The Spark: Zoë Thompson on Turning Creative Jealousy into Fuel and Dancing Your Way to Big Ideas

0:04Katy Cowan:We are back with the wonderful Zoë Thompson. Hello. Founder of Sweet Thang, zine entrepreneur. Love that. Yeah, well you are. And if you joined us on Monday then you'll know Zoë very kindly went through her passion, her passion project, why she's doing it, what she's learned from it. So if you haven't seen that, please do go and give it a listen. It was really, really nice to hear about her background. But now Zoe is joining me once again and we're going to have some fun. Nice. Not contrived at all. And I'm putting my glasses on because I'm getting old. So we're going to go through a bunch of questions which I sent to you prior to this conversation.

0:46Katy Cowan:So you've been warned just for the purpose of our listeners. They know the format now. This is the spark. And I'm going to pitch these to you and we're going to get to know you a little bit better. Lovely. love these type of questions love it love it so we're gonna start with now this is we're going in hardcore have you ever been creatively jealous of someone and how did you handle it yes I have I get I think I get creatively jealous quite often actually to be honest um there's I'm in community with and surrounded by lots of incredible people doing really cool things and sometimes um admittedly I do see someone um launch a product product or um a business or a project and I'm like oh my god damn it like I wish I did that yeah and one thing that I've been doing recently is making and this isn't I didn't make this up um it was like something I saw on TikTok but someone said to make a list called love it for you want it for me um and whenever you see something or someone um that you might be creatively jealous of you put it in there yeah um so I do have a have a list building up and um and in the list I literally write out what what has occurred so I will say X has um curated a really cool workshop series with this institution and it's really cool and I and I want to do something like that and um it's just a really great way to like reframe reframe the jealousy I suppose and kind of like have this like compassionate um way of looking at it and it's really really helped so yeah yes I do get creatively jealous and that's how I deal with it I love it we all do I think um and I remember seeing something on TikTok recently some lovely girl that I follow who she's fantastic she's called Toast with Hope that's her um account Toast with Hope and she's she's been working so hard creating her content and she's doing so well she's so good at it and um she pointed something out the other day and it was like you know there's a thing that happens on tiktok when people start off they get a lot of support from their followers and sometimes when when that sort of tiktoker becomes more famous they get more followers they're getting more likes they're getting more press trips they're getting more free stuff suddenly some of that community can can turn yep um don't be one of those people yeah just just think wow you've worked hard that's great um so i am creatively a little bit jealous of some people on tiktok but i think jealous is a sort of strong word i think envious yeah i never really understood the difference between the two i'm not even gonna lie i think yeah i think envious is kind of a i'm jealous of you but i love you too that's the kind of impression i get anyway yeah yeah it's kind of yeah you're you're annoying but i'm glad you're doing well yeah love it for you want it for me love it i'm gonna take that with me um what's a hill you die on when it comes to creative work oh um i feel like a hill that i would die on when it comes to creative work is probably i mean i've i've been trying to like implement this for so long um but it's that that idea that you shouldn't be creating 24 7 in order to like achieve your creative goals like there has to be moments where you're not doing anything there has to be moments where you're not doing things that are solely creative and I think yeah I think that people assume that creative people should be creating all the time or at least be having creative thoughts and kind of like the kind of like productivity but like Like for creative people, like you should be constantly like striving to create all the time.

4:29And it's actually no, like sometimes your inspiration comes when you're not doing anything. And that's the hill I'm willing to die on. You need to sometimes do nothing.

4:36Katy Cowan:I love that. You need to be creative. Yeah. Anti-hustle culture. Yes. Anti-hustling. We do not need to hustle. Well, there is an argument to say that we do have to work really hard. Yeah. But yeah, balance. Otherwise, you're not going to be good to anyone. And like my nanny would have said, you're not going to be good to anyone if you burn yourself out. So you have to make sure you're OK. And in which case, what's a small ritual or habit that makes your day better? Oh, so many, so many. I love my little rituals. I think one of the things I do is I like to have dance parties in my room. So I have a playlist.

5:15I have a playlist. I have loads of playlists on Spotify, but one is called Shut Up and Listen. and I think I made it for when like I'm just having like one of those days where my mind is just like going up seven million miles per hour and I'm just like you know not feeling like regulated emotionally and I just have this playlist where each song just kind of like brings me back into my body and um you know I can just have a good dance so I like to just dance like ecstatically in my room with my headphones on um and then when I'm done I'm like sweating out of breath I honestly have like really alchemized my like react I've literally alchemized my reality and I feel so much better um what tunes what tunes are we talking about loads of dance tunes I guess there's some Missy Elliot in there yes um there's I'm this is so I feel like this is so niche but there's this like Belgian artist called Stromae who I've like loved since like 2013 um and he makes kind of like dancey music incredible like lyricist like listen to him if you're not on Stramay like get on him yeah lots of random things some jungle in there too I know we spoke about jungle earlier just anything dancey anything to like get the heart rate up and just really be joyful and yeah

6:29Katy Cowan:jungle is massive brilliant that is literally the song that I listen to yeah oh incredible incredible yeah brilliant I can't remember the name oh it's like a mix of um it's 30 years ago um general levy i think yes it's 30 years ago wow yeah i am old i am old the best music was then to be honest so it may it fills me with joy though that somebody who's younger than me is listening to the stuff i listened to when i was a teenager so you know i'm still i'm still cool i'm still 100 you're so cool um okay um what's a secret oh no what's a scent or I need to put my glasses on what is a scent or smell that instantly takes you back to a memory oh I love this question um I would say this is a bit of like um law about my like life I guess which I guess it's one of my fun facts when I was um young younger 2008 2011 so I think I was like yeah set between seven and ten years old um me and um my siblings and my mum we moved to Brunei which is a country in southeast Asia on the island of Borneo in sort of like in between Malaysia Indonesia and stuff like that and um yeah we lived there for three years it was amazing went to school there and a smell that really brings me back to that time is bug spray and for yeah for a very very long time whenever I sprayed bug spray after like when we came back to the UK it would just immediately take me back and because obviously we were living in like a very tropical rainforest climate and yeah the bugs were bugging yeah I can imagine and um yeah so it was also so bug spray um and then also sunscreen as well the smell of sunscreen would like instantly take me back to like yeah being in the rainforest um having to like swat really scary looking mosquitoes and And yeah, the wildlife there, absolutely incredible.

8:35Like there were monster lizards in our back garden, which I think people also call them Komodo dragons. Really harmless, but like kind of scary looking, but they don't really like people. So they tried to stay away. But yeah, they were just like in our back garden. Monkeys at school. Yeah, snakes. Fun memories. Yeah, really. It was three years of my childhood, but like so treasured. treasured and yeah one of one of the most incredible experiences of my life I would say

9:04Katy Cowan:love that yeah so you just you just wear bug spray as perfume now I mean I mean I tried on to but it does bring me bring me happiness oh I love that I love how a smell can just take us back yeah so powerful if your creativity were a mythical creature what would it be oh if my creativity was a mythical creature let me just put my glasses on yeah if your creativity were a mythical creature what would it be oh i love that i'm trying to rack my brain for like um mythical creatures i think i think a fairy because i love a bit of like whimsy love a bit of um mischievousness as well um but also love like cutesy creativity as well and yeah are fairies mythological yeah I would say so I just they're real right I kind of just want to believe that they're real do you know what I mean I think they're real like yeah I think they're in the bottom of the garden yeah I think places like Wales Island I think there's lots of like history around folklore yeah folklore that's the word around fairy people and things I think it's very interesting I hope they exist me too I'm yeah I'm choosing to believe that they do my mum would go to the bottom of the garden when I was a little girl and she'd say Katie quick come and have a look and I'd go and then she'd say look if you're just very quiet my mum's mate amazing oh this leads us nicely on to the next one what's a superstition you secretly or not so secretly follow I love yeah I love this one um I when I spill salt accidentally oh wait wait wait i'll let you finish go on i yeah if i accidentally spill salt i will take um a bunch and throw it over my left shoulder same yeah yeah i do it all the time yeah me too and i'm just like i'm literally like oh my god and then yes i do that um even you know like it's one of those superstitious things luckily it doesn't happen often yes it's one of those ones that don't actually happen often you don't usually spill salt i do it on purpose i put some in my hand and always throw it over my shoulder.

11:15Fair enough. Just a bit of good luck. Yeah. And it has

11:16Katy Cowan:to be the left, right? The devil. Yeah. Throw it in his eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Catholic upbringing. Irish. This is one of my nannas, actually. She was always teaching me things like that. She was always giving me sugar lumps. She'd say to my mum, who would tell her off, it's good for them. It's good for them. It is good for the soul. Yeah, it is. Okay. Oh, now, do you know what? this is really interesting because I think food is something that brings people together so I love the question what would be your dream dinner guest yes yeah dead or alive dead or alive it's one of those it's one of those questions are just really hard um I think I would choose Ella Fitzgerald literally the love of my life love her a voice like butter yes I just think it would be so amazing to chat to her yeah she's well she's one of those um because i love jazz and and she's just one of those um singers that i just wish i i don't know it never would have happened but if i could have a conversation with her hear her talk like oh she was formidable yeah got into spaces where people who look like her couldn't get into yeah yeah because of her beautiful voice and her craft yeah oh the irony yeah and probably couldn't go for dinner exactly everybody afterwards exactly she um she probably had to put up with a lot but she'd still followed her passion yeah just absolutely gorgeous like oh yeah yeah um if you could only use one font for the rest of your life what would it be a graphic design question we've not had one of those yet i think i would choose i feel like i might get hate for this but like Helvetica I just love her she's she's simple she's she's clean no Helvetica hate in this there's no judgment here no judgment here because I think she's I think she's really versatile so like if like if I really had to choose just one for the rest of my life I think it's a good I think it's a good choice do you know what communication is about keeping things simple as long as the message gets across and that is great design I was in my house know what yours Well, I quite like the one we use on Creative Beam.

13:34Katy Cowan:It's called Rubit. It's by Display. It is really, really, there's just something about the shape of the lettering. And it just feels very clean and same as you, just simple. Yeah. It's gorgeous. I also really, have you seen Jessica Walsh's foundry? She's got something called Type of Feeling now. She launched it, I think it was either this year or last year. And she's just come out with a new one called Fiero. Fiero? Or Fiero? Interesting. It's beautiful. It's got kind of like an Italian style feel. Beautiful, like long forms and slightly chunky, but not so chunky. God, I'm going to sound like I'm not a graphic designer now, but I like it.

14:19Yeah. Cool. Nice. Funnily enough, I actually bought a font yesterday. Oh, did you? Yeah, from Creative Market. Oh, nice. It was called Source. it's a chunky it's a chunky one um kind of like um yeah kind of like bubbly I suppose it's got kind of like a um I think a thickness to it yeah probably yeah I saw it on Pinterest as I was scrolling and I was like this is really cute so yes also kind of got this retro feel to it but I just knew I'd want to use it so I was like let me just buy it let me be a good let me be a good creative creative human and buy a font I love that yeah I love that you're still using

14:55Katy Cowan:Pinterest as well. Yes, I see a lot of like ads and videos that are like, stop using Pinterest and use this instead. And I'm like, did I miss this chapter? Like, why do we not like Pinterest? I know, I'm the same. I keep seeing things like, you know, 10 alternatives to Pinterest. I think we even did an article on Creative Beam. I mean, I guess it's exciting to have like different platforms. But for now, Pinterest is still really ticking all the boxes. But maybe it's time to branch out who knows maybe but then if it ain't broke yeah yeah i mean is there anything new that we've used recently that we've taken on that um just haven't been around for very long i can't think of anything because we went through such a phase over 10 or 15 years where the next new thing came along the next new thing yeah we've had threads i guess yeah threads there's this new um it's like a non-meta platform but it's called arena and you can make um these like creative boards with people and like share them and I've seen that it's quite low-key but quite fun some really like some designers that I really admire use arena so maybe that's one maybe that's the next big thing we'll never know now we had Emily Penny on who very kindly we did it over the over the virtual webs and she asked you a question what were you obsessed with as a child and how did that play out what was i obsessed with oh my god what a great question what was i obsessed with as a child and how did that play out what was i obsessed with um hmm trying to like go back into like eight year old zoe's mindset what was she obsessed with whilst you think about that i'm trying to think about what i was obsessed with i like the weetabix club i was in a weetabix club Wait, that's...

16:45Katy Cowan:What did that entail? I don't know, but there's a t-shirt of me, probably about five, maybe four or five, and it's like bright yellow and there's these Weetabix characters that were dressed as skinheads. Interesting. You know, with braces and white t-shirts and skinheads and little Doc Martens, which of course... It's quite cool. It was cool. I don't know the history too much, but I think it was adopted by a certain group of people. So I just look like a little kind of, you know, fascist kid with my Weetabix. But why Weetabix though? Like what was the, you just really liked it? You just really liked the cereal?

17:25Katy Cowan:Yeah, I think I just loved my Weetabix because my mum used to let me absolutely coat the thing in sugar. Nice. And chopped up banana. Brown sugar as well or was it white sugar? Just white sugar. Because I used to love putting brown sugar on Weetabix. It was just some, oh, so bad. Yeah, because it was basically just sugar and milk and like a bit of wheat. Basically. How many fillings have you got? I've got eight. You know what? I actually have decent teeth, I'm not going to lie, because I, as much as I had like those moments in my childhood, I did not have a sweet tooth and I was not raised on sweet things.

17:56Oh, I was. So I've literally been, I've been literally saying to people, like, I'm so grateful I didn't have a sweet tooth as a kid because I fear I would not have any teeth.

18:05Katy Cowan:Well, I don't have any teeth. My dentist is very cross with me. yeah no luckily yeah i was a savory tooth girl and i think my teeth are very grateful for that love it you know we're enjoying absolutely well you know in my day when you left the dentist as a child you got given a lolly oh yeah it's true the irony i don't know what was that all about maybe they just wanted to get you to keep coming back so they'd make money out of you yeah 100 % um oh my the question for me yes yes sorry we went off on a tangent you know i think i was really obsessed with food as a kid um and not just the eating part which is obviously great but the um I love you know books like the tiger who came to tea yes and um the hungry very hungry caterpillar and stuff like that I was so obsessed with like beautiful books yeah yeah just like the beauty of food and um feasting and the way that food looked in those books the illustrations and stuff like that.

19:05So yeah, I loved food. And I think that's played out in my life because I still love food and I love cooking and I love indulgence. I'm a Taurus. I just feel like, I don't know if you're into star signs,

19:16Katy Cowan:but I just feel like. Yeah, I'm a Leo. Nice. Trouble. Okay, so you just had a birthday. I did. In August maybe. 47, yeah, 20th. Nice. Happy belated. Thank you very much. When is your birthday? April, April 22nd. All right, okay. So it's coming up. I'll send you a birthday card. Coming up, April. well it'll come around quick true but i feel like we're i feel like we're at least you know six months out i'm not wishing time away it's like yeah that's only like two months nearly there it'll soon be here christmas next christmas next wow yeah um yeah that's what i would say for that one i love it love it and if i was going to come around if if ella fitzgerald and i was very lucky to join in as well we were going to come around what would you cook for us oh oh probably like a really lovely selection of appetizers obviously to start nice maybe or do you design a menu maybe some like char and I can never say this right charcuterie yeah charcuterie charcuterie um and then I always I always tell people I can cook this because it sounds fancy but it's really not but salmon on crout which is like um to cook it you just need puff pastry pre-made um and then obviously salmon fillet and then you can make a sort of mix with like um some cooked spinach and you can maybe just put some like cream in it mustard seasonings you put that on top of the raw salmon put that inside a puff pastry cook it that's it but it's so complicated but it's actually really simple just like three components just slap it all in some puff pastry and it looks really fancy so i'd probably cook that unless you're a vegetarian of course no okay i will eat anything great as long as it's not too spicy yeah i can't really do spice to be fair no i can do like a bit of chili but um i like to enjoy the food like i've had spicy food before and it's just like i'm not having fun no i don't like to sit there and sweat yeah um i have so much respect for people who enjoy spice and i think yeah it's something you build up i think yeah those people are my friends who who can take a lot of spices because they've been having spice since they were young yeah so to them it's just normal to them it's probably just like salt yeah um they have to train you have to train yourself yes you do i fully believe that yeah now do you have a question for our next guest oh i don't know if i prepared you for that no you didn't wow okay um that's a it's a tough one and i don't even know who our next guest is so it's just got to be quite kind of open i think okay so quite open i would say if hmm shall i have a look whilst you're thinking yeah let me see who let me see who the next guest is on the creative boom podcast um it's likely to be oh it's likely to be ashley johnson from pentagram oh which is can i She basically is head of brand narrative.

22:18Katy Cowan:So she likes words as well. Ooh, wonderful. Okay, cool. Maybe a question of, I mean, I guess you might even talk about it during the conversation, but like if there was one sort of like piece of copy or like brand copy that you've seen out in the ether that you could change, like what would it be and why? That's a great question. I will put that to her. yay yay well this this is us done thank you so much for joining us i know you're cool time flies having fun 100 oh my god i was actually like i was like oh my god do we have enough time like yeah it's all right i'm a we're professionals 100 thank you so much for having me this has been so much fun and yeah i'm really excited to listen back on this um and and watch yeah and watch it and we look fabulous yeah and yeah big love to anyone listening and um yeah thanks for airing my journey.

23:14Thank you.