"Everything is based on relationships" (Goodtype bonus episodes)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to the 12th bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. As you may know, this is where I revisit the interview you published earlier in the week, providing me with the opportunity to zoom in on a few stand-down moments for extra value and meaning. I take time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every single week. And this week, I was chatting with Katie and Illana from GoodType. It was an easy, free-flowing conversation about their multifaceted business in education, community, art licensing and creative work as their studio. As you know, I love people who do complicated stuff as much as I like to explore, so I didn't hold back and I asked all the questions about their business.

0:44Radim Malinic:In this bonus episode, I will pick out four standout moments from our conversation and we'll start with a quote about achievement-orientated goals. Sometimes that's at the expense of doing other things with our time, taking on sponsorships, taking on creating more courses, things like that could technically create a larger financial impact. So, yeah, that's something that we're figuring out how our business looks with this new model, but with our mental health and our happiness at the center. I think that's the older I get, the less I'm willing to sprint towards a hill that I know when I get to the top of.

1:24I'm just going to look around and be like, well, now what?

1:28Radim Malinic:This quote encapsulates a profound shift in how creative professionals approach ambition and success metrics. Articulating what many entrepreneurs experience but rarely voice is the hollowness of achievement-orientated goals that lack intrinsic meaning. Her metaphor of sprinting towards a hill perfectly captures a breathless urgency that pervades modern creative careers, the constant push towards metrics, follower count, revenue targets and industry recognition. The visual of reaching the summit only to feel empty reveals the fundamental flaw in externally driven motivation. So, instead of celebrating the grind for its own sake, for intention goal setting that considers the emotional and psychological aftermath of achievement, her insights suggest that maturity in business means questioning not just, can I achieve this?

2:23Radim Malinic:But will achieving this actually fulfill me? The second quote was the original opening line from the episode. I think I used to think compatibility in a partnership would look like sameness and agreeing all the time. And what I've discovered in trials and errors with other partnerships versus this one is that this one actually works better because we're such a yin and yang with our strengths and weaknesses. we really fill in the gaps that the other one has and hold up the other person's strengths and allow them to step into those and it's taken time to find out where those things were and to really get to know each other and go through a lot of projects and a lot of failures too.

3:12Radim Malinic:Katie's observation challenges one of the most persistent myths in collaborative relationships that harmony equals agreement. This insight has profound implications for how creative professionals approach partnerships, hiring and team building The conventional wisdom suggests surrounding yourself with a like-minded people who share your vision and working style Katie's experience reveals this approach actually creates weakness rather than strength When partners have identical skill set and perspectives, they create eco-chambers and miss crucial blind spots She describes The Yin and Yang concept she describes Suggest that a productive tension and complementary differences Drive innovation and problem solving In their case, KT's strategic planning-orientated approach Balances Ilana's action-first relationship-building strength Neither approach is superior But together, they create a more robust business capability Now, let's cross over to Ilana for the next standout moment I think that's one of the things about graphic design is that people and I think I was ignorant to this one too is like you're not just making things look pretty but like you need to have the strategy and the marketing and I think that's usually what separates good from great is that if you're willing to just make it look good then that's wonderful but that's almost production.

4:39Production is making it work and making sure things are where they're supposed to be. But the strategy and the messaging is a really huge piece of it and probably not a piece that gets emphasized enough in any training for graphic design. But I think that's where the true magic happens is when the messaging and just conceptual things happen.

5:00Radim Malinic:In this third standout moment, we talk about blind spots again. Alana identifies why many talented designers struggle to build sustainable careers despite strong aesthetic skills. The phrase, making things look pretty, isn't dismissive of visual design. It's pointing to the limitation of viewing design as purely decorative rather than strategic. Many creative professionals excel at the craft elements, be it typography, color theory, composition, but struggle with the business context that give their work meaning and impact. The distinction between good and great that Alana draws isn't about technical skills.

5:41Radim Malinic:It's about understanding how design functions as communication and persuasion. Great designers don't just execute visual solutions. They understand audience psychology, business objectives and market positioning. They can articulate why their choices serve the client's goals beyond aesthetics preference. The last time I'm Erman, we go back to Katie, talk about building business relationships. I think Alana is really great at the relationship piece, which is arguably the most important piece of finding work. Everything is based on relationships. And oh, I know this cousin of this lady that I met at the grocery store and literally just did that.

6:29Juana is the actual queen of that. And she and you do that just by being a good, fun person, like a good, kind hearted person who like listens to other people and engages. And I think that those are skills that aren't emphasized very much in typical graphic design education, but they have served us the best out of any skills. Like it's more important to have that than to have the best design skills in the world. If I had to pick between which one of those I wanted to crank to 100, I would crank the relationship skills for sure.

7:04Radim Malinic:And this standout moment is very much following on from the previous quote from Ilana. Katie talks about the belief that the best work automatically rises to the top. But this quote matters because it reveals how business actually works versus how creative professionals are taught or think about how it should work. The creative education system heavily emphasizes technical skill development, be it software proficiency, design principles, portfolio quality. But Katie's experience running a successful business revealed that relationship skills, which is listening, empathy, communication, trust building, are the true differentiators in professional success.

7:49Radim Malinic:This isn't about networking in the transactional sense of collecting contacts. Katie is describing the ability to genuinely connect with people, understand their needs and build mutual trust. These skills determine whether clients choose you, refer others to you or continue working with you over time. This quote challenges the introversion stereotype often associated with creative work. While making art might be solitary, building a creative business is inherently social. Katie's insight suggests that shy or social anxious creators might benefit from more developing interpersonal skills than perfecting their craft.

8:30Radim Malinic:This perspective also democratizes creative entrepreneurship. If relationships matter more than raw talent, then success becomes more accessible to those willing to invest in human connections rather than being limited to those with exceptional natural ability. If you haven't checked out my conversation with Katie and Alana, please do so it's a real fun light-hearted conversation about things that really matter and i really appreciate the transparency and honesty about how they run their business and if you haven't done so do check out their conference their online festival which is launching very soon and you can check out the conference by clicking the link in the show notes thank you for joining me on this bonus episode and i'll see you on the next one