed one thing into ChatGPT, about what other jobs there might be for my skillset and experiences, during an acute lean spell. Part laziness, part ignorance, part ideological opposition to the resource uses at a time we can ill-afford to push the climate any further. If it comes down to having a habitable planet or sorting my admin, then even I will happily get my act together and boot up a few new spreadsheets.

So, I thought about this on a short walk, and it occurred to me that while the future is now, and I’m still woefully trapped in a parallel dimension – the archaic present that is still here in front of my eyes in the physical world, but run increasingly by Minority Report technology – I’m also locked out of an important past I might soon have to lean into, a nomadic, survival-driven one.

I’m slowly but surely ‘prepping’ – buying Swiss Army knives, torches, and water-purification tablets, reading guides on making fires, eyeing up courses in the woods run by ex-army experts.

What a confusing time to be alive! I’m doing the prep stuff to help with my eco anxiety, which is far from unfounded, but needs addressing before it torches my creativity and peace of mind altogether.

Now that I think of it, is there even a future where I have a survival assistant? Where the present as we know it is spunked away in an astonishingly stubborn display of human greed, arrogance, and denial, but the bots stick around to… oh fuck this, I need a lie down.

Newspaper Paul

Paul was a mate of my old man, when they both went onto Elland Road regularly to watch Leeds United.

At 14-years-old, that football club was the biggest slice of identity I had. The paper round had started to add smaller bits of social armour to the outside of that big yellow, white, and blue underbelly, ripe for being gutted by any failing of the team on a matchday. As a paper boy I started to engage in small talk with the elderly folk in the flats I delivered to.

Paul was the caretaker, and after sitting in the stairwells, sifting through the sports pages of the full spectrum; from tabloids to broadsheets, even Financial Times, I’d accidentally-on-purpose seek him out as he sorted the bins or the mail on the groundfloor. He’d get all the transfer rumours, team news, and any other tenuous gossip surrounding the club. I had to work for it. This was 1997 and we weren’t online yet. At least not down in our working class world. So we made a bond and I felt like an adult, like I had some social worth at a time when, as a 14-year-old, it was incredibly easy to feel the complete opposite.

I looked forward to this, and for the same reasons, I seek out and take every opportunity to expose my kids to such relationships with local adults outside of their home and school. It brings on belonging and a sense of psychological safety, maybe even validation for something.

Back then I’d sit in my room on the evenings and sometimes feel a nameless melancholy in my stomach, especially during the autumn and winter months. My sensitivity was coming to bear, and I had no way of understanding it, no idea how to talk to other people about feelings or the more expansive thoughts I was starting to have.

It wasn’t as if Paul was going to answer them, but somehow, that passing interaction, built on something as trivial as sport, mattered. I’d made it out of bed far earlier than I’d liked, done my job, earned my £1 daily fee, and spoken to people, one of which knew something about me and the things I cared about.

Sometimes that’s enough, and I’d put that in any list of commandments to hand to anyone looking to lead a career and life with creativity.

Get out, do things, say hello, share something real.

It’s incredible how it can set things on a better course.

Ref Cam

It felt more dystopian and psychologically intrusive than most of the shite I’ve tried under the ‘horror’ category on Netflix. The way my screen jostled and swung from side to side, raking our faces with upsetting snatches of Premier League football superstars gesticulating, all sweaty and outraged, uncomfortably close to us, hands cupped together like Oliver Twist begging for sustenance. It didn’t linger on any of them long enough for our brains to comprehend what we were seeing, expertly yet unintentionally employing the genius of The Blair Witch Project’s ‘what was that?’ handheld camera filmmaking technique.

Welcome to ‘ref cam’ – a squirming, sodden, utterly evil demon child birthed into the already sick world of top-flight football.

The only consolation, as I watched Newcastle United and Liverpool on Sky Sports Monday Night Football, was the hilarious mask of revulsion on my 70-year-old dad’s face. We were still trying to get over the poor referee’s new performative responsibility of shouting out the VAR decision through a microphone to the live audience.

We weren’t prepared for this. I can’t stop thinking about it.

To make matters worse, I’m reading Matt Dickinson’s gorgeous 99: Manchester United, the Treble, and All That. I’ve learned so much about coaching, team spirit, work ethic, roots, and sheer desire to master a craft from the story of one of sport’s all-time greatest teams and its rightly revered manager. Don’t get me wrong, even back in 1998-99, the money was out of control, but the turn of the century now feels like the last time fans and players were tethered in any way, before the sport became big business.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, as ever, I joined some dots.

My beloved creative industry, while far from awash with dirty money and entitlement, is becoming increasingly performative as workpools shrink. They’re shrinking because of a perfect storm of technological advances, greed, world events, shaky economies, risk aversion, and increasingly ready acceptance of affordable mediocrity.

Social media hijacked a large part of what used to be much more about faces, places, and connections than it was about shouting for attention. This isn’t entirely bad. How could it be? I landed my dream client, WWE, thanks to the accessibility of creative directors otherwise beyond my reach. I shouted for their attention and got it from the comfort of my spare room. But it happened because, despite the Atlantic Ocean between us, we built a relationship upon shared values and the love of great design and creativity.

What I really adored about my early trips to London, paying peanuts to sleep in an 8-bed dorm in a Brixton hostel, was walking into a 3D, real-life environment, never to look back. With every guest pass to a posh HQ, I was connected, face-to-face, in real life, and felt all-important belonging. And it wasn’t just the person I’d arranged to meet whom I met. They’d walk me around the studio or the design department, introducing me to other designers, editors, art directors, and whoever else might one day want to buy my artistic wares. It worked in the same way social media does, just with sore feet and a few beers at lunch time or after the work day tacked on. You know what they smell like. A beer or a coffee ensured the person would remember you, not lose you in their bookmark tab forever. They’d stick their neck out to push for a superior to commission you because you were real and they’d seen you were professional.

As I watched my dad’s face scrunch into itself and almost disappear, I sniggered, but I understood and shared his horror, infusing the guffaw with sick desperation. You have to remember, he grew up in an era of professional football when it wasn’t uncommon to see your heroes in the pub or the chippy after the match. I’m not saying this was better than the ultra-athlete/celebrity incarnation of today’s game, but it, like those days of just a generation ago in the creative industry, was built on a connection between fan and player, and the vast majority of it was live and in living colour, not on Twitter. Commonality, respect, admiration, togetherness.

Today, most of us in the creative industry forego that hard work. The half day of work and overpriced train ticket fare sacrifice required to make a meeting happen could be saved during a cost-of-living crisis, and we can send out 100s of emails or create several posts, spinning thought leadership and portfolio posts like digital webs in the hope of catching new clients. Everyone is on there, at the tips of our fingers via keyboards and screens. So we all go there. Every fucking one of us. But it means we have to shout louder to be heard, following the flock in apeing techniques to up our volume. Even then, we’re scared of algorithms kidnapping our content. Before we know it, we’re on our knees, hands cupped over our chins, begging and pleading to be seen and heard, and in the heat of the moment, when things are tight and cash flow is dicked sideways, we’re no different from the footballers on the ref cam, because that bond, the one that characterised bygone days of football and the creative industry, while not obsolete, is on the red list. It’s endangered, and what we’re left with is a bleached creative coral reef, retaining the shape and the likeness of what we adore, only without colour or life.

The ref cam comparison might be fanciful, given the fact the footballers are loaded and we’re skint, but you see my point – there’s only one ref on that pitch, strapped up like the Terminator with lasers and microphones, time travel gadgets and cameras to force drama where it is least needed. The official carries great responsibility and power, the keys to the kingdom, and so gets swarmed like art directors asking for an illustrator recommendation online, despite only being able to appease one.

Comfort

It’s the golden hour. At least that’s what my photographer friend used to call it. That sun-going-down perfect light when beauty is easier to come by. A group of eight blokes play cricket on the park at the bottom of my street and you only have to watch them for 30 seconds or so to see that it matters.

The shouts, the ferocity of the bowls, the celebrations and commiserations.

I stroll around the edge with the dog and give them all my attention. I’m running on low battery after a taxing day working at the bottom of the garden. A podcast interview, a coaching session, an illustration deadline, and admin things squeezed in between. There’s mid-level stress at play in my gut, so I sit while I let the dog sniff around in the long, dried-out grass at the top.

It feels good watching the game. I don’t root for anyone, I don’t know the score, and I don’t want to join in either – I never really gave cricket much of a go, so the pull just isn’t there.

What I adore is the community. The tribe. The boys. Doing their thing, coming together through shared passion. I’m still working at finding more of that.

We all need a little more of that. Leading with creativity necessitates connection. Those Zoom calls, the podcast and the coaching session were invigorating on an inspiration level, but screens are a bit like those prison visits you see on TV dramas, aren’t they?

A few days later I get my act together and meet Lewis, a friend and local designer. We sit on a bench by the cathedral and talk about many things. Him with his son me with the dog. Half an hour or so. Then we walk back through town and carry on. I’m glad I did.

Lewis and I started ‘Friday Drinks’ here in Salisbury for this reason. Too many shed and spare room dwellers going out of their minds alone in a cut-throat market, with more to offer. I see more of it happening, in all those fringe towns and villages.

Gallows Humour

I got talking with a friend about humour in creativity. A very specific type of humour: gallows humour.

Merriam-Webster defines the term as; ‘Humour that makes fun of a life-threatening, disastrous, or terrifying situation.’

A firefighter friend told me how essential this is for mental well-being in horrific situations in his professional life on a podcast.

In my first short fiction story, All Things Nice, it entered my creativity as I wove a narrative to deal with the turmoil I felt over my fears of a friend being made homeless.

I suppose that’s the point: this world is upside down and still trying, desperately, to work itself out. We, as self-aware creatures, are tuned into a social, collective psychology, and there’s paranoia out there, rage, fear, and a longing for something better.

Creativity can serve all of this, but the paradox is that creativity doesn’t come easily when that turmoil is constant.

That’s why our industry is in flux, too.

Writing is healthy. I’d recommend writing to anyone. For yourself, to vent, to let it all out.

I recommend it to most coaching clients. It might surprise you how useul it is to understanding or releasing what’s going on in there.

PJ Richardson told me that he makes art that aspires to a near-utopian, unashamed level of happiness. Even if – like most of the time – he isn’t feeling it. I found that quite profound. Without glorifying the struggling artist stereotype, which we should not so easily accept as a given, a lot of this is indeed about aspiration. Aspirational work through acts of emotional creativity can play a part in getting us, if not to Arcadia, to somewhere better.

Learning opportunity

It’s the first experience of the parenting and working juggling act during school summer holidays for my wife and I. We’ve managed. Just about.

My daughter reminds me in some ways of my younger self. Particularly her tendency to lose focus when she’s not impassioned by the topic I’m trying to engage her with. So far, it seems, this is not so at school, where her teachers illuminate us with reports of ultra focus. Kids in their comfort zone are a different animal.

One morning she’s astounded by the ease with which I name the nation depicted in a graphic of around 24 nations in my son’s Lego instruction booklet. She asks why her mum does not know most of them, and I do. I explain to her that this is owing to my obsession with football sticker albums during various football World Cups. Knowledge via passion.

One afternoon, I transfer parent duty to my wife after a morning with the kids, and my daughter is quick to transfer her allegiance and affection.

‘Flick Daddy back to the studio!’

I cackle at the verb ‘flick’ in this context and maul her to the ground, tickling her until she taps out and ruffling her hair. In retaliation, this progresses to ‘Flick Daddy to Turkey!’ (She has a classmate whose father is Turkish.)

The next morning, I intercept her on the landing to give my wife a well-earned bit of extra sleep, and she is not happy about this. Denying my prompts to read a book or play with some toys, she sits on the sofa, scowling at me while I stir the porridge and prepare bowls.

‘Turkey.’ Now just distilled to one word, her indignation is palpable.

‘Australia.’ She notches it up.

‘Antarctica’, I return fire, flicking my fingers at her, narrow-eyed.

This continues, picking up steam when my son arrives, opening with ‘South Pole.’

By the time we’re onto planets, I’ve made a mental note to acquire a second-hand globe or world map. Humour is the conduit here, and if we can keep this tongue-in-cheek expulsion-wish list game going, her global geography will be significantly elevated far more than it could have been with a simple ‘sit down and look at this’ brief ahead of the return to year 1.

That’s all teachers want. The good ones, anyway. The time to understand individual needs and tend to them.

Burn any Bridge

There’s a slide in The Creative Condition talk that says LIKE MINDED PEOPLE? The question mark because I wanted to highlight the limitations of spending time only with those we feel comfortable with, or who remind us of ourselves.

One friend I’ve recently made makes some people uncomfortable with his unbridled honesty.

We’re talking in the street, with one other fella who says, ‘I always say it’s a small world, so don’t burn any bridges. You never know when you might need something, or encounter them again!’ And to a degree, I get his point. I think about it and consider putting forth a more nuanced interpretation of what he said, but my friend is in there like a shot.

‘I gotta disagree with you there, mate. I will burn any bridge if it calls me a c*nt.’

I splutter and wail and love how polar he’s gone.

This is what I mean. You need range if you want to understand the world and stimulate better ideas.

Like-minded people are lovely, but they only go so far.

Three nice things after a shit night’s sleep

It was fine until 3.58am, when my little lad needed a piss. This is progress. Better than the wet beds of just a few months ago. But there was residual anxiety in my gut, and it kicked up when I laid back down.

That was it. A massive ladle full of worry soup. Everything from mortality to a remembered – and potentially missed vet appointment. They charge for those n’all.

I called a friend this morning because I’d levered myself up to a workable energy level, but still felt extremely fragile, and a friendly voice, who knows what it’s like to live with this kind of loopy brain, was required. He helped. He knows what I mean and assured me we’ll get there.

Coming off the phone I felt vacant, and now had to confront a swollen to-do list, some of which requires using my brain and my creativity.

I said it recently – there is value in adversity – but it’s not sustainable to create over a longer period while under siege. In that moment, I didn’t know where the resilience to create was going to come from. But three nice things happened that showed me.

The first task was to pop into the local computer repair shop. I’d called up the owner, who’d done some work on my laptop and fixed my printer, to see if the now-missing printer cables had been left there. They hadn’t, but he told me to come by anyway, as he tends to have things lying around what is a high street electronic graveyard. And either way, they sell them.

In the spirit of supporting local business, I popped in. He smiled and handed me the two cables under the glass screen over the counter. Not mine, but spares, which he said I could keep.

Then a little boy smiling at my dog just down the street. I stopped and offered up a stroke of my border terrier, and his little face shone with glee.

And finally a nice ‘hello’ from a member of staff at the cafe I choose to go write in, for fear of dozing off at home and not getting the work done.

By the time I sat down upstairs, a seed of optimism and acceptance has sprouted and begins to wind around that horrible lingering belly full of nerves, and I’m able to create.

A test

I’ve made progress with my thoughts. the first half of 2025, like many of the years of this decade, came with challenges. Mental health challenges. Nothing too severe, but the unwelcome and too-frequent presence of anxiety had to be dealt with.

Think big: climate, war, the notion of death. New parenthood fatigue and overwhelm with a badly-managed buffet of creative endeavours left me vulnerable.

I’ve studied cognitive patterns, talked to burnout coaches, anxiety specialists, those who’ve suffered more than I have, and read books. It’s all helped – theory helping me to practice a greater degree of curation of my thoughts, and my responses to them.

Then think small. An unexpected assault in the form of a spoiled wrestling match. How pathetic, but how real! School days in the late 1990s were minefields for this. The internet was not yet here, so those of us who could not afford Sky TV and those who were not allowed to stay up late to watch the U.S. broadcast of a big show would spend the day creeping around, covering ears in a futile effort to save the outcome of matches that were built on months-long storylines until we got home to watch the recording in purity.

Today it’s so much harder. Any online activity is fraught with risk, and I hit play on what I think is the NotSam Wrestling Summerslam night one review podcast, only to hear him reel off the result of the main event of night 2 before I can scramble for the pause button.

Rage I seldom feel bubbles, spits, then roars up and out of my face like a volcano eruption. I mean, I genuinely release a primal scream with my head back on my shoulders, followed by a torrent of expletives. Then self-loathing, before I realise how fortunate I am to sit this atop my list of grievances.

I know it’s all circumstantial – that idea that there’s always someone worse off is true – but we also live our own story, and the small pleasures count too. So I begin to chastise myself for allowing the flow of a productive morning to be interrupted by something so trivial.

But the magic is butchered. And tonight I’ll watch to see ‘how it happens.’ Not ‘what happens.’

As pathetic as this is, I begin to step aside from my thoughts and watch them, neutralise them. A tactic psychologists and experts will help you learn in order to manage an unruly toddler of a mind. Slowly they calm, and it’s not so bad. Disappointing, not bad.

Clearly there is work to be done, but I stop short of marching from the garden studio into the house to tell my wife of this trauma. There’s maturity in that, even if my fellow-wrestling fan brother does get the thick end of it over WhatsApp.

‘Orrible, this

I was outside a pub in London with Simon Dixon the other week. Simon and I have enjoyed time spent talking for my podcast, and during occasional pop-ins to the DixonBaxi office, but following their week's sabbatical with the Think Paradiso team, we finally found time to talk about life in general.

We got onto our roots growing up in relative scarcity in Yorkshire, and how that shapes you as you enter the creative industry. That can be both good and bad, but awareness of it is important to avoid having your perception of self shaped by others.

It's a common topic that comes up when I coach my clients.

Simon made a valuable observation that while I'd illustrated for 18 years, if you had to define me, it wouldn't be as an 'illustrator' but as a 'storyteller.' It's something I realised as my path veered off into many disciplines, such as writing and interviewing, which illuminated me just as much.

Growing up in Keighley in the 1980s/early '90s meant I was surrounded by a litany of live-action cartoon characters, and local lore was strong.

I've seen some run and hide from such origins, but I've always used it in my artistic voice.

As I travelled around, fortunate enough to go to university, I looked for such traits and rich tales in others.

In Preston, I met Andrew Lewis and always adored the thick central Lancashire accent. So when I wrote and published YA MUM and Other Stories from the Backstreets of Britain, I thought a nice launch campaign would be to round up a broad spread of friends and peers with great accents, who embraced their roots, to read story excerpts.

Andy was a perfect fit because we shared a warped fascination with the underbelly of the towns we were raised in.

This level of filth, of course, only works for some, but that's the glory of storytelling. It comes with infinite possibilities and must be hewn from the personality, lived experience, and tastes of its author.

If you could benefit from some help tapping into your voice and story, get in touch here, and we can discuss a coaching program.

Abolish the Parasite Class

It’s hard to get the word out there these days. They’re arresting the most peaceful of protestors in the street, so that ups the stakes. Social media is a wall of white noise and everyone is so overwhelmed by the incessant content bombardment that it wears down the spirit of even the most caring people.

I had an early Sunday drive alone. About one hour in, enjoying a rare bit of headspace, I marvelled at the freshly spray-painted message on a motorway bridge:

ABOLISH THE PARASITE CLASS

Not only did I admire its aesthetic merits, but it landed. It got me thinking. It wasn’t one of 5,000 updates on a feed, and it towered overhead, urging consideration. You don’t hang 40 feet over speeding cars in the dark if you don’t mean it. That intent creates resonance. Resonance finds a way.

This uncompromising call to action followed a conversation I’d had with friends on Saturday afternoon at a pub in Manchester. I’ve spent nine years of my life living in that city, and I love the place, but the skyline is now riddled with buy-to-let only high rise totems of crony capitalism. You’re doing well if a pint of ale comes in under £7. Renting and buying property anywhere near the city gobbles up an unreasonable portion of anyone’s income and saddles them with dangerous levels of stress. On the surface, this is sold as progress. More nice bars, eateries, cafes, and entertainment experiences, glossy fronts where there used to be litter and pissy, dank loading bays and side streets. But this is pay-to-play, and so few of us are invited to the table.

Meanwhile in the medium-sized towns, particularly in the north, businesses shut down and move out too frequently to keep count. There’s a tangibly rotten collective psychology throughout, and the people don’t point the finger at the greedy elite, but only ever at their neighbours, at newcomers, and the most vulnerable. The ‘others’ who are fed to them via the media, bagged and washed, ready to eat scapegoats.

Even within particular regions there’s extremes. Quaint towns with middle-class money surround bigger, struggling, post-industrial working-class towns bereft of jobs and disposable income, decaying and increasingly overrun with empty shops.

This class divide was always here, but never so stark. Not in my lifetime.

So when this message over the motorway grabs me by the throat, I sigh and nod because it’s hard not to desire a revolution. A collapse. Something to jump-start the souls of those who cry for something kinder.

My days of sending myself into social-media-triggered negative thought spirals and cutting myself off from creativity and joy are gone. I’m largely offline, arranging calls, working hard to maintain a baseline of relative optimism so I can contribute to the fight via my work. The fight to elevate creativity’s role in our communities, so we can solve problems, not contract them like terminal sicknesses, as I attempt to get by in these anxious times.

It isn’t ignorance. It’s an acknowledgement of who rules these online platforms, and why that particular branch of rage was playing right into their hands, doing me so much more harm than good.

I won’t be abseiling down motorway bridges in the dead of night, but I’ll be operating in the physical world as much as I can, thinking differently about what rebellion means and might look like in today’s world. I’ll be telling stories, bringing people together through creativity, curiosity, and passion. Considering how it can be fun, additive to my overall flow and mood, helping me out if bed in the mornings, not making me want to stay in it.

The Dark Reflection

I’m working on a writing project. Last week, I spent time interviewing the subject I’m writing about, and this person took me right back to childhood. I do this on the podcast because you start to see patterns, threads running between the person I sit with today, and the reasons why, why not, and small brush strokes around the edges.

Anyway, this person recounted sneaking into an idyllic building, up in some hills, and finding some old, original books from a bygone era, spending hours upon hours alone studying them. Reading every faded, aged page, soaking up the knowledge.

As he did this, I had to police my inner child, who shrieked with juvenile laughter. What had occurred to me was my own version of this. My subject and I are very close in age, and while my imagined version of these secret reading sessions is probably wildly exaggerated in its sheer splendour, it still set the stage for my mucky underbelly equivalent.

In my first published story story (Soft Play in It’s OKAY zine issue #1), I recalled how my gang of friends and I spent a large portion of our childhoods on a defunct, decaying wool mill, around which the last people to walk its yawning corridors – two security guards – would give us a tour around. On these tours, some of us would quietly splinter off and roam the nooks and doorways to see what we could see. One time we discovered a Morrison’s supermarket carrier bag full of porn magazines, and would then return to it for as long as we could during these tours.

It was grim, dried out, dog-eared and so pre internet, and when juxtaposed with my writing subjects more romantic experience, a great illustration of the contrast between people’s roots, how the culture and economy of the day is the context we do not choose, but must navigate.

Does this every change? I don’t think so. Creativity is always subject to context, and I try not to overthink what that has enabled and thwarted in my own experience of it.

Maybe I was onto Something

Here’s something. I was late to parenting. This means that on a bad day, I stagger around on my dog walk with three eye bags under each eye, staring into space. In all honesty, had I had them younger, I imagine it would only have been marginally better. And maybe worse because I’d have far less understanding of myself and life in general.

But one colossal upside is my time spent observing the human condition through all of this work. It means that, while, like every parent, I get things wrong and learn as I go, I am able to apply those learnings to the way I raise these two small creatures.

One big lesson I took from my parents, and have seen amplified in many of the people who have found their element in their work and broader life, is that for a person to find their way, they need the right balance of encouragement, mentorship, and freedom to find out.

My daughter has barely stopped moving since she was born. She expresses delight with a jump, a kick of her legs, or a spontaneous dance move. I recall watching her watching Bing, the kids’ TV show, her entire body in the air, held up by her arms gripping onto the chair arms, legs crossing left and right. So, gymnastics on Monday mornings. In the pool, and on the climbing frame, she is utterly fearless. Physical dynamism is a pre-set. And now, it’s street dance on a Saturday morning.

My son isn’t far behind with the climbing ability, but his brain adores mechanisms, systems, puzzles. He began prodding at my wife’s piano, so she showed him a very basic tune. He sat there until he’d cracked it, and kept coming back. So, piano lessons.

There’s privilege here, don’t get me wrong. The massive majority of my little leisure money goes on their interests now, but consider this the gentle nudge.

There’ll never be pressure. That doesn’t work. I don’t care if either of them are flagged as some unprecedented level of prodigy. If they’re not enjoying it, it ends. Of course, encouragement to work through and persevere is a very different thing, and that time will come, but at 5-years-old, it is our job to merely enable and observe.

It felt unreal as I watched my daughter keep step for step with her instructor. My son finishing his tea, ambling over to the piano and spending the next 40-minutes without suggestion or obligation, cracking codes, trying, snarling, trying again, smirking as he got it right, felt on a par with any great career or life highlight thus far.

This was both personal exhilaration because my hopes that I was onto something with this strategy was, at least for a moment, accurate, but also professionally, because I subtly use this approach in my coaching, in the advice I routinely share with other people who are looking for something better aligned with who they are. It’s why I don’t show up with templates, only a universe of creativity’s makeup. This is why talking about chores, mischief, mistakes, dark humour, what books they’re reading, what feels insurmountable, and so much more matters.

It’s also why so many people feel stupid, frustrated, angry, and disillusioned with an education system in dire need of an overhaul as we move into a world where revolutions are going to happen quicker than election cycles.

A Cool Day In the Heat

I can almost hear the laughter of my friends from hotter countries as I flail around, a jaded, anxious, directionless mess in 30 UK degrees.

But it’s what you’re used to, and this old nation of ours isn’t built to cope with this.

I don’t sleep properly, which any good psychologist will tell you is fundamental to solid mental health. Then my thoughts run all over the place. I can’t prioritise, so all but the most urgent, time-sensitive tasks are scattered like a burst bag of marbles. Then guilt, then the fear of professional implosion, then absolutely anything that might be troubling.

Over the weekend, during a cooler day and after a better sleep, I find a moment to nap while the kids are playing their own game nearby.

Even as I’m wrung out across the sofa like a face cloth, drifting as the Wimbledon Tennis Championships waits for the rain to pass, as the commentators drone on about all the beautiful surrounding secondary detail, my heart speeds up. Not because anything is a threat, but because I find a bizarre thrill in how perfect this scenario is – a Saturday afternoon nap during paused play at Wimbledon.

Eventually I chuckle, calm down again, and manage 15 minutes.

The heat will return, and all I can do is brace.