In short
Chris Wilson’s journey from working-class Glasgow to building Stickman, a one-man design studio, after surviving a knife attack, coping with family trauma, burnout, grief, and financial stress—using creativity, humor, and therapy to turn “trauma to triumph.”
Guest backgrounds
Chris Wilson is Glasgow-based designer behind Stickman (solo studio). He grew up in High Bank, helped his family financially as a child (bin runs, selling papers), studied industrial/product design, was lead singer in a pop-punk band, and later worked freelance, in-house, and agency roles before going full-time with Stickman in 2006.
Key claims
Work and humor were early coping tools; therapy helped him process trauma and manage anger. He reframes setbacks as lessons, emphasizes resilience and not “burning bridges,” and argues learning on paid jobs beats rushing to freelance. He also challenges class assumptions about belonging in creative spaces.
Notable examples
Knife attack during a uni crit (2005) leaving facial scars; later therapy after divorce and his father’s 2011 heart attack. A freelance payment dispute leading to small-claims court when the client died. Getting into an art exhibition after a tutor’s push, shifting his mindset about “not belonging.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOMeeting Chris Wilson
2:10 to 4:06
Host discusses the emotional connection and support from guest Chris Wilson.
“And actually, I mean, talking about you behind your back to other people and they all say the same thing.”
Chris's Coping Mechanisms
4:06 to 6:26
Chris shares how he uses work and humor to cope with trauma.
Early Life and Work Ethic
6:26 to 9:21
Chris reflects on his childhood in a working-class town and his entrepreneurial spirit.
Discovering Design
9:21 to 13:19
Chris recounts how he discovered his passion for design through school.
Traumatic Incident
13:19 to 14:01
Chris describes a traumatic attack he experienced during university.
“So I went to do my third and fourth year, my honours degree at Caledonian University.”
A Life-Changing Attack
14:01 to 16:34
Chris recounts a traumatic experience where he was attacked and stabbed.
“But it was at this point I hadn't realised the guy had a knife.”
Overcoming Trauma and Building Resilience
16:35 to 19:37
Chris discusses how he coped with the aftermath of the attack and built resilience.
“so this was 2005 so that had been shit at maths I must have been like early 20s 24 something, 25 how long did it take for you to get over the injuries?”
The Impact of Family Dynamics
19:38 to 22:19
Chris reflects on family struggles, including his parents' divorce, and their influence on him.
Dealing with Anger and Seeking Help
22:20 to 23:23
Discussion on managing anger, the importance of therapy, and personal growth.
Turning Trauma into Motivation
23:24 to 25:51
Chris shares how he transformed his trauma into motivation for his career.
Show all 22 chapters
Lessons from a Failed Business Relationship
25:52 to 28:00
Chris narrates a challenging experience with a client and the lessons learned from it.
“And one of them was probably I had to go to a small claims court for one of the very first clients that I was kind of working with.”
Chasing After Money and Moral Dilemmas
28:00 to 29:52
Learn about the challenges and ethical questions faced when pursuing owed debts.
Finding Your Place in the Art World
29:52 to 33:32
Discover how one person's experience in art exhibitions can challenge perceptions of belonging.
“I remember my college tutor, John Stevenson.”
Navigating Career Changes and Building Connections
34:57 to 42:00
Explore the importance of maintaining professional relationships during career transitions.
“I mean, there's definitely been some blips, but like I was saying before, it's the silver lining.”
Career Progression: From In-House to Agency Work
42:00 to 44:39
Explore Chris Wilson's journey through various design roles and how he learned from peers.
“So we would either create sub-brands for them or we would use our brand guidelines to do that.”
The Wacky Interview That Changed Everything
44:40 to 46:59
Learn how a humorous video helped Chris land a creative role at Made Brave.
“and I'm going to have to go off on a side tangent to explain this, how I got into the interview process, right?”
Starting Stickman: The Leap of Faith
47:00 to 51:08
Discover the motivations behind starting Stickman and the entrepreneurial spirit.
From Trauma to Resilience: Chris's Personal Growth
51:09 to 55:11
Chris discusses how personal challenges shaped his resilience and creative approach.
“And I think I'm always, I think if you don't ask, you don't get.”
The Pressure of Creativity in Design
55:12 to 56:04
Examine the pressures faced in the creative industry and the importance of community support.
The Balance Between Work and Life
56:04 to 1:01:50
Learn about the challenges of balancing work and personal life, and the impact of overworking.
“Like how do I see who's who and be part of that community?”
Nurturing Creativity in the Next Generation
1:01:51 to 1:03:19
Explore the importance of encouraging creativity in children and supporting their interests.
“And he's, he's, what are you listening to this as well?”
Reflections and Self-Compassion
1:03:24 to 1:04:49
Discover insights on being kinder to oneself and appreciating personal achievements.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:06Katy:Well, this is it, the final episode of the season, and I couldn't think of a more powerful way to close things than with today's guest, Chris Wilson, the Glasgow-based designer behind Stickman, a one-man creative studio with a huge heart and loads of fans, including me, who I've met him in real life. He's absolutely lovely. There's a warmth that comes off him that is just something you cannot ignore. He is wonderful. So on hearing Chris's story, you realize it's one of survival and transformation. From growing up in a working class town to surviving a brutal knife attack and facing burnout, loss and financial struggle, he somehow managed to turn every challenge into a lesson and a reason to keep going.
0:51Katy:This conversation, which definitely makes me cry at times, is about finding purpose through the mess, about creativity and how it can become a lifeline when life itself feels dark and impossible. It's honest, emotional, and at times very funny. A reminder that even when things feel like they couldn't get any worse, humour and humanity can pull us through. So as I wrap up another incredible season, I hope this episode reminds you that it's okay to take your time to heal, to rebuild, to not be too hard on yourself. Here's my chat with Chris Wilson.
1:34Katy:This season of the Creative Boom podcast is proudly sponsored by James Cropper, the last meal standing in Britain for premium coloured paper. Its new colour source range puts designers first, giving you direct access to 50 stunning shades in a range of weights and textures straight from the mill. Incredible colour crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Discover the paper that brings your ideas to life via paperandpackaging.jamescropper.com
2:09Katy:well i'm with chris wilson here today it's the second time i've seen you in a month i think chris i know it's like we're making a habit of this absolutely um yeah it was great seeing you in glasgow quite a kind of emotional moment for me because you and i have been chatting back and forth online for a long time you you're a really supportive kind character um which doesn't surprise me given what we're going to be talking about today I often find that people who've been perhaps through a lot and we all go through ups and downs but if you know there are some kinds of special people that can turn tragedy into triumph I guess is what I'm trying to say.
2:50Chris Wilson:No it's great it was lovely to meet you and like you say it's it's weird I think that's what we live in where you speak with people online or through messaging and stuff like that but so it was great to meet you find it in person and um i've been spoken before like i'm a massive fan of like your platform and the podcast so it's kind of surreal like all those hours of listening you speak to other people and suddenly now when you're speaking to me i can answer back so yeah i'm really looking
3:14Katy:forward to our chat today it's just me as you as you know we we met in glasgow i was saying to you god i'm so nervous doing all this vlogging stuff it's all brand new and then suddenly you were there and you were just this really kind, warm presence and it just made me feel so safe. And actually, I mean, talking about you behind your back to other people and they all say the same thing. Everybody loves you and there's something about you that's really special. Do you think you've been through a lot? Do you think that's kind of taught you compassion and kindness? Is that one of your kind of tools to cope?
3:54Chris Wilson:probably I think work was probably one of the main crutches in terms of trying to cope through things I think through years of probably not dealing with things correctly and throwing myself into work kind of using that as a mask to do things but I think if anything else it's probably stemmed from like a defence mechanism to a point where I use humour a lot or like deflect from like maybe issues and use kind of jokes and things like that as a way of getting through it and that in itself probably creates a personality that's quite jokey like I don't take myself too seriously um which probably works but yeah I mean I think there's to look at it as the kind of trauma side of things and I never used to talk about a lot of things that had kind of happened growing up and stuff like that as traumas I never done that until I found therapy and they said these are traumas and I was like well it's just things that have potentially happened through my life that I never really seen it as that um but I suppose that it's like everyone else it kind of sculpts who you are when you go through these things makes you more resilient um so yeah i mean like i don't know if you want to talk in specific about anything or i can talk you through my story so far or how you want to do this i mean just keep me on a short leash because i like to chat and i will go off on tangents constantly so you just you bring me in likewise gosh i'm terrible um yeah i mean we obviously had a chat off um off mic and you
5:22Katy:kind of hinted at a few things i suppose we could sort of look back at you being a kid looking to the stars uh hoping one day to do uh you know something good with your life um what why don't
5:35Chris Wilson:we start there and see what comes out yeah so like um probably growing up uh so i'm from a kind of working class town called high bank and just about half an hour outside of glasgow and then it's got an industrial city so it's kind of best known for uh had singer sewing machines were made there uh the ship building was massive there um so like it's kind of this kind of industrial working class town and i think that mentality kind of fed through like my parents who were extremely hard working um and like even as a kid like we never had a lot of money but like my mom and dad always made sure we had everything we needed um and even like as a kid like 12 i was trying to like earn money so like we stayed in a council flat um that was upper close so it was like eight within the kind of tenement flat and um every every week the bins would get taken out uh so basically up the bins are outside in the the back bin shelters and we get taken down to back to get emptied and I'd said to the neighbours look if you want like 50 pence a bin I'll take your bins down every week and bring them back in for you to save them having to do it so like I was even even like an early age kind of like I must have moved 12 13 so I was making like like four pound a week taking these bins in and what would that have got you back then I mean you're not that old oh well i'm 42 so i was born in 83 so um i like i'm i'm not massively old but i'm getting there uh but at that age 12 13 and you're getting like four pounds like that was like back then you could buy a lot like that would i had like i would buy beanos like i was quitting my comics and stuff like that lego so like you had money where you could buy a lot of stuff at that age 20p bag of sweets that's when that a 10 pence mix would be 10 pence and it would be 10 sweets now like you're lucky you're gonna get that now that's why we've got eight fillings in my mouth well i was the same i used and again it was all the silver ones i've started going through that phase of painting to get the silver ones out and white ones put in yes good shout but i so like i certainly things like that like i've always worked my whole life and again i was selling papers outside the the bingo like five pence of paper like to make money uh one of my first jobs like 15 i think i was i was uh worked on a newsagent's uh stacking shelves again it was like it was so weird because where my mom stayed i think we were like half an hour on the bus into the west end and then like a 20 minute walk and i would do that at 15 and go to this shop and get paid cash in hand and then get back on the bus and head back like 10 11 at night and this is when i was young just so i've always kind of like most people come on the podcast it was entrepreneurial real spirit it was just i think i was this idea of we never had a lot of wealth and it was that fear of like i need to contribute and if i could go out and make a wee bit of money then i would do that um so i have always had that kind of work ethic um of like finding money or jobs where i can and can i almost my career's kind of been like that like changing up who i am and what i'm offering as a discipline and stuff like that to to make sure that i'm making money and make a success of it so I've got quite a varied background in in terms of like working freelance then in-house then agency then finally after 10 years running stickman uh on my own but um my background so basically growing up I was really into like taking things apart like I'm really curious about how
9:05Katy:things worked what like watches and things like that just everything and electrical stuff like I
9:10Chris Wilson:just enjoyed this idea of probably like retro games consoles and stuff like i would take things apart and then see how like no i was successfully fixing them but like i would i like the idea of like understanding how things worked and i think it was probably through my dad he he worked as a handyman in a hotel um so he and he used to buy old cars at the auctions and fix them like do up the engines and stuff so i would do all that as a kid with him and loved lego any form of building and stuff like that and it really interested me and i think from him he he would do like electrics he would do joinery plumbing like he would turn his hand to most things and that's definitely sculpted who i am in terms of like what i do uh at the studio so like i i don't only describe myself as like a polyamorous designer because i'm like i don't i'm not married to one discipline like i kind of flirt with them all like i don't really stick to one thing you tart i'm like a design a design slut like but i think it part of that is obviously stemmed from seeing my dad do these different kind of things and and it really excites me the idea that at one point i'm maybe doing like a branding and then i'll move to packaging and then i'll do maybe like a photo composite or something that keeps it exciting for me uh but i think certainly that stemmed from doing these kind of different jobs and feeling like trying to find my thing that i enjoy so I through school was learning like what design was because I never really knew like coming from a kind of public school like a lot of the time when you go to these job they what do they call the careers advisor and they say look what do you want to be and like what what do you want to go to college you know what do you want to actually do and then when I'd said to them look I love art and I love like creativity and stuff they're like oh you could be a painter and decorator or you can be like they just didn't get this aspect that there was these these roles out there that that would encompass all these things that i liked um had it not been for my art teacher uh mr bell he's he was brilliant he and he used to play as like the bare naked ladies band he used to have that on and play music and it was the first time i ever seen uh like an imac with one of the colored ones with the kind of see-through three cases so he introduced me to like photoshop i think it was like one of the first it must have been like number six or something like one of the early early versions and i'd explain to him like i love design and stuff and he said you know there's this thing called product design it's like if the chairs that people design or the things that are in and around you and i was like wow that's actually like a thing so he put me in touch with like the colleges and i got a prospectus and actually looked at two two paths it was kind of like either go down the route of doing like industrial design or architecture and and I think part of me looked at architecture and thought
11:59Katy:that's like seven years I think everybody goes through that I mean it'd be amazing and like my
12:06Chris Wilson:dream has always been to like build my own house I don't think you can you can as a designer do anything greater than like wake up and go to sleep and something that you've created like so like my dream has always been to like build my own house but architecture i thought seven years and as like a school kid you're like that's a long time yeah i've just i've just done secondary school like i'm not a seven year of study and i think the money aspect as well um we're fortunate enough in scotland where we are funded for for four years uh through college and university but after that unit pay and i figured would i be in a position financially where i could afford to to do that so signed up for this university sorry it was a four-year course but two years was college and then two-year uni so signed up for the first two years doing what what was then called product design but that's now digital have kind of stolen that for like websites and stuff and product now but it's industrial design so done two years at college doing that and then took a year out I was in a band so like I was a lead singer in a pop punk band were you a lead singer
13:13Katy:were you the bass guitarist
13:15Chris Wilson:no I was the lead singer and I used to write the songs as well and we were doing alright we'd headline King Tut's a few times and we'd supported a band called Bad Religion at the Calhoun Academy so we were doing quite well and I took a year out to see how the band would go and then decided right this is now working out I should probably get back to it. So I went to do my third and fourth year, my honours degree at Caledonian University. And I think it was there. And I don't know if you might need to put a wee warning to people. This might trigger some people. I need to talk about something that happened whilst I was at uni.
13:55Chris Wilson:So it must have been late into my third year, which would have been the second year of uni, I was on the way home from a crit. So we were in presenting our stuff. it was maybe about half seven at night and we left the university me and two other students and we were heading down to the kind of main street in Glasgow so you go through a bus station and you can head down the main street and as we're crossing the road there's this guy kind of coming past us he's shouting and screaming kind of nudging into people and goes away through and we think nothing of it and start carrying on down the middle of the street and then next thing I just I get hit in the back of the head with something and I'd just seen white at first and I stumbled forward and all I felt was my hood getting pulled over my head and then just repeatedly getting punched.
14:42Chris Wilson:But it was at this point I hadn't realised the guy had a knife. So he cut me above my eyebrow here, all down through my face, down through my jaw here, and I was grabbing the knife. So I've got scars and stuff on the insides of my hands. So I managed to get three of the two guys that were with me. One was pulling on him to get him off me and the other guy was kind of pulling me away. And there was a Sainsbury's on the corner and I ran in there and obviously just the shocked faces, like my face was bleeding here, my head, my hands and stuff. And I said, listen, I've been attacked. They said, listen, come through.
15:16Chris Wilson:There's like a bit at the back here, a kind of security bit. And when I went through, and so you get those two-way mirrors, that's when I looked into the mirror and I could see my face was open here where I'd been stabbed. so like it was that point it was weird this kind of I wasn't really panicked at this point obviously I was in pure shock probably half concussed from getting hit with a brick but so I'm standing there and I'm holding I'm holding these no like the the blue roll that you get it's like the kind of tissue so I'm holding stuff in this hand trying not to believe I'm holding it in this somebody's holding stuff on my head they're trying to get my t-shirt off to check like that I hadn't been cut anywhere else like on my body and stuff thankfully there wasn't it was just it was kind of like the face and stuff so anyway they got this guy um the police managed to get him he basically he'd stabbed someone else on a bus uh as well that that day uh so i think this guy was just he was off his face on drugs and he'd just been getting about unprovoked just attacking people and i was just unlucky that i was in the wrong place at the wrong time uh so i so this is where this has
16:24Katy:gotten pretty dark pretty fast well not at all i mean it's you know this is out in 2026 it's a new year and we are going to be sort of talking about like how it's shaped you and we're going to take the positive out of it and i can already see you you know you rationalize it in a very kind of you know you can come at it from a very positive it wasn't um anything personal this chap just clearly had um issues and um you just like you say you were in the wrong place wrong time because i think
16:59Chris Wilson:it's hard like at that at that point when it happened um so i ended up like after that i wasn't in the band after that it really knocked my confidence for quite a while um so the and then the problem is i had to walk past that area every day to go back to uni so like there was kind of like reliving it every time and it was one of those things that at first i was at home where I was trying to deal with it and it was just a case of like I can't I can't let my future be be ruined or or be depicted by this guy just deciding to do what he'd done so like I had to just don't get me wrong I had a wealth of support through my friends and family and stuff like that that really helped um but it was a case of like get back on it like get back to uni and finish gave me that drive to kind of finish the the course um which I did which was how old were you
17:47Katy:how old were you?
17:49Chris Wilson:so this was 2005 so that had been shit at maths I must have been like early 20s 24 something, 25
18:02Katy:how long did it take for you to get over the injuries?
18:05Chris Wilson:the scarring stayed for quite a while because they were quite deep scars I've got the advantage now that I've got crow's feet so you can't really see them my age is helping blend it in but yeah the hospital provides you these sort of plasters that you can wear that take the reddening and stuff out the scars and that really helped and now that I've grown my beard that kind of covers the scar and it's kind of down at the bottom but I had it really not my confidence I think knowing that at that point in university when you you know you're going to be coming out at the end of that looking for a job and stuff like that and like my accent's quite a strong glaswegian accent that can kind of it sounds working class and it's like i think with that and then the idea of having these scars on my face and then like like we previously talked about like i'm bald so like my hair was receding at that point so like the idea of having like i had shaved my head so like shaving my head with these scars and then like this accent it really it kind of made me think like what are people going to think of me like regardless of getting the the honours degree and stuff like that like coming out in an industry and try to like make a name for myself or or get a job uh it really knocked that confidence but um equally i think i always look at these things and think that they happen for a reason in terms of like maybe i had to have my resilience built or like the positives out it are that um you can take them on board and it makes a stronger person like absolutely i think i'm quite like but my mom and dad they uh they divorced my dad suffered from alcoholism and they ended up divorcing and um i think for my mom uh she's probably one of the strongest most resilient people i know like an incredible role model to me and my sister so i think like knowing knowing um like seeing her go through that and like she went back to college she had she had a she had me when she was 21 but she went back to college studied as a mature student done all that so like there was elements of like looking at my mum and and and that looking at that for strength and thinking you know what like these things happen like I've been kind of built on that inspiration through her being resilient and I think that helped certainly because like I say she's probably one of the strongest kind of women
20:22Katy:that i know sounds very stoic they do say the more scars you have the more the more of a sort of shield you have to anything that life throws at us um sorry for getting upset then it was
20:35Chris Wilson:no it's okay like sorry to upset you no it's just i can see you that young kid you know just with
20:41Katy:your friends and the gentle giant that you are and i've come to know you as and um i mean you're quite tall aren't you you're six foot how old six foot three six foot three six four if i'm wearing high heels but there you go we brought it back um yeah that must have been horrific and do you still have nightmares or is it a long time in the past now have you no at first um yeah sometimes
21:08Chris Wilson:i would kind of like i would wake up with kind of not night terrors but like i would relive some of the stuff um and it took me a long time like i've only i probably sought out therapy like in the past maybe three kind of maybe maybe longer four four four five years um because i think there was a lot of things there that just i hadn't dealt with uh like through the divorce and stuff like my mom and dad they um they kind of obviously drifted i didn't speak to my dad for a while but then we rekindled things and then unfortunately he he passed away a heart attack in 2011 living and unexpected this is really this is you're listening to us we're thinking of come on for a creative podcast here and you'll be inspiring them i promise you you'll be inspiring them so i we rekindled things and it was great and then yeah he died a heart attack at 52 in 2011 just
22:02Katy:unexpectedly well at least you got to have that time with him and it sounds like you've got very healthy um very healthy memories of your dad as a kid as well yeah i mean like i said tons of that
22:16Chris Wilson:stuff like have made me who i am in terms of like the things that i love like even do like music tastes and stuff like that and then like even just that kind of resilience turning my hand to everything like type approach like that work ethic that's always been there through them um from my mom and dad uh but i i think life throws these things at you and it's like it's how you cope with it and I think a lot of the time I wasn't coping with I was just throwing myself into work and try to ignore a lot of this stuff so whether it be like my dad passing away or the attack it was just like right just get on with it like there was that it's a weird thing that I think a lot of guys do where you're just like you feel that thing where you need to man up like you don't want to talk about it you just kind of want to like pretend it's not happening which it's never great because it manifests itself negatively later down the line and that certainly happened with me it was like i was finding like my anger was a big thing like i've been really reactive to stuff like a short temper um and just no nice to be around sometimes when i would have these weird mood swings but couldn't really understand why i was doing it you couple that where then the pressures are running your own business it's like it can really get top of you
23:22Katy:100 i mean like i bet it was hard for scottish working class lad to um finally admit that counselling might be a good way to go yeah and it's the best thing i've done like i would recommend
23:36Chris Wilson:it to anyone like it really is like it helps you take some of those demons and then just like
23:42Katy:find ways of coping with it yeah i i resonate a lot with that story i was talking to my husband in the car the other day actually and remember when i used to be really angry and i'd have these outbursts and i would pick something up and i would throw it across the room not at him i remember i picked up a big mirror once and smashed it on the floor and it shattered into you know so many pieces and um it was i think in my 20s i'd sort of had something traumatic various traumatic things happened to me as a kid and uh yeah i think the penny dropped that maybe this anger was coming from something and maybe i needed to go and talk to someone and it was the best thing i ever did because the anger well it's not there anymore um and i i've like just resonate so much with your story in that you know you've got to find something else you've got to use different tools um losing your temper and lashing out of the world is not gonna um really get you very far um no people
24:39Chris Wilson:just people get to a point where they're just being like you're you're being a dick
24:44Katy:yeah absolutely i've got a very honest husband and i'm sure he he said look come on you've got an undealt with things you need to go and talk to someone and i'm like yeah okay yeah there you go so we learn from these things we go through these awful unlucky moments in our lives but they do have silver linings don't they yeah i mean i think if i look at like
25:11Chris Wilson:as much as i say i threw myself into the work and the work became that kind of crutch thing for me it was also like to end up where i'm at at the moment and i'm running my own business and stuff like that I mean that was that was the kind of it's never always the dream but I had this idea of like I would love to work for myself and do that and like it just took a while to to get there like so like and again it's like we talk about these things that happen for a reason type thing like there was other things where I've been working on jobs and and things happening that didn't have great outcomes but like they you can reframe it like I'm always a great believer that you can reframe things in a positive way.
25:52Chris Wilson:And one of them was probably I had to go to a small claims court for one of the very first clients that I was kind of working with. And so this was at uni. And my lecturer, Fred, who I'm still good friends with, during the kind of semesters when the university ends before the next semester starts, he'd said to me, listen, there's some freelance work going where we're trying to build links with industry to bring people on the outside in to use some of the students there's this all job opportunity would you be interested so excellent so i was like great got involved and done the product design stuff working with fred and with the client uh oh great got the got that was kind of like this applicator gun uh that was used for like damp proofing so it was like a wasn't the most exciting sexy product but it was great because i got to apply the skills that i'd learned at university on a live project so we'd done this project it was great we got I got paid everyone went well and the client said well listen can you reach out for the second part of the project we need it branded the packaging or the point of sale display I thought excellent so again turned my hand to that got it all done and then started getting the the stuff was getting printed everything was going ahead and I was like I've still only been paid so I chased the payment oh sorry next week we're waiting in some money some funds being released right next week next sweet this kept going on this was like a case of months and i was like right so i'd like made up this wee again so so naive and like fresh to how these things were i'd wrote this kind of like letter up as if it was like final demand like you owe me this money or i'm taking you to court basically and he called my bluff he was like right take me to court then so i was like right okay and this is for this is for like two and a half thousand pound which is a lot of money like even now to me two and a half i'm like i'm letting this go so uh so i went on the hmrc website and then like onto the gov website how do i take somebody to court like how do i get so try to get advice on this so this transpires over like a year and a half of me back and forth with the court going to court and then he turns up uh he's set to turn up so that we've got all the evidence i've printed all the emails off and all this evidence and we i turn up and he's not there and they say listen he's no he's default he's not turned up basically the case is yours you've won the case he owes you that money you now need to get a sheriff's officer to to implement that and get the money back so it turned out the reason that he he never attended is he'd taken ill and he died and i i had no way of getting the money oh my god like but a year and a half i've gone through this process to get it and this that the guy had he passed away and i never i'd never seen any of them obviously there was this moral thing of like right his family and stuff i've had a loss like should i still be trying to chase this money uh but then he had actually it it was he was quite uh he was he was involved in different other businesses and a lot of people had invested money into his business and he'd swindled people out of money like he wasn't a very nice guy like i would that that two and a half thousand pound was nothing in comparison to what some of these people had lost investing in the business but one of the positives out of that did one of his debt collectors kill him or something oh honestly i don't know see one of the one of the things now it's like i say to clients like um it's quite a good story to tell to say to them listen the last guy that didn't pay me is now dead it's a good way of getting like an invoice paid
29:18Chris Wilson:so the positives out of that was like as much as you can be trusting in business like you really and get contracts put in place and get these things like in writing because there's no way you can predict something like that sort of happening i'm just i'm just chuckling because
29:32Katy:it's probably very inappropriate for me to say but did you you know if you do had did have visible scars when you told somebody at that time you know i well they would have thought i exactly
29:41Chris Wilson:they would have been thinking all right this guy make your right eye go slightly mad i it's going to break some legs if the invoice doesn't get paid so it can work to its advantages this is what we
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29:51Katy:do we use humor we use humor to cope with the kind of weird darkness of the world and yeah so it was
29:58Chris Wilson:kind of it was it was lucky like even at the university side and college as well i think i had this because i had such a strong work ethic and wanting to prove myself like these opportunities would come up quite a lot of just like speaking to people and saying like i'm i'm up for trying this or doing this or this is what i'm trying to do and telling telling people even to the point where we talked about the kind of working class thing and feeling like I maybe wasn't for me or wasn't part of it. I remember my college tutor, John Stevenson. He's one of these guys who's kind of quite old school. I remember one time I'm in the class and I'm sitting chatting to my pal Dave beside me and he came up and rattled me in the back of the head with a set of keys.
30:38Chris Wilson:Now, janitors used to carry all these keys on a ring. I get that to the back of the head because I wouldn't shut up when he was trying to teach the class. he was kind of quite old school um but i remember he he used to do a lot for the students like if you really showed promise and you you wanted to kind of really prove yourself and he was kind of from a working class background so i think he's seen a bit of himself and me and um he said to me look there's this exhibition going on it's an art exhibition uh i think you'd enjoy it why don't you come along and like my first reaction was kind of like this isn't for me like that's not my scene like that's not my thing and he said look have you got a shirt and some shoes and I said I said right come along come along to this like I want you to experience it so I went away along and I go into this art exhibition it's kind of all white walled they've got a table with red and white wine and some nibbles and stuff and like really out my comfort zone and I go in beeline straight for the red wine I'm like right a couple of glasses of this so that I can a bit of Dutch courage um so typical class region style so i do that and then i'm like i'm really not feeling it like i'm feeling really uncomfortable i said i'm gonna leave and he says listen do me one favor then right if you don't feel comfortable you want to leave that's fine but see before you do go and speak to somebody i says right okay so again went back to the table grabbed a red wine went up there was like a mezzanine kind of like this kind of this level that went up so i went up there i'm standing looking at this photograph on the wall that was framed and it was an artist called Richard Wilson not to be confused by the, I don't believe it when putting the grave guy saying that, the younger listeners are going to go, I don't know what that is so this guy basically had sculpted these boats, he cut them up into bits and then photographed it and that was part of the art so I thought right I'm going to go and fuck it, I'll just speak to somebody so I just go up and there's this girl standing and I'm standing looking at this this photograph and i say oh are you enjoying the show and she says oh listen this is kind of my first time at one of these things and i think it was like that was that moment of being like do you know what like you have this perception that everybody's got their shit together or they know what things are or that they feel their part of something and like her just saying that to me that she was doing the exact same boat with me her first time at this thing wasn't sure about stuff can I just change my mindset on it it was like this thing that I had built up in my own head probably that these things weren't for me or that that oh I'm working class I can't do these things it was all just I'd made it up like it was more in my head than than anything else um and it was a great night I started going around and chatting to different people and stuff like that and it was just that that moment if he hadn't invited me to that or I hadn't had that wee epiphany moment of wait a minute like this is something i'm creating in my own head um it's it was great it's like i've always had people kind of been really supportive of that and try to get me into the industry and do things um so i but like so again i'm rambling here i could you know it's tell me to shut up i love it you're making my job really easy
33:45Katy:this season of the creative beam podcast is sponsored by james crupper and there's exciting news for anyone working in design. Multiplicity is back. Foil Co.'s much-loved creative event returns this February for the first time since 2019 to mark its 10-year anniversary. And this year, the exclusive paper sponsors are James Cropper and Wintering Company, supporting a night built for designers, illustrators, photographers and artists who want fresh inspiration and real connection. The lineup is outstanding. Uncommon will take the stage with Global Chief Design Officer Lisa Smith and founder Niels Leonard.
34:24Katy:You'll also hear from Porter Rocker with Design Director Joseph Liebus, plus Emma Thomas and Kirstie Carter from A Practice for Everyday Life. And Creative Review's Editor-in-Chief Eliza Williams will host the evening. Multiplicity lands on the 5th of February at The Crypt on the Green in Clerkenwell. Full announcements are coming soon. And a huge thanks to James Cropper for championing the creative community and for creating the papers that help bring our ideas to life. It sounds like the path you've carved. I mean, there's definitely been some blips, but like I was saying before, it's the silver lining.
35:05Katy:It kind of teaches you things about yourself and the people you meet along the way who see something in you. It's humbling, isn't it? I know what you mean about going into spaces and not feeling like you belong. I was out of practice. I went to the Northern Design Festival and I'd been on the floor all of 2024 pretty much and very sort of isolated. So I was a little bit out of practice. And it's funny how you can forget that. And I just went up to the first person I saw who I recognized from a leading agency, Design Studio. and I just bumbled something like gosh I'm a bit out of practice I find these things very exhausting and he just bumbled and went gosh me too let's let's stick together and it it was just so funny and sweet and gorgeous at the same time because it made me remember that we're all just we're all just muddling through we're all human that's it I think we're all just winging it
36:03Chris Wilson:yeah just kind of getting through it like especially in the creative industries oh that's
36:09Katy:what i was gonna say yeah the design industry is hilarious i've i you know you feel like you have to have a certain persona and wear a certain type of dress be a certain way but you don't it's all
36:20Chris Wilson:bollocks i mean it's i think for a long time even when i i was probably positioned in the studio because it's just so like i normally talk about what it is i actually do so so stick stick man's basically just like a one-man studio it's just me like i don't have any staff i don't um i i don't occasionally i do 99 of the stuff that comes at output that you do it's done by me across different disciplines but occasionally i'll work with people on things that are maybe a wee bit more out of my skill sets like if it's 3d animation or or video production then i'll work with people on that um but i think one of the things by doing that there is that imposter syndrome aspect like Like I said, I studied industrial design.
37:05Chris Wilson:I hadn't done any branding, any graphics. I was coming from something where I was very working with your hands. At that point, I don't even think I had a computer. We were doing a lot of stuff through electro-set, hand sketches, blue foam models. It was very, very much analogue. So to then try and carve out this job where I was coming out of uni, couldn't find a job in product design because they're very few and far between, unless you're going to go down south. so I kind of had to change who I was like and be like right okay people who pay for logos right I can understand a bit about branding and how that looks and then I started getting into graphics and I think my first my first job out of uni kind of helped with that like it was just me and it was for a pneumatic tool company um they came to the came to the end of your show seeing some of my work and said look we're looking for somebody that can kind of do like 3d stuff for the tooling did they drill you that's good i love a pun i absolutely love it sorry i was gonna say at the work nights out they would all get hammered oh yes now we started
38:15Katy:i could i could do this all day yes okay let's not let's not let's not terrorize the listeners
38:21Chris Wilson:so i again i i got that job based off just speaking to them at the end of your show saying like I was up for doing like a bit of not just the 3D stuff like I could turn my hand to graphics so like I'd done that for two years I've done everything for them so exhibition design or branding signage everything and I'd never done it before so I was teaching myself while on the job which is something I would I would I'd really recommend to people coming out of university that it's everybody wants to get there really quick and be running their own business and doing their own thing and getting recognition and doing all this but there's something to be said about going in and actually just doing the graft in somewhere and learning on paid time on real jobs and then applying that if you want to come out and work for yourself like that's i'd be a massive advocate for that because i've done it 10 years before i was able to get to a point where i felt like i was able to do it for myself so like these wee jobs that you might think look that's not the best that's not the like it was it was tools it was construction tools so like it's not the most sexiest of things but however you can make that job into your own like if you accelerate your work you think right how can i change this project to make it more exciting so i had done that for two years and then i got made redundant from that job they closed the business down hopefully not because my my design was shit but like they about a month before uh they made me redundant i had just signed an 100 % mortgage on my first house who was there my girlfriend who's now my wife and we were fixed rate for like two years on like an 800 pound a month mortgage and I had went in and spoke to him and said look I've noticed there's a couple of guys in the factory got made redundant is my job safe yeah a job safe and I took the mortgage on I think I got one of the last 100 % mortgages on like the Friday and then the Northern Rock financial crisis thing hit on like the Monday of the next week in 2008 and it was like oh no that's gonna happen like i just remember leaving the office after he told me and i just sat in the car and i cried i just thought how am i going to go home and tell nicola like listen i've just lost my job and we've just signed this ludicrous interest rate mortgage um so i ended up signing on for like i think it was two months and the joke with that as like a kind of set up thing for supposed to be helping you was like by the time i'd filled all the forms in they'd assessed my case and then tried to get me funds i'd already got a job like i got a job in like the august um so uh but one thing to say about that as well so it would have been quite like i've got this thing where i say like like never burn a bridge with anyone like i think it would have been easy in that moment for me to probably shit on the guy the manager guy that ran it to say like i asked you about this with the mortgage and stuff and you could have told me and like i could have flipped a desk or something i don't know but but i didn't i just said look that's a horrible circumstance he's in like he's losing his business like it's not as if it's just me that's out of my ear and then i just said listen i'm really sorry to hear that like i understand but like that's the way it is and then he actually after that started another business up and he was one of my first freelance clients when i went out on my own and to help me sustain the business by paying me.
41:41Chris Wilson:So like it's just never burn bridges. I think there's like a, there's a band called Bad Omens. They've got a good lyric that says, if you're going to burn bridges, you better hold your breath and learn to swim. And I think it's a good way of kind of hanging it. This design industry is such a small industry. And if you're nasty about people and backstab, like it gets around quickly. Oh, it does. And people know. So I like, so that was, that was the kind of first job two years of that and then luckily found myself in a job six years working for a homewares company after that uh again went and there was a small team i became the lead designer and that was the best bit as well like again about taking on some of these jobs that aren't maybe the best but there was a guy doing web design stew girl lynn doing surface design i could learn off of them like i'd never done these things like you are and i've always been i've always said that as well see titles within a job like you've got your senior middle weight design director it doesn't matter like i think i've learned most of the stuff that i knew from people below me like and i think you should never have a title and think that that title means anything especially in the creative industries it's about your work ethic it's about the work that you put out it's your talent it doesn't matter the amount of stuff i've learned from like junior creatives i mean like go and show me how to do that and they're like you don't know and i'm like just pretend that i do right but can you show me again how you've done this yeah it's the only way to learn it's great so that so like i've done i've done that for six years and basically the job was designing packaging for for um like the company with a uk leading distributor so they would bring in stuff from the far east and celtie like the high street so like Matalan, George, Tesco, they've all got homeware bits.
43:28Chris Wilson:So we would either create sub-brands for them or we would use our brand guidelines to do that. So I've done that. And again, it was a great way to do photography, do the retouching catalogs, everything. So it was a really good learning process. And I'm still great friends with all the team that I worked with there. It was kind of like, now sometimes when you're in one of these jobs where you're staying in it for the people rather than the... It was definitely that. I think we were all united in the same pain of working there that it's lasted. But it got to a point I was kind of bored in that job.
43:59Chris Wilson:When you work in-house, you're doing the same thing all the time for the same.
44:01Katy:Yeah.
44:02Chris Wilson:You don't feel like you're pushing yourself. It gets a bit tedious. And I'd never, I didn't really know much about the graphic design industry in terms of like who the big players were. Like I think at that point I knew of D8, so like I knew of like Adrian and stuff like that, and I knew Tangent, who seemed to be like two of the biggest kind of ones that I knew. But then I thought, right, I think I'm about to get into agency work, but I've got no experience doing that. So this job role came up for a company called Made Brave who are based in Glasgow. And I think they were only, I think they were two years old at that point.
44:36Chris Wilson:I think they were like nine, I think I was like their 10th member of staff. So seeing this job ad come up and I'm going to have to go off on a side tangent to explain this, how I got into the interview process, right? Do you remember, do you remember Bebo? The social media, right? So that, but this is like a precursor to facebook right it's like and uh you could upload videos and photographs and stuff and i'd done this stupid thing right where i can't remember if i was drunk i probably was but like i'd won this uh line right it was like maybe like four foot tall this like carnival like now you go to the carnival and you throw the things and you can win a prize i'd won this carnival prize and it's a line with a crown on and like a robe and it was about four feet in height and one night i decided it'd be funny to pull all the stuffing out to climb inside it and film myself doing a stupid video right right and uh don't don't ask me why right i love that so i filmed it me singing the line that the lion sleeps tonight the do do upload it to people right probably half cut people start commenting on it oh that's just hilarious you're doing this thing and i thought i'm gonna do another one so like i'd done me in the lion suit driving i'd done like the lion does christmas did you give him a name?
45:49Chris Wilson:no, I just I made this wee series well I'm a Leo so maybe I should have same I called it The Lion Does and I made this wee series and I was asking people what do you want me to do next so like I was doing like I done like Valentine's Day Christmas like all these stupid videos and so I'm getting away from it but basically they made Brave tone of voice was very like jovial like they didn't take themselves seriously and in the job description they said if you love the Lion King films we would love to have you on board and I was like right this is it this is my end.
46:23Katy:That's a sign.
46:24Chris Wilson:I was like I'll send them a link to one of those videos. What can go wrong? I remember speaking to Andrew the owner after it and he said we either thought you were going to be quite creative because you had this kind of wacky sense of like no take yourself to series or you were just mad you were just a nutter it's like we were willing to get you in to check your folio to see if you if the work was up to standard and get you in so I ended up getting getting that job as a as a junior um and again that was my first time ever getting any industry experience within an agency uh which is so fast paced compared to like in-house work completely different so I moved up I went in there as a junior moved to senior and then finally design director and I worked there for two years and then it got to a point it was like again I think when you stay somewhere a while when you've moved up the ranks you kind of get to a point where I was like more of a manager so I was going and doing the client face and stuff I was overseeing a team and I wasn't getting the hands-on that I love like that's the bit I actually love to execute the work so a combination of that and myself and my wife had been talking about starting a family and i thought right if there's any time that i need to try this and see if i can do stickman full-time it's got to be now because if i if i have a child first there's no way like from a money aspect or whatever that i'll take the take the leap of faith and do it so so i said right i think i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to leave the agency job and i'd been working nights and weekends whilst working at the agency and i've done this since like I set Stickman up in 2006 as a like a registered sole trader it was called Stickman Innovative Design Solutions which is ridiculous.
48:12Chris Wilson:Why did you call it Stickman? I think well probably two reasons like I'm tall and lanky and skinny so I thought right and it's just me as in the business and I've never wanted to grow the business I've known it's always going to be me that the clients are dealing with and that it's me and I figured it's quite a nice approachable thing like to think that it's me and also like a stick man's typically whether you're three years old or you're 90 everybody can draw a stick man so it's like it's got that creative kind of approachability to it that i quite liked um but obviously stick man innovative design solutions i cut down to stick man and then went further and took the vils out as you can see in the sign over my head like just to make it more hipster yes love it so i i've had that set up since 06 and i again i'm gonna this is leading after our story so the reason i set that up right was because i won a national competition for a product i designed for the smoking ban and again smoking ban your listeners are too young and even know that you couldn't that's when i gave up smoking because of the because of the ban well that that's great i've come out of that then oh yeah um so pubs and clubs you would obviously be able to smoke in but then with the smoking ban coming in you when you're about to do that so a lot of the venues were how do we deal with this like people need to go out for cigarettes like they're throwing the cigarette butts on the floor like how do we stamp their hand to get in and out there was like lots of things that were making that experience uncomfortable for like both the venues and and the clientele so i designed this product it was basically a wee paper pouch called the doubt pouch and what would happen is the people on the door would give you as you went out you would then use it as a one-use ashtray put put your doubt in it it would self-extinguish and you would use that as your ticket stub to get back into the club because you showed that you paid it would also good it would also have advertising space on it so the drinks companies and that could fund it and then i had worked at this idea where they would be recycled so they would use the paper and then so i won a competition based on this idea and it was really lucky it got picked up by a few radio stations and newspapers and stuff and they were called me like an inventor which i thought was was funny and at this point at this point i was working in lidl right like the the the store right at the weekends to pay for uni and uh they would come in and they'd be like oh my god like it's grass we've seen you in the paper and stuff like that and it was just kind of like tell us how it's going local celeb all right so this opportunity came up where peter jones uh for dragon's den was starting a new tv show and I put myself forward for it to pitch this idea.
50:50Chris Wilson:So I ended up going up to Wesco Bride and pitching this idea to Peter Jones. And because I knew I was doing all this and I thought I could maybe make a business out of this, that's why I set Stickman up originally. Needless to say, he thought the idea was shit. He never invested in it.
51:06Katy:At least you went and did it.
51:07Chris Wilson:I mean, it was a great experience. And I think I'm always, I think if you don't ask, you don't get. I've always lived by that. and I think
51:16Katy:plenty of people who don't even try
51:17Chris Wilson:well and that's it and I think you can't complain about not getting opportunities if you don't put yourself forward for them like I think nobody knows there was a funny thing Nicola said to me I always worried about posting stuff online about my work or just commenting on stuff like putting stuff up like or having an opinion about certain things on my work and I'd said listen I'm just really worried like what if I put something up and like it ruins my reputation and says Chris you don't have a reputation nobody knows who you are so i wouldn't worry about it and it was kind of like this it was this humbling moment of you know what she's right so like there's nothing to ruin so like just just go for it be
51:56Katy:yourself yeah everybody's not focused on you they're focused on themselves it's a liberating
52:01Chris Wilson:truth so like so i already had the business set up so like it made it easier when it came to like deciding that i wanted to get my own and pursue stickman full-time so it'll be so this is january right now February January 2026
52:19Katy:not pre-recorded or anything
52:20Chris Wilson:so February will be 27th of February that will be me of running Slickman full time for 10 years and it will be 20 years so honor thanks it's got a big milestone so
52:32Katy:that's incredible that's amazing and like supporting your family and growing something to be proud of I love on your LinkedIn page where on the header image on your profile there's like different versions of you to sort of get across that yes okay it's just you but actually you've got all these different disciplines and can help more than people realize yeah you need to wear many hats you do god you do and um you're wearing one right now it's a lovely hat um so when we look back this this has been so nice hearing your journey but when we look back to some of those you know traumatic moments that you went through as a kid really um do you think that do you think you can take a positive from it and say that actually you you made a decision to crack on with your life and take any opportunity that came your way and it's kind of played a part in
53:26Chris Wilson:your story yeah definitely I think it's when you do have that those things that happen through your life I think and that this is more so coming out now that I've done the therapy and kind of looking back and seeing the positives in it it's like the it gives you it does build a resilience in you that and definitely within our industry where it is a lot about acceptance it is a lot about probably even from a design aspect rejection like there is a lot of that within our industry whether you submit a design and they say no it's not right or like especially when you put a lot of yourself into that like i feel as if like when i take on a project i live and breathe it it's like a big part amigas into that so when maybe it doesn't land well or the design isn't correct or people shit on it like you do feel like they're shitting on you like you do feel like it's hurtful so i think having gone through a lot of things um that emotionally you need to get your head around and deal with when it comes to that point where you're having to apply that same logic to like your working practice where those things come in it stands you in good stead like i mean like i say i never really thought of them as traumas as such until like i went to the therapy and they're like this this isn't normal these things that have happened aren't normal stuff to happen to people but it but it definitely has made me much stronger and again being able to apply some of that
54:51Katy:to my work has been great it's quite powerful and liberating isn't it when a professional tells you that these things that happen to you are not normal and they are traumatic and it's okay to it's like a weight lifts off your shoulders because you've been holding perhaps onto something
55:11Chris Wilson:that you can't quite fathom for such a long time I mean there's there's the um like there's a burnout aspect as well like I think when you couple a lot of the stuff that happens in your personal life like a lot of people a lot of the time people don't know what's going on in other people's lives like and i think you need to be really conscious of that like like we all put this amazing face forward on social as if like everything's great and people don't really talk about things and it's that's why i think having the communities um like the studio and things like that where you can speak to people meet new people talk to people in the industry where you realize it's not just you like a lot of people suffer with these exact same worries these exact same things and like we've discussed earlier like pretty much most days are really winging it like if you if you really sit i mean don't tell that to the clients but like a lot of the time we're we are finding our feet whilst going through through the project um and i think the more and more that you do that you just become better at it it becomes more of a kind of second nature thing rather than feeling like it's a i think i still get like i'm i'm nervous doing this today i still get nervous when i do talks i still every time i'm presenting something to a client i get nervous like i don't think that ever leaves you but it's kind of part of the excitement as well like that's kind of the buzz like i think we're sadists at heart designers i think they quite like it it's like anything though
56:33Katy:isn't it the more you do i think the easier it gets but it doesn't mean you you still don't have a moment you know when i'm filling up my water bottle downstairs i'm like oh i hope it goes well today i hope i do a good job you know yeah it's it's what keeps you going isn't it
56:46Chris Wilson:yeah definitely but thinking probably you i think there's a lot of pressure involved in what we do um whether it be that you are working for someone else or whether you're working for there's a lot of pressure to kind of achieve things or get get that kind of fix of like right do people like it like certainly for me acceptance was a massive thing and i think it's because i was outside of the industry i didn't know much about the graphic design or branding and stuff so like there was this thing of like, how do I navigate this? Like how do I see who's who and be part of that community? And it can be quite cliquey, I think, like in terms of trying to find how you get in and speak to these people or feel that you're part of the community.
57:29Chris Wilson:That in itself can be hard, and that's irrespective of the work. But trying to find that balance, I think, which I've really struggled with over the years, getting like a balance between working and life, like definitely seeing like my personal life be affected in a negative way because of the amount of workload and what I've taken on to the point where I think it most recently kind of happened to him again but in 2023 I ended up in the hospital through overworking just kind of like through burnout and then you can have blinkers on sometimes like with the feast and famine thing you think I've not had worked for six months if work comes in I'll take it and you take more on than you can probably manage and being only a kind of one person should do as well that's difficult sometimes so one one thing has to give and sometimes it ends up being family it ends up being relationships because you're so head so in the work um but i ended up in the hospital it was like i had been not feeling great uh i was getting like chest pains and i put it down to like the fact i wasn't eating right like i had lost like two stone in weight because and which for a stick man's not great but no i just eaten late at night like going home eating at weird times and i thought right my chest pain it must be something to do with that uh but that's went on and on and then uh i was in the studio one day there was a guy stew used to take a desk in the studio and he said i said look i'm packing it in for the day and he said let's go for a pint so i was like right okay because that's what you do uh in Glasgow so went for a pint i'm sitting here i was like i really am not feeling this like i'm struggling um so i left and as i was on the way home i started getting worse i couldn't really breathe it was getting like palpitations and stuff so nicola came pick me up out of the hospital they said listen we'll get your chest x-rays we'll do an ecg your blood pressure's high uh we've noticed there's some darkening on one of your lungs and it turned out basically i had got a bad bad chest infection and i tried to work through it and my body was just saying no like you've had enough so they gave me medication told me to go home and stop working so for two days i basically slept for two days what did nicola say enough's enough like you need to you need to stop this no even so much like the the physical side of things like i was neglecting her i was neglecting my son caleb like i wasn't getting to see him i was missing out and stuff and that's never good like when when the priority becomes work over your family it's that's a shit place to be in
59:57Katy:why do you think you were doing it do you think it's because you're so frightened of the money or was there an element of you trying to prove yourself but of both probably the money aspect
1:00:07Chris Wilson:like not feeling like i think i've always had this bad relationship with money where i feel as if i need to keep chasing it so like so that and then the probably the acceptance thing like trying to stay relevant keep making sure i'm getting jobs making sure i'm active working probably that but it's exhausting it's really hard to find a balance with it like it really is but i i set out stuff at that point i realized it was too much and i had set this precedent of dropping to a four-day week so i work monday to thursday uh and then i'd said to clients please stop contacting me on whatsapp and all the other apps like i need to be able to step away half five and that's it i don't
1:00:46Katy:hear from you and were they good about it were they understanding they were great they were great
1:00:50Chris Wilson:I confided in them and said listen this is where I'm at with things a lot of the clients I work with are repeat business I tend not to get a lot of new business working with people over 5-10 years you've been doing something right Chris maybe I'm too cheap maybe I don't charge enough maybe I definitely think you build up these great relationships with clients and they want to come back that's a big part of it but they were fine with it they said we totally understand because at the end of the day they're people they've got relationships they've got family they've got they've got stuff going on they totally got it but more recently I've I had a wee spell where I had about three months without work there and then luckily because I know a lot of people are kind of struggling at the minute like I've got work on just now but again I've done that thing where I've maybe overextended what I've what I'm able to do and I can start to see myself getting out of these bad habits again and it's just a bit noticing it it's a bit Noticing it and being like, right, okay, no, I need to watch what I'm doing here.
1:01:51Katy:How old is Caleb now?
1:01:52Chris Wilson:He's six. So he's in primary two in school, yeah. And he's, he's, what are you listening to this as well? What are you listening to this? So, hi, son. I was on another podcast that was put on YouTube and I showed him it and he's like, dad, you're on YouTube. Like, he watches all this YouTube stuff and he's like, oh, that's you famous. And I was like, so I'm enjoying the fact that he still thinks I'm kind of cool. because I know that that will go and then it'll be like nah you're no cool dad well he might go
1:02:23Katy:through a phase when he's a teenager but he'll soon come out of it so I try and instill a lot
1:02:28Chris Wilson:like the idea of letting him be creative and do the things that he wants like he he might not necessarily get in the route of wanting to do what I do and that I suppose that was one of the beautiful things about my mum and dad they never pressured me to do anything like I was it's one of the first ones in my family to go to university and like they never said like that has to be a path that you take like you we'll support you in whatever you want to do and they've always been like that there's never been a pressure so like i just want to be the same with caleb let him do whatever he wants to enjoy i'll always support him what he wants to do and we build lego together we do diy stuff like at the weekend we were spray painting an old scooter that we're trying to up cycles like i like him working with his hands and doing stuff like it'd be easy to let him sit on the tablet all day but like i like to try and keep them keep them analog like get them get them unless it comes to retro gaming like i'm getting them into playing all my old consoles like the old mega drive and the stairs and stuff like that which is brilliant lucky boy
1:03:24Katy:um so i'm gonna have to sadly wrap this conversation up now and obviously we're talking about your son but if we were going to talk to a very young chris you know if you could look back on your life so far what would you say to your younger self I'd probably say don't be so
1:03:42Chris Wilson:hard on yourself like I think I'm super critical of myself like I can be quite harsh um and I used to put it down to like if I'm like that to myself I'll achieve more like I'll do better but like I don't think I don't think that's true I think I should just maybe be more present with stuff and enjoy the small wins and don't be afraid to like congratulate myself when good things happen like i think we especially scottish people were notorious for like not what to shout about what we do or or not talk about the things or not not congratulate each other like we're perfect for like an underdog story see if you're like an underdog coming up people are like behind you but then see you when you get a certain level of success it's oh it's like that go his head forgot what he came through like there's definitely that mentality but like i am trying to just be a wee bit more like not not as critical of myself and just try and think that you've got to this age now you've been doing it a long time like just enjoy it like you've you've carved this for yourself it's okay to enjoy it take a breath and know that you belong because we do don't we
1:04:49Katy:we belong definitely well chris thank you so much for joining us on the creative bean podcast
1:04:55Chris Wilson:Thanks so much for having me. I'm a long follower of the platform and the podcast, so thanks so much for having me on. It's been brilliant.
1:05:07Katy:What a way to end the season. Chris's story is proof that even the hottest chapters can shape us into stronger, kinder, more compassionate people. It's not an easy decision to make. You can find yourself venturing into the darkness, but it's good to keep looking towards the light and keep going no matter how many things life throws at us. I loved how open and generous Chris was in sharing his story, and I hope you found something in it too to carry into your own creative journey. Thank you so much for listening, not just today, but all season long. Whether you're a long time listener or this was your first episode, I'm so grateful you're part of this Creative Boom community.
1:05:49Katy:I'll be back soon with a brand new season, more guests, more honesty, more creative magic from brilliant people. But until then, take care of yourself, rest up and keep making work that means something. I'm Katie Cowan and this has been the Creative Boom podcast.
1:06:11Katy:thanks again to james cropper for sponsoring this season of the creative boom podcast remember its color source range gives designers direct access to 50 beautiful shades and a choice of textures all crafted in the lake district and delivered straight to your door explore the collection and bring your next project to life at paper and packaging dot james cropper dot com
1:06:38Thank you.
From the publisher
This final episode of the season closes on a note that feels right for a new year. Honest. Hopeful. A little raw and full of heart. Chris Wilson, the multi-disciplinary force behind Glasgow’s one-man studio Stckmn, joins Katy for a conversation about surviving life's sharpest edges and still choosing to create something good.
Chris grew up working class in Clydebank, a kid who took things apart to understand how the world worked. That curiosity shaped everything. So did hardship. He talks openly about trauma he never recognised as trauma until therapy named it: a violent attack at university that left deep physical and emotional scars. The loss of his dad. Years of pushing pain aside and throwing himself into work because survival sometimes looks like graft, not clarity.
And yet. Through humour, compassion, and the stubborn belief that he could always graft his way forward, Chris built a career spanning product design, graphics, branding, packaging, and beyond. He tells Katy how he learned to reframe fear into momentum, why being a generalist has kept him afloat in changing times, and how a decade of running Stckmn has been as much about resilience as it has design.
They talk about belonging, too. About feeling out of place in creative spaces that can still feel elitist. About the invisible hierarchies that quietly shape the industry. And the joy of realising most of us are just muddling through, hoping no one notices our nerves. It's a candid, funny, deeply human exchange.
Chris also shares the burnout that landed him in hospital, the difficult lessons about boundaries he's trying to honour, and the softer tools he's building as a dad. His son, Caleb, pops up as a recurring theme. A reminder of why slowing down is key. Why healing matters. And why showing up as the gentler version of ourselves is important.
This is a conversation about making peace with your younger self. About the courage to start again, no matter how many times life has knocked you sideways. And about the strange, hopeful power of creativity to stitch us back together. A beautiful way to end the season. A reminder that even in the mess, even in the dark, there's always a way to move forward.
