Design leader Nicola Ryan takes us inside the world of premium digital storytelling at Conde Nast, where she oversees the digital experiences for iconic brands like Vogue, The New Yorker, and Wired. 

From her early days questioning whether to study German and Spanish to finding her calling in the fast-paced world of newspaper design, Nicola shares how the media industry is grappling with the tension between snackable content and deep, meaningful storytelling.

The conversation explores how newsrooms operate at breakneck speed, creating complete publications within 24 hours, and what other creative industries can learn from this approach to decision-making and collaboration. 

Nicola reveals the behind-the-scenes challenges of redesigning legacy publications while balancing editorial vision with commercial realities, and how her team is actively "cleaning up" digital experiences to help readers focus on what matters.

Key Takeaways

• The attention economy paradox: While bite-sized content dominates, there's a growing hunger for deep, immersive storytelling that requires time and focus
• Decision-making velocity: Newsrooms teach us that making imperfect decisions quickly is better than paralysis through perfectionism
• Quality curation over quantity: Success isn't about producing more content—it's about helping audiences find the one thing worth their time
• Cross-functional collaboration: Bringing together editorial, commercial, and design teams early prevents costly misalignment later in the process
• Digital experience hygiene: Removing intrusive advertising and distractions is essential for building loyal, returning audiences
• Legacy brand advantage: Established publications have built-in trust that new brands struggle to achieve in today's noisy landscape
• The power of constraints: Tight deadlines force crystallized thinking and prevent endless iteration that often makes work worse, not better
• Apps as focus sanctuaries: Mobile applications provide controlled environments where readers can engage deeply without external distractions
• Manufactured deadlines: Creating artificial time pressure helps maintain the creative momentum and decision-making clarity found in newsrooms
• Mindful consumption: Just as we choose healthy food for our bodies, we must consciously curate what we consume with our minds and attention

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Nicola: but I also think. Snapchat, TikTok, there's such a trend towards this. There's also a really deep yearning and a need. and I think we see this with brands like The New Yorker, where people do read 10,000 word essays and they do read them to the end and they read several of them and they come back and read them again And I think that kind of, depth is so important. and I think it's very much still wanted by our audiences. And I think as time goes on, and I think as people see the surface of such bite-sized content, I think there is gonna be a bit more of a swing back to really wanting that deeper storytelling, that immersion of being able to really focus on one story for a much longer period of time. 

Radim: Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radim Malinic and Creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me in this season. Inspired by my book of the same title, I'm talking to some of the most celebrated figures in a creative industry.

In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. How they learn to grow as creatives a creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career.

So 

Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life.

You ready?

My guest today is currently serving as Vice President of Global Product Design at Conde Nast, where she leads the design strategy and execution across a portfolio of 22 iconic brands, including Vogue, new Yorker, wd, and many others, and that is across 11 different markets.

In our conversation, we talk about how the media industry is grappling with the tension between snackable content and deep meaningful storytelling. How newsrooms operate at breakneck speed, creating complete publications within 24 hours, 

and what other creative industries can learn from this approach to decision making and collaboration.

We also get behind the scenes challenges of redesigning legacy publications while balancing editorial vision with commercial realities 

and how to clean up digital experiences to help readers focus on what matters.

It's my pleasure to introduce Nico Orion.

Radim: Hey Nicola, how are you doing today? 

Nicola: Hello. I'm doing very well, thank you. How are you? 

Radim: yeah, thank you for asking. I'm very good. I'm looking forward to this because you are true storyteller.

What you do for your work and how you do it and how you've been doing it for a while is true storytelling. And I wanna go through it because as a designer, every time I read the headline of designers or UX designers or any designer should be a storyteller, it always filled me with dread. So I hope now, I hope that we will get to know a meaning of storytelling and creativity for a session.

But for those who may have never heard of you, how would you introduce yourself? 

Nicola: I am, a designer and design leader who, creates, digital products that tell stories. I've been working in media in publishing for the last 10, 11, 12 years. and me and my teams create the websites, the apps, and in past lives, the newspapers, the magazines, Snapchats, that tell stories quite simply.

at the moment, I head up the team, at Conde Nast. We are the publisher that I own Vogue and the New Yorker and Wired Vanity Fair to name a few. and we work across all of those, all brands, creating the websites and apps across all of their different countries, to really bring the journalism and the editorial storytelling that the teams are creating to life and into the hands of, their readers and audience.

Radim: I can't wait to ask more questions because storytelling in such a. Would you say tomato was times out there? the narrative really, really matters. And I think in an era of snackable bite ized content where the headline can stare up so much emotion, usually a blind hysteria and from hysteria, where do you even start with doing what you do?

Because such a vast portfolio. How do you almost get people to take time and digest the content? 

Nicola: Such a good question. And,I think, nowadays what we see, it's not completely changed, but I think more so than other people aren't giving the time to actually consume a whole story.

Very few people get to the very end of our story pages. it's definitely not the majority of people that will watch a video to the end or scroll right to the end of a long article. so there's definitely, there's a huge amount of competition for attention, isn't that, and people are really attuned to just to wanting quickfire bursts of things.

and I think, there's a constant tension for creating formats and telling stories in really punchy bite-sized ways. but I also think. Snapchat, TikTok, there's such a trend towards this. There's also a really deep yearning and a need. and I think we see this with brands like The New Yorker, where people do read 10,000 word essays and they do read them to the end and they read several of them and they come back and read them again And I think that kind of, depth is so important. and I think it's very much still wanted by our audiences. And I think as time goes on, and I think as people see the surface of such bite-sized content, I think there is gonna be a bit more of a swing back to really wanting that deeper storytelling, that immersion of being able to really focus on one story for a much longer period of time.

but I think it's definitely, as you say, storytelling is in such a tumultuous time. And I think definitely in my job there's a need to be reactive and aware of what's going on outside of what we are doing and what. Trends and what people are expecting and what people are enjoying and what's working.

But I also think there's a need to not be too reactive to really stay the course in places and really identify where those places are. because I think storytelling, it's such a human thing and it's the crux of everything that we do, right? as humans whether we're talking to our friends, whether at work, we all love a good story.

and there is, there's such a need for it in today's society, the quality is what's really, really key. And I think particularly the brands I work for, and one of the reasons I really love what I do is I really believe in the importance of that quality storytelling and that quality journalism.

and you can't always do that in bite-sized chunks and fast pieces. you have to be able to get deeper into the story. And I think, brands that we have such just Wired is doing an amazing, job of this, particularly in some of the US news of really going deeper, under the surface of the story.

yeah, 

Radim: you mentioned that you have to be reactive and aware of what's happening. How much of the technology have swayed the decisions of where you have to go with the content?

Because. In some choices, we would not have chosen to do snackable content if we didn't have to. Like technology has driven this. I'm sure you would agree because you want to get lost in a story it's nice to have a little taster like, Hey, this is the idea of a story.

Would you like to know some more? But because it's so prevalent through content generation, it's so prevalent with the news cycle. It's just we have created this noise machine that. Doesn't allow for too much, you know, focus in a way because it's designed to make you feel anxious. It's designed to play on your dopamine receptors to go like,Hey, there's more, there's more, there's more, there's more.

And when you try to wedge in, I'm assuming when you're trying to wedge in a really good piece of content, almost like the bait in a pond or like,Hey, I've got a really good fish here. Would you like to read it? reactive and aware. How does that play integral part in your workflow?

 Nicola: as you said, there's such a torrent of information that we get. and media brands are a big part of that, right? As well as all of the many, many other people out there creating content. So many people creating content, we're all creating content. and how, as a, user, as a reader, how do I figure out where the good stuff really is?

And I think, it's challenging, right? we all curate our various social feeds and our inboxes and we look for the good stuff. but even then, we're still drowning a lot of the time in that. And I think people are really looking towards to either people and individuals, and I think they're also looking towards brands.

They're looking for a solution to this problem. And I think that's where a lot of media brands can play a part because they can help navigate, filter and really show you what those important things are. And I think, we often hear this, I think the New Yorkers a really good example of,too much content is actually the problem.

Sometimes we hear people unsubscribe because they haven't got enough time to read everything that the New Yorker writes, and they feel therefore they're not getting value for money. And it's almost counterproductive to create too much stuff because there is this desire for completion, there's this desire to actually feel they've gotten across everything and they've got everything that, the New Yorker has to offer.

And I think that curation is something that people are really, looking for and, willing to pay for. When we talk about business models and the future of these brats, they're really looking for someone who's gonna let you say, pluck this one big fish out the river. This is the thing if you read one thing today, that's what it is.

and that was something that we really focused on when we redesigned the New Yorkers homepage of every day. There's one big read at the very top of the page, and we make a big deal of it because if you read one thing today and. Let's be realistic. You're probably only gonna read one really 10,000 word essay today.

We're gonna make sure it's really good and this is the one thing you should read.

Radim: You mentioned that people curate their own content, is there too much content? How do you decide? How much content do you actually need to put out? Because obviously yes, having a 10,000 word essay every day to read, that's 70,000 words a week. If you do that, that's a novel. requires time because one of the notes I've made was time. I do remember back in the day when I was making myself very happily broken by working too much. I got offered a free subscription to a magazine and I was like, I do not have even time to open your magazine. You can send me what you want me to send, but I don't have time.

it was my own problem, obviously. I made myself busy. I fall into this sort of productivity trap that I could make myself work all the time and I've really neglected everything else. And I'm thinking, I wish I had subscribed to that. I wish I had that free subscription because I should have made the time.

And I think how do you almost educate people that there is nourishment in actually spending time away from the screen or on the screen by actually doing something which can aid your process, can aid your sort of, your thinking, in your own storytelling.

do you have any. insights into behavioral science, like how to get people to, pause for a bit and actually spend some time on themselves reading, and escaping for a bit. 

Nicola: Yeah, I think it's, immensely difficult thing and I think, something we all struggle with, right?

I've been trying to use my phone last lasts and it's just this object in the room that's just glowing and trying to get you to pick it up. I think it's an immensely tricky thing because the majority of our stories get read right on digital screens rather than the print.

print's still healthy, but it's obviously numbers are going down as every publication out it's interesting and where we perhaps see the biggest success is where we get people, where we have apps.

Because when you have an app, you can enable people to focus, you can remove away the distractions and the temptations to click between this, that and the other. You can't obviously control everything that's on their phone and the other notifications that are coming in, but you can control that environment, and means you can get people, you can strip out a lot of the interruptions and you can sometimes have less intrusive advertising and all these sorts of things that often come with websites.

so I think apps is one way where we really see a, path where, particularly those brands that have longer form journalism like the New Yorker, where people are willing to pay and it becomes a thing that you're paying for and you have access to it, that you build more of that habit.

I think it's where we talk a lot about habits of really wanting, because I think that you are saying the benefits that you see from reading quality stories comes to habits. You're not gonna read one story and all of a sudden your life is, well, sometimes your life changes. But really it's about that accumulated knowledge and that dedicated a bit of time each day or, each week.

I think each week is probably more the kind of best analogy for some of these, magazines. But you feel, and you save a time that knowledge building up, I think the other thing that's interesting, another big area that I'm focusing a lot this year is really cleaning up a lot of our experiences.

Like we've had, a lot of years as many, many publications have had where a lot of our money's been driven by, advertising and at times quite intrusive advertising. Because the general expected behavior is, people come in often from Google, they read one article and then they leave and you never see them again.

And they're often coming from Google or from social platforms. And because of that, our advertising models have had to be fairly aggressive, right? we've all seen this, those sites which have sticky ads and videos that jump past you because they've got one chance to really capture your attention.

but what we're really seeing is, this need to build out a much more, Loyal user base of people that are coming back that you say that they, see that value and they keep coming back. And to do that, you've gotta be providing a good user experience. You've gotta provide an environment that people wanna spend time in and where they can focus so they can really get that value from that story.

so we've been doing a lot of work, really stripping back and cleaning out a lot of that clutter on the page so people can really focus on the reason that they came to your sites in the first place to the story basically. it's really clearing the stage and creating center stage for those stories to really, have that impact and to really, be able to express themselves in the best possible way.

and I think a lot of the things that, technology is such a gift in that respect of, the multimedia and different options that we now have to tell stories and, and the blending that you can create on a single page between video and audio and text We often say, how can we create the magazine experience in digital?

But I think really the aspiration is to create experiences that even better than print, right? Because we have so many tools at our disposal now. the trick is really how can we use them to tell our stories in even more immersive and, impactful ways than we could in the printed magazine.

Radim: I liked your note about cleaning up the digital experience because when you talk about intrusive advertising, I wish I had a still screenshot from somewhere I found years ago, which literally imagined 1400 pixels by, let's say 1400 pixels. It was about like 200 by 200 pixels. That was the article.

Everything else was an ad. I can imagine how someone's willingness to create a digital experience has died.

Then because we have got taken over by digital advertising, you can't read whatever we write about, the story is buried. is this what you got into, writing, publishing storytelling because it's, buried and I think, when he talked about Google sends you to a page and you got one chance to make an impression. Impression is dreadful. It's bad. Like it's just like, how is that a sustainable model?

Because in any ways, it makes you go away from the experience because you didn't have an experience and if, anything, you had a really bad experience. So I do like how you said that, how do you rethink it? And that's more of a sort of loyal readership. There's more on a sort of a loyal audience, because You mentioned a New Yorker quite a few times, and I'm guessing it's that sort of brand recognition that, you can go and trust because Steve, you've got certain quality of articles from New York and other publications that you publish. we know how important it is to keep a brand going and keep it, as recognized and as trusted.

But how difficult is it to build a new brand?

do you create many new magazines and publications to suit the narrative out there? Or would you rather focus on keeping the legacy brand more alive? 

Nicola: my experience so far has been more about tweaking and adjusting existing brands I think when you look at a lot of different.

Media brands over the previous years, like they morph and change shape depending on who's the editor very much. they have slightly different preferences and attitudes and beliefs and takes on things depending on really who's leading them. And I think, it's such a gift to have a legacy brand, a brand that people recognize and have some affiliation with.

that most times, at least in my experience, we've tweaked what a brand's strategy is, what a values are to make sense for where we see an opportunity or where audiences are really interested in, in today's times. If that answers your question. 

Radim: Yeah, it does. It does. 'cause that's the most logical way of doing things.

Obviously you've got a trusted audience, you've got audience, you've got a legacy audience, you've got brand equity. But new magazines, new websites, new sort of publications do show up. And having been looking for a magazine for my daughter the other day in, Waitrose or m and s just trying, because the regular news stands disappeared, around most places.

And you see some magazines, you're like, oh, it surprises me there's a readership for this. because surprises you like, because people vote with their actions. Everything that we do is a data point. if you buy. Wide magazine, or if you buy anything from let's say, Vogue or Vanity Fair, or if you buy Gardeners Weekly, or the Sleep Magazine, like it's gonna create a data point of what does the audience, what does the society actually need?

 that's a delicate sort of concoction and delicate recipe of like, how do you shape the narrative of a society, in my opinion?

so you mentioned earlier that not many people make it to the end of the article. And I worked with someone years ago who wanted to publish elaborate stories on his blog, and he's gone and found all the data on like, how many people stop halfway? How many people stop three quarters?

And this was nearly 20 years ago. So I'm thinking with all the tools, and this is your digital experiences, like how much of a narrative can you, or how much of a taste for a narrative can you gauge from analytics, from data points?

Nicola: yeah. it's hard to tell. I think it gets into a really interesting question. What you're asking is like, how do you measure the success of a story? and I think it's, also becomes really interesting of how do you define success for a story? Is it.

a good part is has that person completed it? is the first step. How far down do they get? How far do they scroll? How long do they spend on that particular page? but I also think there are other metrics, particularly when you think about a story. Often you want to also inspire action, and particularly when you talk in sort of media, you're thinking about what job is this?

This story is of course playing a part in telling a really hopefully culture performing story and is gonna go and influence conversations outside. But it's, also doing a job in terms of creating a, business for. Is that story going to be the story that gets someone to subscribe, for example?

Or is it going to be the story that makes someone feel like, Hey, it's worth paying my however much, 10 pounds a month for this subscription. is it that story that's going to,someone's gonna see a bunch of adverts and that also pays that journalist's, salary through that way.

But I think that, the monetized Asian aspect of it is, also important. and I think there's so many different dimensions to what a successful story is. And depending who you are, still have a different answer. But I, honestly think it can be quite an intangible one to measure.

So whilst we put a lot of metrics around it, and you have to define engagement and to define how much we're able to monetize it, I think you've also got the aspect of just the ripple effect. what conversations does it start, how many people are sharing it, how many other media outlets are picking up on and, rehashing it into their own stories.

there's a lot of these sides to it as well. so it is definitely a, tricky one to sometimes to measure, but definitely day to day we look a lot at, time spent, time span's our biggest metric, we don't care so much about page views, but we really care about the amount of time someone's engaged and, on our site consuming, whether it's video, whether it's audio, what they're just engaging with our stories.

and then we also care a lot about, their return, whether they return to us again, whether we see them again, whether we know who they are. 'cause oftentimes you don't know who people are, right? Because they're coming from all different sources. You have no idea who they are 'cause they've never logged in.

And cookies are rapidly disappearing. We have no idea who people are. so we also care a lot about knowing who people are so we can better understand those habits and behaviors and best are designed for them. 

Radim: I loved your answer. because it's still based on the fundamentals of stories and conversations.

when you say what is the success of a story? And you said is the action and is the conversation that it might stimulate and how does it spread? Because the reason why I asked you about data, because I sometimes feel like we are too preoccupied. With how good the data is and what the viral, I know viral value on what the stickiness and that kind of stuff.

Whereas, it goes back to just how you make people feel because you talked about humans and storytelling. Like it takes us back to, very much the original point. The stories and storytelling was around us for thousands of years and there was no data, there was no digital devices, and the story spread and stories helped us to make us actually make sense of what we are doing.

Kind of passing it on. So I wanna talk about you a bit more now because how did you end up today where you are? Because some people might know from this show. I normally ask people like, where did they start and how does it take 'em to where they are today? Whereas I wanted to talk about a big topic that you do and then do you play part in this.

So human storytelling and your journey to where you are today. Pressure? 

Nicola: yeah, that's a big question. I had a winding path into design. I almost didn't study, didn't go into design. I was gonna go and study German and Spanish, in the last minute changed my mind and, studied information design.

and I really enjoyed, I. Kind of understanding and breaking down of information and how you make that make sense. But I quite enjoyed the sort of system side of that. and after graduating, I landed an internship at Pentagram. I worked in Berlin for a bit and then back in London.

and Pentagram was just amazing. It was really this, my like graduate school for design. you had the chance to really hone graphic design skills and ultimately communication design skills, and learn from some really wonderful, inspiring people and, really try to get good about the craft of design and graphic design.

So that was a really inspiring place to work. But I always felt, like the interesting path the party was happening elsewhere because at that time, The iPhone had just come out, responsive design was just a fledgling thing that was starting to come into being. And I really felt at the time that, there were so many people out there, including all the pentagram, every who worked at Pentagram, who were amazing at designing books and posters and corporate identities, and I always felt I could never be as good as them.

But there was this whole other area that was the Wild West waiting to be defined in digital. no one really knew how to do good typography on the website, on websites, or nobody really had defined what it meant to design a great app. there were so many things that were rapidly evolving and, it felt like a really interesting place to be.

so I, did a lot of like projects in my spare time and got into UX design Essentials, it was called at that point. and worked as a UX architect for a bit in, an advertising agency called Karma. it was interesting in understanding the sort of basics and mechanics of what was considered UX design.

But I always felt there was this weird division. 'cause you had UX designers, you had your wire designers. I had to hand over the work at a certain point and I was like, this is mad. 'cause designers should think across the whole thing. Design is all about how this stuff comes together and not just your sort of piece in the factory.

and so I ended up, getting offered a job at the Times of London, like completely by chance. I met the guy that heads up the team there on Twitter back when Twitter was really good. ended up, going to the Times and in Kai's terrain in the deep end that had a team of a couple of people to essentially work on their digital stuff at the time.

So, youyou end up making it up as you go along a little bit. I was by no means an expert in all things digital design, but at that point, neither, were many people. and so I worked on some of their, new app at the time and we did some, created stories for their, daily app content that it created.

It was a real kind of mix of like day-to-day editorial stuff, app design, new thinking for their new website,longer term strategy that we worked on with IDO. And it was just a really exciting time doing a bit of everything, and really gave me the bug for media, for storytelling and working with editors and journalists.

So I just thought. The first time I went to the office and you just walk around and I just felt, like coming home, I belong here you can feel some things sometimes in your bones and I just thought, this is right. so I was there for a while and then, the person I was working with at the times ended up going to The Telegraph, which is another newspaper here in the uk.

and I ended up going across to work with him, because we were doing a redesign of every touchpoint, the newspaper, magazines, website, apps. And it's just such an unusual, unique opportunity. And we only have a handful of major newspapers in the uk and the opportunity to redesign every touchpoint kind of comes along once in a blue moon.

so I went, open to that. and that was just, horrendously stressful, but also very,Creatively satisfying time. Like we worked very closely with all of the editors, and really got the chance to rethink all of these different touch points. and I was ended up staying there long enough that we started redesigning them for the second time, which is sometimes you think, this is perhaps when I need to exit.

But the other part is, you learn from all the mistakes you made the first time when you had to do things quickly, you didn't know things well enough. So I got to put things right the second time that I'd really wanted to do the first time round. and it was just really.

Amazing opportunity because ultimately my role I oversaw the whole design team, so it was print, but digital marketing as well. So when we were thinking about how do we get more people to subscribe, we'd think about, how do we do that on the website? How do we design the marketing that goes in the newspapers in the front of the newspaper?

How do we design some of the callouts in the newspaper? And you think about the whole thing together and how you'd orchestrate it and how you needed to flex the messaging and the visual language across those different touch points to different people. one day we were designing like Snapchat for teenagers and the next day we were designing, print pullouts for, the core audience who were more in their seventies and eighties.

So it was a really interesting and diverse, challenge. but I eventually have been there for some time. and it'd also been in news for a while at that point. And seven Day news is. hard work when someone dies or someone resigns, like you are on the hook and the team's on the hook.

you don't ever really feel you get a, much of a downtime. you're constantly on call. and even in that time I had two young children. I've now got three. work-life balance was tough. It was tough times.

this job came up at Conde Nas, which sounded like my absolute dream job, and I realized what it was. it took me a while to realize exactly what the job was and like, wow, that sounds like it's made for me. so it's, really focusing on the digital aspects, that's really what I find interesting. It's a massive system challenge in it. 'cause all of our websites are powered by one design system. So we really have to think cleverly at scale. How do we design something that can be scaled across where it makes sense as many of our different brands as possible and across our different markets.

it's international, so I have, colleagues predominantly around America, Europe, India. And so it's a really interesting aspect of how do you grow and run, international teams and build global cultures. and just amazing brands to work with. That I think having worked with news transitioning into magazines, there were differences?

There's obviously the content is different. we had some great content in newspapers and particularly magazines and photos, but. You're talking about Vogue and Vanity Fair is that the photography and the visuals are just something else, and that the kind of care and thought that goes into them is quite astonishing.

just that stage of the Met Gala is coming up on, very shortly next Monday is just a humongous, stage of the number of people and other media outlets that they're all looking towards, to our experiences and our brands and our sites. And so it's just a lot of opportunities there.

And there's, so much to keep me busy and to keep me, interested. There's, never, a dull day, which I enjoy. I always have to be doing something. 

Radim: I love your winding roads to where you ended up because you were always gonna end up to where you are today, in my opinion.

Because you said it when you were sat next to people in Pentagram, you said, I was never gonna be as good as them in doing what they did, and. it's that realization I think of our lives that you can't beat Sagmeister and being Sagmeister. you can't be David Carson by being David Carson.

But when you yourself, when you double down on your curiosity on your sort of self-acceptance, you're like, ah, you know what? I am excited about these things. And those people who I don't feel I'm as good as them actually. I can be as good as I can be in the stuff that they can't really do because they can't keep up with the digital stuff.

So you mentioned how you moved around from pentagram to Kabora, then you went to Thomas of London and I got a sense that excitement when the digital stuff came in, it was like, oh, that's where the path starts and unravel. And that's where you come into the journey where you are today.

But this show has got a subtitle about highs and lows of creative life and careers. And you were describing the time the Telegraph redesign and I thinking. Wait a minute, that already sounds like a headache in the making. And then you have to do it again. I don't wanna drag you back to, the depths of, telegraph redesigning, but at one point and I'm gonna repeat it, like I'm not as good as them.

And now you're in a place where you're almost directing new challenge because you mentioned iPhones. The iPhones came up and Steve Jobs did a demo saying, Hey, we can show you the whole website as it is. And everyone said, yeah, we're gonna do mobile design instead. And that's been the charge ever since.

And I'm thinking at that time I was doing lots of websites. I was thinking, is this an unnecessary evil? Like why are we doing this? But then, you know what, I think it was worthwhile. I think there's a whole reason why we started doing it. So your personal mindset and. your space in the room, especially with the Telegraph redesign.

'cause you said you work with so many different,touch points, data points, people, editors, designers. How did that feel?

 Nicola: it was exhilarating to be honest. it was a really exhilarating. Period of my career. I think, there's an energy that comes up, particularly in a newsroom. if you haven't worked in one before, sometimes it's hard to convey that in the newsroom. Anything is possible in a day, because in a day you find out, there's a big news event, and then within a day you've commissioned the editors commissioned a brand new supplement.

They've commissioned a whole bunch of photography, they've commissioned a whole bunch of, articles and pieces from writers that had no idea that's what they were gonna be doing today. And all of that comes together and is thoughtfully designed and created, printed in newspaper and delivered to people's doorsteps within, under 24 hours.

Which is pretty incredible. when you think about agencies and, other companies, when you think, okay, you need to create this book, this magazine, this pamphlet, and you're like, that takes weeks or months to.Plan, create, sign off, review, so there's very much a spirit of anything is possible, which is both incredibly, inspiring, but also really hard work to deliver on and keep up.

So, the pace is fast, the expectations are very high for, you know, you have to work very quickly and very rapidly, and at the same time try and temporary expectations where you count, but you have to go with it. I think it's also tricky as anyone working on redesigns, I'm sure has experienced that you're trying to create, something new and you're trying to change things, it's always uncomfortable, right?

it would be easy if you just had one department you had as a client or a stakeholder, butthe reality is you've got people from across the whole business, right? Something editorial might love and you think will be a great storytelling, feature. The commercial team, the advertising team might go, Hey, that's gonna completely kill all of our revenue.

So that's no good. So trying to bring those different parties together is,I think can be really tricky, but also can be really satisfying when you finally get it right and you get everybody on the same page and you get everybody aligned around a kind of shared vision can be immensely powerful, when you get all aspects of the business together.

And I think a lot of my time at The Telegraph was really learning, some of those skills and I, definitely made mistakes along the way in that, but I feel I learned a huge amount about how you bring all these people together with quite differing needs, a differing ask differing perspectives and how you get them to rally around one shared direction.

Radim: This is an interesting point because, as you were answering this, I was thinking about the newsroom, the volume of the content that's produced on daily basis, which I remember my, breakthrough point into getting into creativity, even though I was a deaf metal kid and grew up in a album covers and, match and nice and all this stuff, I think the Neville Brody's guardian around early two thousands when I just opened it up wait a minute, this is making sense.

This is what's getting me excited. And then. How many pages every day? like who needs all of this content? it, like how much of it, doesn't get read to the end or how much of it gets lost? But it was the idea of okay, this is produced daily and then there's a supplement at the end.

It was a week, in fact, there's G two, an observer. And I'm like, oh wow. And as you were answering this earlier, I'm thinking, what is the element of collaboration? Like how do you get these people who get their assignments, to write about this and write about that produce design in that?

Is there ever a time to come together and actually have collaborative sessions and reflections and, audits of everything's being created. Because even in the magazine world, I'm sure it might be slightly slower than the newspapers, but it's nowhere, near the standstill.

it is not a snail next to a sprinter. So the collaborative element and that sort of cognitive diversity of all the ideas how would you even do this? 

Nicola: I think what's, noticeable about newsrooms, and I think to an extent magazines as well, is just like the chain of command is strong, right?

I think a lot of our day-to-day design teams and so on, we're pretty open and everyone has a voice, but I think what you really notice when you go into some of those editorial meetings is that. Whilst there is open discussion, obviously as you get towards newspapers, it's super important that someone has to make a decision.

There's just no time to waste. You can hear opinions and someone has to make a decision and people have to get on with it. and I think that's when you've got such limited time that on news, it's such limited time, that being able to make a decision is so important. And there were definite moments in the day, like on the newspaper.

 you'd have a morning conference when everyone would get round and discuss ideas for stories. And, sometimes, the graphics, designer would go along be part of that. 'cause you'd be able to sometimes think Hey, this story's got great potential to do a big graphic on.

And, Tee things up there. So there is room for, collaboration. but it's a very specific points in the day. And then you'd usually run through the data sort of afternoon, run through and you'd see, okay, all these things we're talking about this morning, how are they panning out? And very quickly decide if you have to kill some or pivot because you haven't got much time left.

Always need a backup plan. and then you start seeing how it's all coming together. so it's this constant collaboration 'cause journalists are talking to the graphics team or talking to the art directors and there's this constant, Shatter. But also it's a case of having to plug everything in, seeing how it's come together, and then having people, whoever's directed the design that day, being able to make very quick decisions.

The editor making very quick decisions, all comes down to good decision making, I think. And even if not good, making a decision. I think that's almost the worst thing that can happen is nobody wants to make a decision. at least if someone makes a decision, you've got something to run with.

Something to go with. 

Radim: I love this. you talk about creating a new and creating sometimes things that don't exist. I love that you mentioned making decisions, like it has to go out, it has to be done. I think the reason why the pamphlet takes too long, because somebody, somewhere has been given half of a brief and then they try to work it out.

They didn't really speak to, the whoever wrote a copier, whoever actually needs the pamphlet and then it's stacked in into lots of the other jobs. So therefore it takes so much longer and then it's more analyzed. And whereas I think there's something about a jump off point, like it has to go out, it has to be printed, it has to be published.

And sometimes just, that's where the feelings of vulnerability, shame or overthinking go and take a break and sit on the bench for a bit because this stuff has to go out, 

Nicola: Totally. I'm, a massive believer of just, you have to get stuff out there whilst it's like new and fresh and earlier.

And I particularly mean that with the design process, I think, myself included and worst enemy on this, you sit on something and you try and get it perfect and then you, share it with a bunch of people and they kindly point out some big holes and you're like, why have I spent two hours finessing this language?

I hadn't got this main point in there from the beginning. and I just think so often design, like you say, you have some early work done, you wanna bring in other perspectives, whether the designers working on the print copy or some editors or some people in the revenue teams because they're gonna bring in different perspectives that help you shape it.

 and I think it, can be Our egos get in our way sometimes, don't they? 'cause you don't wanna put something out there that's not finessed and not as good as you think it can be. And I think it's so important. I think a lot of it's about the framing and just getting good at the framing of why you're showing people, and that we know it's not finished.

We know it's not done. but it's just how you get to better design, right? And it's not designing by democracy. You're not asking, tell me what you need me to do and I'm gonna do it. But it's just soliciting feedback so that you can use all those as like data points to help inform your, the decisions you're making so that by the time it finally gets to the end, it's really well thought through from every different angle.

and you do need a deadline. Like I really miss some of the, deadlines of a newspaper. I do, I do try to manufacture them for myself because, if I haven't got a deadline, it can just drift on and I think it really. forces you to crystallize your thinking and commit, doesn't it, when you have a deadline, otherwise you can just keep meandering on in your own heads going, oh, maybe like this, maybe like that.

But no, you need to make a decision. And once you've made a decision, you've got something that people can debate with or disagree with. But if you haven't got a position, it's nothing. so very much love a deadline. 

Radim: That's an interesting manufactured deadlines, because yeah, they need to exist, but I have enough space to actually think about stuff because there's nothing better than thinking about work.

so since you mentioned manufactured deadlines, I've been thinking about asking you how do you take a step away from it?

Or do you read other magazines or like, how do you. Remove yourself from the world of what you do, which is most likely to be, bypassing, just witnessing other people's content and other people's systems and other people's structures and other people's narratives. Do you do that or do you actually try to really have a clean break and go home and can imagine like you, just spend eight hours working on digital experiences only to pull up your phone on a train home going, here we go for some more.

How do you do this? How do you metabolize all of this information and work that you're into? 

Nicola: Exactly. you know what this is something I debate myself a lot because, In short, I always wish I did more and could see There's so much stuff out there, isn't there?

There's always feels like there's more you should know and you should see but like you say, the reality is there's a lot of work. There's not enough hours in the day for the jobs sometimes, and then you go home and you've got kids to look after and sort. but what I've really found is I think there's two aspects I feel like I've really been trying to think a lot about how you have a healthy mind.

It's like eating healthy food. You feel good, you feel rubbish. If you eat McDonald's, you feel good if you've eaten a really healthy meal. And it's similar, I, think you find with what you are reading and spending time with in your brain and I think there's two key parts that I really find. I think one I have to just switch off 'cause like you, I think I've probably spent quite a few years where I just don't switch off. And actually the value of just switching off means that you, absorb a lot more of what's going on around you, and there's so much we all know, so much inspiration and just the day to day right. And everything that we see.

 so I, definitely do try and properly switch off when I can in evenings and weekends. and then the other part, I, really do try to keep up with latest news in the industry, what's going I often look to, my team, to be honest, when we talk about how do you find these big fish, it's often through trusted sources, right?

It's other people that are in my team or old colleagues, I see what they're sharing. they often, tend to share the best, the most relevant things. So that really helps me, make the most of my time. and then I just, Enjoy reading and enjoy stories and as most of us do, so I'm, always looking at what are other people doing?

How's it working? I use our products as well and our apps, websites. it's more part and parcel of the day. I can't say I have, tried in the past of having specific time blocked in the calendar to go, you were gonna look at other stuff and it, just doesn't happen that way. it has to be organic.

But I do find when I do have the time and make sure I have the time, that's when I get really excited about what I do. I think it's so easy just to fall into the trap of looking inwards and focusing on those deadlines that manufactured and all of the work to do that. It's when you look at outside and something new sort of nudges you or prompts your thinking that it's really, energizing.

and so I definitely find that kind of reward from every time I, do it. It's just, a matter of time, matter If I had a magic watch and I could pause the clock, that would be perfect. 

Radim: I always say, when people ask What's the best time management app? And I'm like, it's you, it's your discipline.

you choose to do what you choose to do. I've been reading recently,courage to be disliked. When they say, your life is decided here and now this is what you choose to do.

You choose to, basically, this is how you, again, how you spend your energy, how you vote with your, not with your actions. This is what happens next. Then. I've been looking at this topic for quite a while. it's our own choices, but because we are often quite unresolved, we're like, oh, I'm blaming everybody else.

like I thought when I was working for 17 hours a day, it was my clients who wanted me to work and then when I was not needed by them, that I had to invent deadlines and self sort of projects. But that's our playground. That's the sandpit, and that's where you discover things you might not discover.

Because if we were to choose just to work for three or four hours a day, which essentially what we often do in eight and a half hour jobs, from nine to five, it's the outside influences is that actually that cross pollination of ideas and, working with other people who actually can potentially steer you in the right direction.

 it's interesting how. Potentially we get it right later, but we do need to break ourselves a little bit and actually overwork ourselves because then we find our bottom, the rock bottom where okay. Oh, I've touched the stove. It hurts. Okay. I might not touch it again, but I'm gonna get closer to it.

before I let you go, you mentioned you wanted to study German and Spanish. where does German and Spanish come into your life so much so that you want to study at university? 

Nicola: I think I was, a little lost really about what I wanted to do. I think I, had some doubts about going into design, like what am I, gonna do with design?

I don't know what job is that really gonna, where am I gonna go with it? I'd done my foundation year and I was like, oh, this isn't really, I. What I thought it would be, and I'm not sure I'm loving this. that's when you used to do, maybe you still do it a foundation year before you do your, degree.

German, I always really enjoyed languages. I, studied German to a level, I spoke different languages, society of conversing. I guess it comes back to telling stories, but this idea of being able to converse to a different culture, I just found that really interesting. but I'm really glad I didn't go down that path in a nutshell.

you know, you look back and your decisions. I made the right call, thankfully. and it was all down to, I have to say, I had a, tutor at Central St. Martin's where I did my foundation and I was really uming wasn't, gonna proceed with design.

And, I got this, envelope through the post and she had photocopied even. A profile that, I think it was, I wanna say Graphic Magazine at the time had just done on this course at the London College of Communication on Information Design. And she sent it and it was some kind of note like, you should read this, or this would be perfect for you.

Something along those lines. and she was right. I read it. I went to visit the course. I changed my application at the last minute. I managed to get in, but I honestly think if she hadn't have sent that and hadn't pointed me in this direction, I probably wouldn't have, you know, yeah. Curious where I would've ended up.

But, it's really interesting how certain people in your career and certain people you encounter along the way, that they end up playing these kind of pivotal roles that you never necessarily expect at the time, 

Radim: what was her name? 

Nicola: Lucy? I can't remember her final name.

Lucy. 

Radim: it's interesting that you said that she was part of that decision. She was part of that. Direction that's taking it to where you are today. The more and more I have a conversation on this podcast with people who go through mostly non-line linear paths, I begin to believe that they would always end up to where they are today.

You might just be doing it with a, German degree, because I think our love and drive for what we do is somewhere deep there, deep within us, and it just gets discovered sometime sooner or later. I think I had zero people regretting what they have done. No. The choices they've made in their career paths.

And sometimes you get people that are like, especially like them mortals or non-creative mortals. They're like, oh, I wish I've done this differently. I But when you look at your today, it's like. I've done it right. this has happened and somehow even if you were to take a detour, you might discover something different.

But I think from what you're telling me and what you're doing today, I believe you would have good day in the end. But thanks to Lucy, you got there quicker with, with 1 or two degrees from Spanish and German. fewer. So that makes the sense. But do you have time to look for stories or look for something that would bring you a different angle?

Because the volume of everything, which kind of takes us back to the beginning of the conversation. The volume of everything is quite overwhelming, but there's still pockets of excitement, magic and undiscovered still left out there. what is the way of looking, through all of this and, almost looking under the layers and finding something that's potentially the next spark of inspiration or the next, breakthrough.

Nicola: I think it's about using your time wisely. And I've been reflecting on this a lot because, in all honesty, I've been not using my time as wisely as I could because of, you have a long day at work or you long day with the kids and all you wanna do is just mindlessly, flick through your phone.

And I think I've been reflecting on that an awful lot lately and I'm really reflecting on. How much time I do that. I think apple's screen time usage is really scary at times when you look at it or add it up and you think it extrapolate that over a month or a year. so those, numbers are, powerful.

and I've really been thinking about how do I better use my time Quite simply, you don't have that much downtime, but when I do, how do I use it and make it matter? Because I think bringing us back to where we were at the start, that snackable flickable stuff is sure it plays a job. It helps your mind just, I don't know actually if it really does help your mind and mind.

I think it just why is my mind, and actually is that what I really want? Probably not. Is it really helping me is it really helping me in many ways? Mm-hmm. Probably not. So how could I be better using that time? and I've really been trying to take a concerted effort to. Stop with the flicking and use that time to just focus on a book.

Like to focus on something that immerses me, that I can switch off distractions and really immerses me. And I, honestly feel that let's get more and more so people are going to swinging this way. I was inspired 'cause someone on my team told me that they,are limiting their screen time to 30 minutes a day.

And I thought, wow, imagine if I did that, how much more time I would have on my hands and I was trying it. but I would think, and I hope maybe it's wishful thinking that there is gonna be more of a reaction and more of a questioning of where we're putting our time, our time is money, where are we placing our time and our attention.

and hoping that's gonna lead us back to quality. 'cause that's really what people ultimately value is like those stories that you remember, those stories that change something or those stories that unlock something in your brain. that's where I think and hope that we are all gonna. Get back to and, seek.

Radim: I think you're absolutely, right about, the movement because you did say at the beginning it was like, people don't have time and like how potentially is there a shift back to more longer content, more long form and reading longer essays. And I feel like because this is all happening with cross generations.

Like we've obviously younger generations who are digital natives. You generations like ours who didn't grow up with this stuff and it's just oh, we are be more aware of, potentially what it is, but we still fall for it because, the attention engineers did a really good job understanding the human psyche and biology and our attention, like how to make us hooked, which is fair play to them.

That's their job. But I think it goes back to that quote, your life is decided here and now What do you really wanna do? like, how do you wanna live this life? And if you are longing in your life, you're missing something. you don't feel resolved and which is lots of us all the time, because no one will be a hundred percent, comfortable in their skin all the time, then that's a, beautiful escapism.

And we can just then see like how we potentially, motivate them or inspire them to put it down and say, you know what? There's actually something better to do with my life. So maybe I'm finishing this conversation on something, and will be potentially wanting to start and finish with.

It's like, how do you bring the content, even for conversation like these, to, wider audience by sharing how we feel, if people are not alone and thinking, and feeling like how they, operate with their phone and what their screen time says. Because again, this is the power of this storytelling, of how we can unlock more experiences and more relevant experiences to know that you're not alone.

will feel the same. you can learn from this and, wherever it takes you, it takes it, Thank you for this. I enjoyed hearing more about Conde Nat and how we work and about you. for someone who drives the change in the future, you're not immune to, the impact of it, but you try to do a lot better job of it.

So the future generations will actually read longer articles and hopefully we'll scroll less. 

Nicola: thank you so much for having me. it's been an absolute pleasure. 

Radim: Thank you so much.

 Hey. Thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, or even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me. Riding mileage, editing, and audio production was massively done by Neil McKay from 7 million Bikes Podcast, and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James.

Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode.