In short
Episode topic: Chris Wilson (Scotland) discusses confidence under pressure, staying creative as an “eclectic generalist,” and managing an inner critic, plus personal stories about fatherhood, creative work habits, and music.
Guest backgrounds
Chris is a creative professional who embraces working across disciplines rather than niching down. He’s a parent to six-year-old Caleb and describes himself as chaos-loving and hands-on.
Key claims
Don’t include design concepts in a pitch that you wouldn’t accept as the final result; being a generalist helps long-term, especially as AI disrupts specialties; use music to shift headspace; challenge harsh self-talk.
Notable examples
AI “killing” photo compositing; Caleb’s “no beard” one-liner; seaside amusement nostalgia; a bruised toe photo; leading/energy via metal/rock gigs and mosh pits.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOCreative Advice: Embracing Generalism
0:45 to 2:00
Chris discusses the value of being a creative generalist instead of niching down.
“We're going to talk about all the good stuff, hopefully.”
Navigating Challenges in Creativity
2:00 to 4:00
Chris reflects on the challenges of feeling out of depth in projects and personal life.
Fatherhood: Learning and Humor
4:00 to 6:40
Chris shares humorous experiences from fatherhood and its learning curve.
Creative Principles: Design Presentations
6:40 to 9:00
Chris advises against including work in presentations that you're not proud of.
Guilty Pleasures and Nostalgia
9:00 to 11:00
Chris reveals his love for seaside amusements and nostalgic experiences.
Historical Figures: Learning from Da Vinci
11:00 to 13:00
Chris discusses his admiration for Leonardo da Vinci and his polymath abilities.
“Do you think if he had a LinkedIn profile and was around today, do you think he would still suffer the same fate as other creatives?”
Inner Critic: The Voice of Self-Doubt
13:00 to 14:05
Chris explores the concept of the inner critic and how it affects creativity.
Navigating Impatience and Grumpiness
14:05 to 15:03
Explore the feelings of impatience and grumpiness that come with age.
The Dilemma of Parking Costs
15:03 to 16:05
Discuss the frustrations of local parking fees and a clever workaround.
Nostalgic Scents and Childhood Memories
16:05 to 17:35
Reflect on how certain smells can evoke powerful childhood memories.
“Well, so I'm assuming she sounds very like Sandy.”
Show all 14 chapters
Injury and Everyday Life
17:35 to 19:33
Share a humorous incident related to a foot injury and its implications.
“Oh god yeah it's a powerful thing smell.”
Music's Role in Shifting Mindsets
19:33 to 21:04
Discuss the importance of music in managing energy and mood.
Experiencing the Thrill of Live Gigs
21:04 to 22:53
Delve into the vibrant atmosphere and camaraderie at live music events.
“My taste is so eclectic, but I love going to gigs.”
Creating a Question for Future Guests
22:53 to 24:11
Learn about engaging with guests through thoughtful questions.
“There couldnae be like a better bunch of people.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Katy:Well, we are back with a final episode of The Spark with the lovely Chris Wilson from up north in Scotland. Hello, Chris.
0:14Chris Wilson:Hello. How are you doing, Katie?
0:15Katy:Yeah, I'm good. I'm excited. This is the last of the season. It's both a wonderful moment for me because it means I can go and sleep. and also quite sad because I love chatting with so many brilliant people. You and I had a very heartfelt, very deep chat on Monday about various bits and bobs, but this is now a chance to have a little fun, make things a bit lighter. You know, no sad times here. We're going to talk about all the good stuff, hopefully.
0:50Chris Wilson:Well, I'm eight sneaks up, man. We'll see.
0:54Katy:and um as always you've had a chance to pick from a list of questions so we're going to get to know you a little bit better um and go from there and also at the end there'll be a question from the previous guest and then you'll be able to provide a question for the next guest which won't be asked until the following season of which when that begins we're not yet sure so let's go for it piece of creative advice what is it that you've always ignored but it works for you
1:26Chris Wilson:um niching down like niching choose one thing and and be very good at it specializing that that seems to be something that you hear a lot through podcasts and information and books and everything but i've went completely the other way and said no i'm going to embrace being i'm going
1:44Katy:specialize in being a generalist I love that which is kind of sounds contradictory but um
1:51Chris Wilson:yeah through whether it be the excitement of working on different things or just I that it feels more natural to do about everything rather than the nation so I certainly don't adhere to
2:03Katy:that but that's not something that I do it's it's more fun to do lots of different things it keeps
2:09Chris Wilson:it varied doesn't it keeps you interested yeah definitely and i think one of the things about doing all those kind of different things as well is it's like when there's say a certain especially now with ai coming in where certain disciplines and stuff are are going out the window like i think one of the big things i've done is like photo compositing that that as a specialism is pretty much dead in the water now the ai's taken over so being able to do a wee bit everything's probably going to stand me in good stead going forward it's a good survival strategy definitely there is there's a good book called range uh by david epstein and it it focuses on that about being a generalist uh just not just in the creative industry but just in general and how that can sort of like benefit you longer term rather than than being a specialist so i definitely definitely didn't creative beam do a piece on it is this the age of the
3:01Katy:the creative generalist were you not quoted in that article i might have been i might have been
3:06Chris Wilson:you've you've quoted me a few times in some stuff over the years so there you go yeah whether people
3:10Katy:listen to me or not well whether they bother listening to me god when did you last feel
3:18Chris Wilson:completely out of your depth and what happened next so it if it's a work-related thing it's um i feel out my depth pretty much most times i take a project on i think there's always that point at the start of a project where you pitch for it and you're so nervous about the pitch and that gives you the stress and then you get the job and then you stress about how you're going to deliver the job so and then if it's something that you've maybe not done before or you've partially done it but you're no too sure then then i tend to get out of my depth but i think from a personal standpoint probably been most out of my depth it's like having my son that's probably been like the biggest wake-up call of all time um i i mean i can't i'm not taking full responsibility for that for uh for that like nick i did a nine months effort to like but like uh yeah definitely like having having a kid just like one of the the biggest out-of-depth moments i think i've ever felt like just every day is a learning curve yeah were you there for the birth yeah yeah yeah i was there uh in all its glory was warned was warned not to look down but did it anyway and instantly
4:29Katy:regretted it oh don't worry that's what all of us girls are told from an early age no i i tend to
4:35Chris Wilson:treat everything like whether it's good or bad like a project it's like i need to it's the way my brain works like so like when we knew we were pregnant um i went in to full on like learn everything about it get the dad books what do i do during the birth like i learned everything so i was there Nicola had a straw where cold water and stuff and like everything so like I had I enjoyed
4:57Katy:the whole thing it was great Nicola she was she was on the drugs and stuff she was uh
5:03Chris Wilson:trying to get an epidural that didn't work and then like I so nothing like you think that being a present being in a presentation or doing some design work you think that's nerve-wracking throw yourself into a maternity ward uh or when your wife's having but that that's when you
5:21Katy:realize like can you work under pressure yes you know i'm one of those women that chose not to go down that path but uh what an amazing thing to to have um and now you have little caleb yeah he's great six-year-old caleb is he a little character force of nature does he take after you
5:40Chris Wilson:i i think he definitely more me chaos like loves a laugh he's he's the class clown already uh and he's in primary two like i was definitely that way in school so he's taking all that from me uh his confidence and stuff like that like he's got his he can be sensible as well though sometimes he calls me out and stuff and that's definitely his mum he's definitely he's already realizing who the clown is well hopefully he's got they say that he looks more like me as he's starting to get
6:10Katy:older i think he looked like nicola which so god help him like oh come on come on uh he's funny
6:17Chris Wilson:he comes out with crazy things like i remember you might need to edit this but i remember um being in the shower and we always leave the door unlocked because he sometimes has to come in if he needs a pee so i left the door and we say bust into the toilet and he looks and he goes oh dad like you've you've got a willy and i was like it's the same as yours son it's the same as yours and he says mine doesn't have a beard i just thought it was excellent so he just he cracks me up he just comes up with some absolute cracking one-liners that's very creative no beard love it
6:54Katy:maybe it'll be a copywriter i don't know we'll see maybe it's very very witty um now then i'm scared to ask you this what's a hill you die on when it comes to creative work
7:07Chris Wilson:it's nothing to do with beards is it no no don't ever a bulk out a presentation with a design that you don't want to go ahead because so many of us do it where you'll say they say we want to see three concepts say and you'll do two and you think they're really strong i love it right excellent they're going to love these and then you'll sometimes put a filler or one that you think it's not 100 % but I'll put it in anyway that will be the one they pick 100 % will be the one they pick it'll be the one that you I've experienced this over the years and so just I don't don't put anything in that you're not happy to take as the final thing because it makes the job so much harder the result isn't as good and you don't want to put it in your folio like at the end of the day you want to be able to showcase it so I'd say that don't put something in your presentation that you don't want the client to go ahead with wise words work
8:06Katy:backwards now when you're not working what's a guilty pleasure you defend to the death
8:13Chris Wilson:i love uh see like old shitty amusements like seaside amusements yeah yeah the ones that have got like the old coin machines yeah yeah with the coins move back and forth the grabbing machines like I love them I absolutely like they're all cons you know that don't you I know this like I will happily spend £50 trying to win a£2 cuddly toy just through the excitement of am I going to win it or no like it's just this weird thing I just I really like them I don't know if it's like a nostalgic thing for like my childhood or whatever trying to recapture that feeling so like I love taking care of when we go if we can source that like a wee shitty amusement wherever we are I will find it and we will go the smell of the sea
9:00Katy:walking across a pier seeing the sea between the slats
9:04Chris Wilson:something about it, it's just great candy floss they get rid of a lot of them or they modernise them, which I hate I want it to be shit I want it to be all the old machines, that's part of the charm
9:20Katy:I once had an ice cream completely nicked off my head uh i know a seagull landed on my head and completely took the whole thing and um i was furious so i picked up some pebbles and threw it at the seagull that was eating it on the beach and obviously missed and i turned around and there was this whole coach load of older people sat there just absolutely howling creasing up and i was just so i was so embarrassed on two levels a the fact that it happened to me and b the fact that i lost my temper and threw and pebble and the seagull
9:53Chris Wilson:well they should have seen it coming those seagulls are crafty like they
9:57Katy:they really are they'll come down
9:59Chris Wilson:and take a full fish out of your out of your chippy 100 % they will
10:03Katy:they will they're little bastards little bastards
10:07Chris Wilson:right
10:08Katy:um ooh if you could swap lives with a historical figure for a week who would it be
10:15Chris Wilson:um so probably Leonardo da Vinci ooh
10:19Katy:because he
10:19Chris Wilson:he was like kind of like a polymath like he'd done a bit of everything and i think like know that i'm comparing myself anywhere close to da vinci but what i mean is this idea of doing more than one thing like um because i mean he was like he was like an artist a painter an engineer a scientist a sculptor like he turned his hand to so many disciplines um and like i've been to some of his exhibitions and stuff that I've been on and seen his drawings of the medical stuff and it's so interesting so he just had this massive skill set and he was able to apply his creativity to it, so he's always fascinated me as a person just thinking, some of the things he came up with and invented back then that was like the 1400s or something like that and it's like, you sometimes look at some of the design now and you think, that's shit and this guy was doing that stuff back then in the 1400s So he's always interested me as a kind of historical figure of somebody who contributed so much across so many different things.
11:25Katy:Do you think if he had a LinkedIn profile and was around today, do you think he would still suffer the same fate as other creatives? You know, have someone reply and say, that's shit.
11:34Chris Wilson:It's like, that painting you done was shit. Or like, the lighting was off or the shadows weren't right. AI could do that better or like some sort of some sort of oh like you should niche down yes what you're doing being a generalist you dickhead you should niche down
Read the full transcript
11:52Katy:oh gosh I just remembered your son's potentially going to watch this sorry for swearing it's okay
11:58Chris Wilson:it's I'm his dad and I try my best not to swear around him but it slips out it slips out
12:06Katy:it's just language if your inner critic had a voice and a name what would it sound like
12:13Chris Wilson:so i've got this thing where i i seem to call things steve and i don't know why like we've got we've got squirrels in the garden there's three of them and we call them all steve because we
12:23Katy:obviously can't distinguish what one so what not steve stefan and steven no just steve for all three
12:30Chris Wilson:makes it easier so i i think he'd be called steve and i think he would he would be a bit of an arse like he yeah i can be like i think we talked about i can be quite critical of myself like i can be quite harsh um i try and if i'm thinking of that inner voice sometimes and it's it's been a bit shitty to me i'm being a bit hard i'm trying to be better at being like fuck off like yeah it's the voice and then just be like right okay that's okay to think that i mean i think having an inner voice is great for being almost like a sounding board in your own head like if you can hear it talking back to you and you can use that but also equally it can be quite bad like you can shit on yourself a lot and get yourself down and maybe not appreciate stuff and it becomes almost like a comparison thing which can be dangerous so Steve he's not a very nice guy I've got not to be confused with Steve the squirrels who are just their sound they're really nice
13:32Katy:they're really nice they're nuts they don't they don't often talk about my creativity they just want to get fed so that's that's good love it well my Steve's been replaced with a kind of 1960s biker girl who's like very rebellious she's very kind of feisty and she doesn't take shit off anyone and she's sick of everybody's shit and she just goes around trying to make me do really kind of like you know awful things that might really surprise people because i'm sick of everybody's shit because i'm going through the menopause and i'm just angry in a kind of comical way you know like people have taken ages in a public toilet to go to the loo and i'm like in my head i've got let's call her riz um she's like what the hell are those girls doing in that
14:20Chris Wilson:bathroom for sake you know you should you should blur out can you please hurry up ladies we're not
14:26Katy:performing you know we're not performing in there are we like you only have to wee and pull your pants up for god's sake and yeah the impatience i have to calm her down i have to say riz we just shut the fuck up and just stop being so angry all the time it's great that you're finding yourself and you've got that you know pizzazz but my goodness can we just still have a bit of humility
14:51Chris Wilson:and kindness i think that's an age thing as well i've definitely noticed i've i'm starting to become really grumpy oh maybe it'll turn into a small thing i like honestly i think that's where i'm
15:02Katy:i'm going to yeah definitely let's do it one two three i don't believe it
15:14Chris Wilson:don't use that as the snippet for the podcast please i promise i promise i will not no but do
15:20Katy:you resonate with this so i i have a car park here in my little town that i moved to a couple of years ago out of manchester it's a lovely little place and the council charges 87 pence for half an hour parking when you just want to run a little errand normally i walk but some days are really busy but then there's a marx and spencer food hall and they charge one pound for 90 minutes and you get your money back if you go and buy something in store so it's only been recently i couldn't be bothered with that i just go and pay the council but just recently riz is like what are we paying these bastards for go and park on the marx and spencer's car park get you one pound back and go and buy that posh salad that you've been keeping your eye on go and treat yourself yeah Yeah, go and buy some chocolate.
16:06Chris Wilson:Aye. Go for it.
16:07Katy:She's a troublemaker.
16:09Chris Wilson:Well, so I'm assuming she sounds very like Sandy. Is it Sandy from Greece?
16:15Katy:No, it's the other one. It's the cool one.
16:16Chris Wilson:Oh, Rizzo. Is it Rizzo?
16:18Katy:Rizzo.
16:18Chris Wilson:Rizzo, aye.
16:20Katy:I could have been with other guys.
16:23Chris Wilson:I'm not going to do it with you. I'm afraid. Yeah, Rizzo. My singing days are gone.
16:29Katy:She was brilliant. She was the one that all of us cool girls really liked when we were kids. I mean we liked Sandy but we more we wanted to be more like Rizzo
16:38Chris Wilson:Rizzo was the authentic Sandy changed her personality didn't she she was she was a bit mean to Sandy initially
16:45Katy:she was a bit mean
16:47Chris Wilson:there was probably love love there down under though I think she was it was that sort of I think it was well meant hatred
16:54Katy:yes and then she becomes the wife of Jed Bartlett so you know you're not getting the reference so have you ever watched
17:03Chris Wilson:the west wing i haven't no i've not seen that unfortunately so good give it honestly this time
17:10Katy:of year west wing highly recommended along with gilmore girls and then you just swap the two right perfect life's life's happy what's a scent or smell that instantly takes you back to a memory
17:22Chris Wilson:uh so this will be bovro oh bovro right or chicken soup but it has to so the reason the reason this is a thing so i kind of talked i think in the podcast about my dad used to go to the car auctions so we'd get these car auctions and we'd fix cars up and and they would sell bovril but it was in those it was those machines that you've got to that had the small kind of cream colored plastic cups like it was terrible right but they they done to hit they done the bovril and they'd done the chicken soup so whenever i smell bovril or or chicken soup it reminds me of those days those cold days going to the auction outside and bidding on the cars or when my dad worked at the hotels they had one of those machines that had it and we would get a chicken soup so like whenever I smell those two things it always reminds me of going to work with my dad in the hotel and him showing me how to wire plugs and do all that sort of stuff or going to the car auctions with the Bovril comforting.
18:20Chris Wilson:It's definitely a nostalgic thing.
18:22Katy:Oh god yeah it's a powerful thing smell. Now we've got one more before we give you um last week's um guest uh question and it is what is the most recent photo on your phone uh so i was going to try and show you but i'm using the phone
18:40Chris Wilson:to record this but i had looked at it before so it's actually a picture of my foot and uh i've not got a foot fetish or anything like that it's not it's not like that no i uh i hit my foot getting out of the bath at the weekend and I think I broke my toe
18:57Katy:oh for goodness sake
18:59Chris Wilson:my foot swelled right up so I'd sent a picture to Nicola, this doesn't look normal I think I broke my foot and she's like yeah that looks broken, basically it swelled right up it went completely almost like deep deep purple and she's like like we all do when we do things like this, we google it straight away, is my foot broken? I was like that definitely looks like all these images and then looked up, what do you do? and people are like well you can go to the doctors but they don't do anything for it so i've so i just started it so i've basically basically just left it so i've got this bruised toe uh so that that's that's one of the pictures that was on it the most recent one that i'd sent uh and there's a couple other ones it was a me and the wee man have been taking an old scooter that i had we've been putting new handles on it and spraying it up and fixing it up so there's a picture of that god you'll treasure those memories uh it's good because it like we had them out in the garden whenever we're building stuff like i always get him to get involved so like i'll give him a hammer or scooter i'll let him do it um obviously i'll monitor him make sure he doesn't hurt his cell but of course i love it i love the idea is just working building stuff together so like we were doing that with his
20:06Katy:scooter uh so that was one of our photos that was in there so nice so nice right so we have a question from the previous guest um it is joy nazari from uh the founder of dnco and she asks when i need to get myself in a different headspace i have a few go-to music tracks which now um pavlov my brain into a new mode what do you do as a leader to manage your energy and if it's uh music show us your tracks right okay so that's okay so i suppose i kind of really
20:45Chris Wilson:talk about the leader side because i don't have a team or anything like that but i think you are a
20:50Katy:leader well follow the leader leader leader follow the leader you're a leader saying that i'm a if
20:56Chris Wilson:there is a congo a conga a conga going on then i'm definitely at the front of it i'm the one
21:01Katy:starting that that's brilliant and i'll definitely be one of the people that comes and joins in to
21:06Chris Wilson:show support but yeah so i like music is a big like i listen to music a lot um i think even just like back in the band days like music's always been a big part of my life whether that be like growing up and stuff like that like so like track wise so like i listen to a lot of metal uh like kind of rock metal but i'm i'm open to everything really like i think it's like the design thing i have quite an eclectic taste in music like i'm going to see rick wakeman so again like random again that's like a band he's a artist from like the kind of 70s i think he's 76 yeah and my dad kind of got me into it he plays synthesizers and has these weird albums about like nights at the round table and stuff like that it's just bizarre but like but then i'll listen to like the genre of chiptune which is like taking old game boys and taking the 8-bit soundtracks from it to make music.
22:07Chris Wilson:I like a lot of Japanese music. My taste is so eclectic, but I love going to gigs. So if there's something where I need to let loose and feel like I've got somewhere I can go to that's not work-related, I'm not having to be responsible as a husband or a parent, I can just go nuts. I go to gigs a lot. So it's only until recently I've kind of stopped getting in the pit. like I love getting into a mosh pit and just coming out bruised bruised and broken and then but I'm getting a bit old for it now the bruises they're taking longer to heal each time I do it I love a gig
22:45Katy:I love a mosh pit I started a mosh pit at a sex pistols gig in Manchester once wow
22:51Chris Wilson:amazing loads of old men
22:53Katy:just stood around sort of like that really kind of mellow and my friend who I'd gone with who was a bit older than me he just said this is a bit dull isn't it like not the sex pistols but the audience were just so quite chilled you know and i just went hold my pint and off i walked into the fray and i just went up to all these random men just going oh my god it's the fucking sex pistols just like come on like get a bit of
23:20Chris Wilson:movement up and down it's weird i've seen this like i've been going to gigs since i was like a teenager and i love that i love that whole united feeling you have when you're at a gig and everybody's just enjoying it and you're there and it's so nice and it's it's so weird to look at because when you look at these types of gigs like metal gigs and and rock gigs when the pit is going off or they do this thing called the wall of death where basically like it all separates and then you run in like i'm right in the front of that like i'm going hell for it i love it like but from the outside people who maybe don't know that genre music are like oh my god this is brutal and it's so like, but it isn't, it really isn't.
23:59Chris Wilson:There couldnae be like a better bunch of people. They're all softies. Aye, really? Like that's the thing.
24:07Katy:It's a good genre to get into. Yeah. Well, that was a great question. So now, do you have a question for our next guest, which will not be answered until the next season? So we'll have to put it on ice.
24:21Chris Wilson:so i was on one of your talks recently with uh simon dixon from dixon baxi and i asked a question and it's actually resulted in him saying that i could have some time with him which i which i'm going to actually speak to him uh so i asked that same question that i asked him which was if you're if you say say your agency or your studio or you're a one-man band right if you were a genre of music what would it be and what would be the name of your first album like your debut album so like that would be my question it's a brilliant question and it really
24:59Katy:made simon smile didn't it and won you won you a prize so fantastic all right i will put that on ice and i'll put that to our next guest chris will you please look after yourself try not to injure yourself i don't get my toe fixed and uh just just be wonderful you and carry on remembering to uh like me have that balance which is not always easy to achieve but uh yeah make sure you make
25:28Chris Wilson:sure you look after yourself will do thanks so much katie and thanks so much on behalf of like everybody in the design community uh for everything that you do we create a boom like the platform the podcasts everything like it really is it's it's it's incredible for people in terms of inspiration the showcasing that you do for everybody so i keep it up and and i'm loving the the new vlogs as well i'm every week just dying to tune in to see to see it so uh yeah
25:56Katy:excellent well you'll be surprised to know that um for um for the vlog coming up next well i'm going to be going to Amsterdam um which will probably be already be out by the time this episode comes out and um I'll also have been to Dixon Baxi for a studio tour so if you want me to ask anything else whilst I'm there um please do drop me a line because uh yeah I'm going there in November well it's actually January now isn't it so I was I was there last November but yeah it sounds as if it went great it was it was brilliant they had rubbish lunch though they could have put on better spread i'm joking this is where my break this is this is rizzo kicking in she's just a terrible rebel right well have a wonderful 2026 and if you are tuning in listening to this and you've enjoyed the season please do subscribe leave us a review tell all your friends and more than anything thank you so much for listening and being part of this wonderful community until the next season see you soon
From the publisher
This bonus episode brings Chris Wilson of Stckmn back for a lighter, looser conversation to round off the season. After a deep, emotional main interview, Katy and Chris shift gears into something playful, candid, and full of spark.
Chris answers quick-fire questions about his quirks, his guilty pleasures, the creative advice he ignores, and what really happens behind the scenes when he's out of his depth.
They discuss parenting, music, creative identity, and the inner critic he has named Steve. There are seaside amusements, mosh pits, broken toes, and a surprising amount of wisdom tucked into the laughter. It's a warm, human conversation about what keeps us going when the work gets tough, and life gets messy—a gentle, joyful way to close the season.
