Design Cuts
112 episodes listed below
Four design-business owners, including Design Cuts' Tom Ross, talk pricing, agencies, and creative burnout.
The Honest Designers Show follows working creatives as they talk through the messy middle of design careers. It moves from pricing and clients to consistency, anxiety, social impact, and the strange pressure of turning creative work into identity.
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The Honest Designers Show mixes two formats: roundtable panel discussions among its four co-hosts and longer one-on-one interviews with outside guests. The hosts — Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee, and Lisa Glanz — each run their own design businesses, including Design Cuts and Retro Supply Co, and draw on that direct experience rather than outside expertise. Panel episodes cover topics like value-based pricing, charging premium rates, the creator economy, and building income from niche digital products such as templates, brushes, and Procreate or Figma assets. Interview episodes bring in guests such as agency founder Mike Janda, who discussed selling his 13-year agency after working with clients like Disney and Google, and illustrator Danielle Coke (Oh Happy Dani), who discussed viral social-justice illustration work and the harassment that followed it. Recurring subjects include imposter syndrome, burnout, procrastination, and the risk of tying personal identity to business success. The hosts frequently reference outside figures like Seth Godin and books such as The E-Myth Revisited to frame their advice. Episode length varies widely, from roughly 35 minutes for panel discussions to over 80 minutes for in-depth guest interviews. The show suits freelance and agency-side designers looking for practical discussion of pricing, client positioning, and the business side of creative work, alongside the emotional realities of running a creative business. Production is conversational and unscripted, built around the hosts' personal anecdotes and business histories rather than tightly scripted segments. Listeners get a recurring cast of four rather than a single host interviewing a new guest each episode, giving the show a group-dynamic, long-running-friendship tone.
Made for: Freelance and agency-side designers looking for practical advice on pricing, client positioning, and running a creative business.
What sets it apart: Unlike single-host design interview shows, four practicing design-business owners debate pricing and agency strategy as peers, occasionally bringing in outside guests rather than relying on one host's perspective.
Are you a designer struggling to find your way in the modern world? Learn how to make a dent in the creative universe with Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee and Lisa Glanz. Each of your hosts have found tremendous success in their own creative fields. They're here to give you a completely honest, under the hood look at what it takes to flourish in this crazy creative vocation! You'll discover actionable tips to land more clients, find your style, successfully brand yourself, and ultimately find satisfaction in your work.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Practical design talk meets candid reflection on pricing, ambition, insecurity and the business choices that shape a creative career.
The Honest Designers Show treats creative work as both practice and livelihood, with Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee and Lisa Glanz comparing notes in roundtable discussions and bringing guests into the conversation.
Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee, and Lisa Glanz make your ambition admit what scares it.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm creative-career reflection on identity, fear, consistency, and the slow lessons of working for yourself.
The Honest Designers Show closes season two with a reflective, conversational stocktake of creative work as both craft and livelihood. The episode is strongest when it moves from business lessons into identity: the hosts talk about how success can make work feel like the whole…
A cheerful designer roundtable turns creative optimism into practical ideas for niche work people will actually pay for.
The Honest Designers Show makes a bright, slightly chaotic case for creative work as both vocation and livelihood. Its optimism is broad, but the sharpest material is small-bore and practical: an artist who wants NFT sales without learning wallets, a designer who would happily…
Danielle Coke links social justice illustration to public responsibility, viral pressure, and the work of becoming fully herself.
Danielle Coke's visit to The Honest Designers Show treats social justice illustration as a practice with real pressure behind it. She is frank about the burden of speaking in public when events are still unfolding, and about the risk of doing harm by rushing to have a take…
A candid agency-life conversation about risk, anxiety, ambition, and what creatives do with their best working years.
Creative agency success is treated here as both a business problem and a psychological one. Mike Janda describes being pushed into freelancing after he could not find work, then sketches the day-by-day pressure of client services: bad deals, difficult employees, ambition, and…
A candid design-business conversation turns a clickbait pricing question into a sharper look at value, clients, and what higher rates would have to justify.
Charging ten times more starts as a deliberately clickbaity prompt, then settles into a more useful design-business conversation. Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee, and Lisa Glanz treat Seth Godin's seminar question less as a pricing hack than as a way to ask what would need to…
Two product designers talk Figma workflows, button sizing, and AI design tools weekly.
Stockholm hosts James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom interview UX and accessibility experts.
Monocle's design team tours museums, furniture studios, and landmark houses each week.
Success can quietly start wearing your name tag.
Creative work feels newly wide open, and the panel starts with that jolt: a writer, musician, or visual artist can pick up a computer tomorrow and start selling without waiting on a job, gallery owner, or publisher.
Danielle Coke carries a public burden.
Mike was pushed into freelancing.
Ten times more still sounds shamelessly clickbait.