Frances Yeoland is a Sydney-born, New York-based creative director and artist who has spent fifteen years working across branding, campaigns and design systems, while building a parallel practice as an abstract painter and poet.~

She talks with Radim about growing up between Australia's Western outlook and its geographic place in Asia, discovering gallery spaces as a teenage sanctuary, and the long process of letting her commercial and artistic selves finally meet instead of staying separate. 

The conversation moves through her process, poetry as the seed of every painting, colour pulled from photos of everyday urban scenes, and the discipline of resisting the impulse to "fix" a stray brushstroke. They also wander into living eulogies, the value of sitting in ambiguity rather than being pigeonholed, and why doubt doesn't have to disappear for the work to be good.

TAKEAWAYS

• Frances trained in graphic design in Sydney without knowing it existed as a career, discovering it was a way to combine language and visual delivery
• Art galleries became a teenage sanctuary for her as a queer woman navigating a conservative upbringing, offering stories and ways of living she couldn't find elsewhere
• She spent years keeping her commercial design work and personal art practice deliberately separate, before realising the two feed and sharpen each other
• Her paintings begin as poetry — she writes fragments of language first, then builds visual rhythm and colour that mirror the feeling of the words
• Colour choices come partly from a "colour stories" photo album on her phone, pulled from urban scenes and everyday compositions she notices while out in the world
• She resists retouching or correcting mistakes in her physical work, treating an errant brushstroke as proof of the handmade rather than a flaw to erase
• Showing her art publicly for the first time, in a solo show curated by Sydney Fishman, felt deeply vulnerable but gave others permission to be vulnerable too
• She'd rather sit in ambiguity than explain herself into a single job title, believing people are too often afraid of mystery
• Doubt, for her, never fully goes away — she's made peace with it being part of the process rather than a signal to stop
• She and Radim riff on the idea of "living eulogies" — describing people by their values and qualities while they're still here to hear it

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Frances Yeoland: It's like, where does anyone's art come from? But for me, it, as I said, it comes from an emotional place. It, and it's usually with language. So I also write poetry. and those sort of fragments of language become the basis for the piece. So I am very interested in the momentum of language and something that has meaning that you can take out of that context and put it in a new context and it takes on new meaning.

So usually it starts with the language, and there's a lot of feeling in that writing, and then I will make an artwork based on a line from one of those poems. and recently I've been exploring how you can create rhythm visually that parallels the rhythm of the language itself. 

Speaker: Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that knock us under and the strange, stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm an author, creative, and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call Forever Daring Humans, those in pursuit of an extraordinary life.

Every week, I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value, and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? . This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October

Radim Malinic: My guest today used to keep her two lives completely separate. commercial creative director by day, artist by night, never letting the two touch. Frances Yeoland is a Sydney-born, New York-based creative director and artist whose abstract paintings begin as poetry, fragments of language turned into color and rhythm on the page.

In this conversation, we talk about art galleries as home, the tension between making a living and making art, and why she resists the urge to retouch a brushstroke that stayed outside the lines. We get into living eulogies, sitting comfortably with ambiguity, and why doubt never really has to leave the room.

This is my conversation with Francis Yoland

Radim Malinic: Hey, Frances. Welcome to Daring Forever. It's great to have you here. How are you doing?

Frances Yeoland: I'm doing very well. Thank you for having me

Radim Malinic: the work that you the way you do it, and how you do it, and for the purpose that you do it really fascinates me. And I use these interviews almost selfishly to find out more about people that I like their work and ask them questions I would like to ask them.

So welcome to Daring Forever. If anyone heard of Frances Yeoland, how would you introduce yourself? 

Frances Yeoland: Well, I am a creative director. I'm based in New York. I've been doing it for about 15 and something years. but I'm also an artist. I have a studio in Brooklyn, where I do a range of different work, but some works on paper. And I think to describe myself is, it's a complicated question. I think that, as creatives, we do many different things.

We have many different skills, whether it's writing or design, or photography. for me, it's across all of those different things, and I think there's real joy in that sort of mixture of all the different skills

Radim Malinic: you used, you said creative director first and artist second. 

So if, you tell someone in Brooklyn that you're a creative director, 

they'll ask you, "So what

sort of work do you do?" 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, they usually say, "Well, what do you creative direct?" Which I think is an interesting angle because, creative director as a title applies to many different industries, and it means something different. you could be a creative director of a, a fashion label. You could be a creative director of the ballet.

but for me, it's working in branding, brand building, and brand storytelling. so that encompasses campaign work, design systems, and other kind of expressions or sort of brand challenges that we're trying to solve

Radim Malinic: Excellent. So how did you find yourself in a position of creative director in branding systems? What was the path to that position now? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, it's a good question. It's a bit of a windy one, which I think a lot of people have a different way to getting there. but I studied, a Bachelor of Design in Sydney, Australia, which is where I'm from. and I didn't really know that graphic design existed when I did that course. I wish that I was doing fine art, but I had some grownups in my life that recommended I do design so that I could get paid for my work.

and I actually loved it. I think it was such a great, place for me to understand my own skills, and it was a mixture of language and delivering a message, through visuals, which was a really exciting, combination for me

Radim Malinic: one of those people who didn't know that graphic design existed when they started doing graphic design. I think That's the magical mix because everyone who didn't know graphic design existed, discovered graphic design, is still graphic designer today. And I knew a bunch of students who were graphic designers and they're like, none of them is graph- none of them are graphic designers today.

they work in insurance and music business and that kind of stuff. 

Frances Yeoland: That's funny.

Radim Malinic: is one of those, things. But when you said people told me I should do graphic design over fine art so I get paid,

I can understand that now from a neuroscientific perspective that people are looking out for our safety.

It's not because they don't wanna succeed, they're looking out for our safety. And that's the kind of way that we need to almost understand it because you say, "Oh, my parents didn't want me to do it." Maybe because of their perception, but actually it's, the fear of the unknown for them that they want to project onto us.

What was your relationship with fine art at that point? Because, it sounded like you wanted to do it, but graphic design was something that took charge. 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah. I love that we're touching on this theme so early in the podcast because it's very prevalent in my work, this sort of tension between needing to exist under capitalism and making art. I think for me art has always been a real solace. It's always been a place to go for me to be able to survive different things, survive understanding myself.

And, no matter where you are in the world, you can go to a museum, or a gallery and you can find a kind of home there and connect with other people through art. So it's always been that place for me. And, my parents were not particularly interested in visual art, but I think being in Sydney I had access to different museums that I would go to as a teenager.

and that has been something that I've continued to do throughout my life, in a pretty voracious way I would say.

Radim Malinic: I think you may have said the most succinct way of describing an artist feel or artist life by saying art galleries were my home.

Radim Malinic: this is a place where you can always find your home. I never thought of it that way. maybe I was hoping that sort of existed to someone and you just said that. Because you mentioned about tension when it comes to money and making careers when you said art is your solace.

And when you said art is a solace and the art galleries are your home. I was like, "Oh, you don't have to tell me that you're an artist because you just told me you're an artist without necessarily telling me you're an artist," if that still makes sense. 'Cause it's so beautifully put together.

I'm,joining these dots together.Like, do you remember the feeling when art entered your life and you're like, "Oh,this connects with me"? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah. I think Australia is such a fascinating place, and there's a bunch of different amazing art being made there. but it is essentially quite a new country. I mean, not the indigenous cultures that have been there for many, many years, but, it, was colonized fairly recently, and I think it became at that point this sort of a Western outpost in Asia.

And so its geographic position allows these amazing influences to come in and... But there's also this, very strong connection in terms of aesthetics and visuals to Europe and America, and I find that really fascinating, and I think I was trying to understand that as a teenager, and I still don't totally understand it.

It's complex. but I think it was something that I had access to through an art class at school. You know,I was lucky enough to have an amazing art teacher that exposed me to lots of different artists, including Yayoi Kusama, who just died very sadly. so I think that was a lifeline for me at that point.

I'm also a queer woman, and I was understanding that in quite a conservative upbringing and trying to navigate that, and art became this place that told different stories for me and allowed me to access different ways of living, and I think that was super powerful for me at that point in my life

Radim Malinic: You said art told stories to you. How did you connect with that? Because storytelling is, I think one of the hardest things to really crack to actually get it across in art itself. Because when you said, and I've realized I'm not an artist, when you said, "Art galleries are my home," or, "Museums are my home," I was like, I like those places, but they are not my home.

I'm not an artist. I'm a creative. I'm a designer. my home is in bookstores actually. It's very much bookstores. I'm an author. I'm becoming more of an author than I'm becoming a creative, and that's my home. That's Where I remember when I moved to England 26 years ago, walked into a place called Waterstones, and I'm like, "Oh my God," "Tell me when you're closing because I'll be here for a while." it just was the place which showed me the way of what I can become. But I have, as a creative, as a designer, as a CD myself, I've been learning how to tell stories through visual storytelling for a very long time, because it can feel quite confusing to really understand the formula of what you're trying to say.

 what are the nuances of storytelling? And when it comes to art, it's such, to me, like a, place where I can only work on a feeling. Sometimes I find it hard to decipher the story. But how was it for you that, as you said, as a queer woman, obviously there was a different perspectives to put it together.

Frances Yeoland: Yeah. I don't have an answer for how to tell a good story. I think all art and even the commercial work that we do is just an attempt at cracking and understanding of things, and you can try to do it in many different ways. I think sometimes when you try to appeal to too many people and have too broad of a story, you connect with no one.

So it's better to use a singular voice and a singular story to provide an example for people to connect to. So you can do it in lots of different ways, and it can be a feeling or a rhythm. It can be music. It can be an energy. It doesn't have to be language, though I do love language. and I think that's what we're all trying to do, is figure out a way to tell a story and, sometimes it's a corporate brand story, and sometimes it's a personal story, or sometimes it's both.

and I think that is fun, It's interesting to me that you distinguish between art and books. Galleries and bookstores is different because I would think of that as, books are art, both visual and linguistically.

Radim Malinic: I distinguish between them for my feeling, because I can go to a gallery and appreciate the art, but I can quite happily crack on and go da, da, da, da, da, and just, To me it's not a, it's not a place of ponder. it's not a destination. For me it's a, attempt, as you used the word attempt with storytelling.

For me it's an attempt to understand what it is. But I get more, feeling from the tactile world. So of course, I'm not discounting one or the other, but for me, like for example, when you said, "No, galleries are my home," I was like, "Oh yeah,my home is in bookstores." Like this is where I really can spend a lot of time And feel like the time slows down, and you can just disappear from the world for a bit.

And I think, everyone's got their little bit, and everyone's got their something that they connect with, Some, some people go to football, some people go to somewhere else. 

Frances Yeoland: And what a gift that is. this is offered to us as humans, these different experiences through art and books and bookstores and sport, which less for me, but I do understand the power of that for other people. I think we're lucky to have those different ways of finding connection and finding peace in the world,

especially now

Radim Malinic: Absolutely. Let's go back to the teenager who discovered graphic design living in Sydney, doubles in art. where does graphic design take you next? 

Frances Yeoland: Well, I went to London actually right after I graduated, and I was working at a sports management agency doing graphic design for protein powders, which if you know me, that's quite different from my lifestyle now. But I think it was an amazing time for me. I was there for under a year. It was very short.

but I had no money. I worked in retail on the weekends and, was earning barely anything, and I think I had to fill my time, and that's when I started drawing. That's when I started doing collage. I also learnt to cook during that time. I had to make my food stretch out over the week, and so I was learning about flavors and how to make things tasty.

And, as they say, necessity is the mother of all invention. But I do think that was a big turning point for me, in terms of using art as something to do and to understand what I was going through at that moment. and after that, I moved back to Australia and was working in publishing.

I worked for a beautiful, independent publishing house called InDesign Media, not related to Adobe InDesign. Um,but it was three different titles, that were all about architecture and design in Asia-Pacific. So we were dealing with these gorgeous images of beautiful houses in that area and beautiful furniture design.

and it was a pretty rigorous training in graphic design, understanding how to use a grid and preparing things for print and, it was a really wonderful place for me to learn, really technical skills, but also about editorial and understanding, photo shoots and art direction and how to combine that with the actual design itself

Radim Malinic: It sounds like a fantastic learning of a creative director who works in brand storytelling. Wait a minute, so you were in London. doing Protein powder packaging, pop-up, not making beans on toast stretch far

Frances Yeoland: Lentils.

Radim Malinic: and working in Lentils.

Now, of course, beans on toast is the classic joke, isn't it? how come London? it's all of a sudden, obviously, we're in Sydney, now we're in London, and we're back in Australia. So what was the draw? Like, how come? Was it spur of the moment? was it connection? H-how did you get to London that way? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, it's a great question. I think it seems pretty obvious for Australians, It's I think as I was saying before, the Australian perception is very much about the Western world, and there's always this drive to leave Australia and go and study or work in the UK or the US, and then take that knowledge back to Australia.

but in terms of my family upbringing, my mom was one of five children, and they grew up in Glasgow, and they all left Glasgow and moved to different parts of the world. My mom to Tasmania in Australia, which in hindsight was a crazy choice. and London. I have cousins in Prague. I have an uncle in Hong Kong.

My aunt, married an Italian and lives in Florence, and I lived there for a year as well. So my family is very spread out, so this notion of moving overseas and trying something different felt very normal to me

Radim Malinic: That's a fantastic story. I like that a bunch of Scottish, Scottish kids just conquered the world, and now they're everywhere. I love that. So when you said Australians go to the world, learn about, get the knowledge and go back to Australia. So you knew how to design protein packaging, how to cook your lentils, and how to work in retail. 

Frances Yeoland: Cause Australians aren't fit enough

Radim Malinic: how does it feel for you to find your own voice?

Because as you said, you were filling your time in London by doing drawing and discovering yourself. 

Frances Yeoland: ம்ஹும்

Radim Malinic: You are still obviously learning about yourself creatively and professionally. How does the creative output as a someone who's becoming an artist, how does that sort of piece your identity throughout all of this? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, I think I didn't know at the time and, as I said before, I think it's a lifelong process of understanding. at that point, I was just doing it on the side. It was really something that brought me joy. I would do it in my kitchen table in my studio apartment or the share house that I was living in.

and it became something that gave me purpose. I enjoyed the process of it, the kind of emotional output and the calming effect that it had on me. and I liked the way that people responded to it, and it connected me to other people. everyone in my life had a different reaction to it and would buy works or I would share it with them.

I didn't have a lot of money, so I would often give it as gifts, which became this beautiful exchange. and I think I wanted to see where I could push it, but it was a constant struggle with needing to earn money and pay the rent, and find space and time to make art. And, this is not my unique story.

I think a lot of people, especially in New York and London where it's really tough financially, finding that balance is difficult. And I think what I did was created these two very distinct paths. It was like, I have my art and I have my commercial work, and I really wanted in my mind to separate them.

But as I got more developed in both paths, I realized there's such a beautiful crossover with the way that I work as a creative director and as an artist, and I just decided to embrace the two. And, it's funny that you should call out the typography on the publication or the promotional material for my art show, because to me that's like an example of how it crosses over.

It's like, oh, I have the skills to be able to promote my art and communicate it in a clear way because those are things that I've learnt and how my brain has been wired through commercial studio work. so yeah, now I've really embrace the kind of like meld in my brain of all the skills

Radim Malinic: It's interesting 'cause when you started saying like, "Well, I got my art, I got my commercial work," my question was, do they meet in the middle? Now I know they do. And

Frances Yeoland: Yeah

Radim Malinic: what I want to know is when you have a conversation with someone, people like to pigeonhole people. Now people still, people outside the creative world or people who don't exactly know the details of being an artist or commercial creative, what it means, they would think that you need to be one thing to, for them to be understood.

Even LinkedIn, if you set up your LinkedIn, wants you to be one thing, like this is your job title. what do you mean you've got two different jobs? What do you mean you've got three different things or four? what do you wanna choose as the one? And that LinkedIn is designed in that way that you just like you've got one thing.

And that's designed almost like a social perception. So when someone says, "So you're a commercial creative. Oh, you also do art. Okay. And who did your paintings? And who did your book cover? who did do your posters?" They'd be like, "Oh, you did it all yourself. Oh, wow."

Yeah

it is all possible, isn't it? how would you describe it to people who, are potentially quite sometimes baffled in being able to do more, to be more than one person or more than one thing? 

Frances Yeoland: I think you just have to sit with the ambiguity and it's not really my problem, I think if they... Of course I care about branding and I think about perception all the time, but at some point it doesn't really matter. I like to make things and I like to collaborate with people, and how I spend my time is, it's not really up to me to help break that down for people.

Radim Malinic: I think, if there's a specific job that I'm going for or a specific project that I know I have the right skills, I will speak to those skills. But in general, I think it's exciting to confuse people and be like, "Well, why not?" Absolutely love this. Just simply the ambiguity. who cares? I've just told you enough, you can figure, fill in the rest. 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, like mys... I think people are afraid of mystery, and I like mystery and mystique, Not to say that I'm mysterious and I have mystique, but I think it's this feeling of like, why do we have to have everything answered all the time? We don't really have to have it with a bow on it.

Radim Malinic: Yeah.

that's your brilliant take, and I think that ambiguity and the ownable ambiguity or whatever you feel like, that's your own. Because I have spent a lot of time advising people how to introduce themself on a podcast, because I feel when you tell people what sort of problems you solve, you're quite likely to make a connection, you're quite likely to make a new commission, you're quite likely to get somewhere creatively if it's a, let's say as whatever, creative or consultant or advisor.

And it's helped me quite a lot in my career by on opening my mouth and say "Hey, I'm not really sure how to introduce myself, but I solve these problems." And it's semi-ambiguous because you can solve any problems if you put yourself into it. And I get a lot of people on this podcast who I can see exactly who they are, and they're sometimes my friends, and they're like, "Oh Yeah

I don't really know how to introduce myself."

And I'm like, "I can teach you how to do this. there's methods how to, what to do, how to apply the thinking, how to apply the structure of the sentences." But if you go after specific outcome of, let's say, making sure that you're understood, that's the method.

In your case, you're like "Who cares?" I can tell you just enough, and you can fill in the blanks, right? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah. and sometimes it's about an energy. there's different ways that you can describe people. you could talk about their achievements, the projects they've worked on, or you could talk about their values, what they care about and their process. it's funny, I was-- this might be a little bit macabre, but I was having a conversation with a friend recently about what you would say in someone's eulogy and how you would describe them.

And he was like, I want people to talk about, who I really am and my qualities, not..." I think the w- eulogies obviously need to encompass different people's, achievements and the things that they've done in their lives, but, don't we all really care about the qualities of who we are as humans and the way we work and the way we make the people around us feel?

I think that's so much more interesting to me than having a laundry list of, "Here's what I've done, and here's where I've been."

Radim Malinic: Maybe we should all work on our eulogies in advance and just pass it on and say, "By the way, this is my values. Don't forget those," right? 

Frances Yeoland: That is the most creative director thing you could say. You're like, "Okay, I'm gonna brief the people that are doing my eulogy so that they're clear and they can deliver it in the way that I would like." It did make me think of a book idea, though, for... wouldn't it be fun to write a book of eulogies for the living so that your friends could actually read them, 

talk about the people you love and who they are so that they hear it before they die.

Radim Malinic: It's really interesting. the book that I'm releasing, which is b-based basically the, the podcast is inspired by the book. And the book is called "Daring Forever." The podcast is called "Daring Forever," and it's about pursuing the things you would otherwise regret never starting in life. obviously the, the eulogies and book of eulogies would be quite interesting thing to pursue, not to regret never starting it.

But there was actually a chapter which was about eu- living eulogies because the, the book concludes with chapter about gratitude, about how... I think we are fucking lucky to be even doing this. this is incredible. I can talk to you. I can tell you how much I love your work. I can celebrate what you do.

We can do this. this is incredible, right? Th- this is our reality. we don't have to go and dig for potatoes or, carry stones or whatever. And there was a chapter I had in there called "Living Eulogies." I was literally thinking like, how is it, again, from a neuroscience perspective, like the way we use our gratitude, we are becoming something.

Like it's not something that comes to us as a feeling, it's actually is biological, because the more you go gratitude for life, the more you feel actually satisfied. Gratitude produces happiness in a way. So I had a subsection about living eulogies, but I couldn't fit it in a print book.

I had to cut it. So when you talk about it, I was like, "Maybe I should put it out there as a blog post or something." because it's one of these things like for example, we as, you said, we're recording in a week 

 where Yayoi Kusama

died, as well as Dolly Parton.

And when you think about the, admiration so many people have for these artists, they die and everyone goes, "Oh my God, I loved them." And you're like, "I've known you for 25 years. I never knew you were a Dolly fan." And what is the right level of expressing ourselves? Like we should potentially not invent something, just have a n- a day of appreciation, like every Friday.

Like who do you suggest? Like who do you celebrate? What do you do? Because I think the gratitude for living people doing incredible work I think can always be bigger, and I think be more expressed in a better, b- better form. maybe I'm just totally losing the plot here, but 

Frances Yeoland: Love it. I'm like, maybe we could get a, a section of the newspaper for living obituaries or something

Radim Malinic: Yeah Or or living, Yeah.

just like gratitude of the week or celebrating a human of the week or something like that, 'cause the eulogy is still quite macabre. Just so keep breathing, we love you, we appreciate you. Frances, this is hilarious and, yeah, it's interesting how those two things connected what I was-- I cut from the book just a few weeks ago and it's here.

But let's talk about your work. Let's talk about your artist... Or let's talk about your art, and let's talk about the work you do there 'cause there's a real progression in your style, and I think that is in every, every artist's life. You mentioned when you lived in London, there was a bit of a collage work, that you did, and I kind of wanna know how did you bring these pieces together and 

what was your obsession for art? and I say obsession because you've started and you haven't stopped, so to me it's an obsession. Where did it come from? that that influences from Sydney, it was to now taking around the world. You making art throughout all of this.

So how do we trace it? Where does it come from? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, great question. I think about that all the time, and, I think that there are things that are offered to us as humans or processes that help us move through life, you know, whether it's dancing or having a coffee in the morning or going for a walk or connecting with friends. And I feel very lucky that art has been something that I've been able to pursue, as a way of kind of pulling out different levels of grief and transition and, different things that I've been through in my life.

And, the art itself is a bit of a dance for me. It is a kind of choreography of moving the lines around the page, and it comes from a very intuitive place. So I try to approach it very differently than my commercial work in that I am not thinking about the final product. I really... That's where I unwire my brain or try to rewire my brain to not be thinking about what the outcome will look like.

I try to tap into a more emotional sort of place and allow it to be expressed in that way. So it is very process-driven for me. But of course, as a creative director, we like polish and we like nice things. So there is a refinement that I think that I've moved towards in my, output, in recent years, which has been exciting

Radim Malinic: Yeah, I wanna talk about it. But when you said quite beautifully that it's a dance, it reminded Me? of a chapter from a different book. For a change, I'll talk about a different book on this podcast, not mine. And it's a chapter from, or it's a section from "The Courage to be Disliked," which says, the title of the section says, "Live like you're dancing."

our life is just made of these little moments. Like when you're dancing, you can have your routine set up, but then, you made your mistakes or you made, make a sidestep, missteps. It's a s- it's a collection of small moments that all add up together, and that's what it is. And when you started saying, or when you were saying that your art is like a dance to you, it made me really think of it like, art as a dance, that you put all of these elements together and they come together.

your work has obviously taken a particular sort of stylistic sort of feel, look and feel at the moment. But when I look at your earlier work, there's a certain ways of discovering of where do you wanna be, what do you wanna do. What was the patience to discover your style? What was the patience and process?

Because you said you think about it every day. You pro- you know, you process how you th- and how you create this stuff. But was there ever sort of creative going, "Where am I? Where is it going? Am I, finding the style or starting a voice?" I mean, just that's question. Yeah, patience and discontent.

Frances Yeoland: Me? Never. I always know exactly what I'm doing and exactly what I'm trying to do. No, I think it's always a bit like, "Oh, is this good? Is this bad?" And, I look back at some of my old artwork and I'm like, "Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't have made that now." But you have to look at this art and accept it for what it is as a sort of stepping stone.

It's like you have to go through that and process it to be able to get where you are, and it's the same with design work. You have to trust the iterative process. You have to be able to sketch and figure it out. And I think a lot of people, look at the blank page and they're like, "Okay, I h- I have to nail it in the first try," which is just very unrealistic.

And so you have to give yourself the grace as an artist to be able to work through that too. And of course, it's vulnerable looking back and being like, "Oh, I don't really like that style anymore." And, when I go to Australia in friends' houses and things, I see it hanging on the wall and they love it and they're connected to it, but I've moved on from that era, and that's a vulnerable thing too because you- you're seeing this kind of like moment in your life memorialized wall

Radim Malinic: I can absolutely understand what you're saying because I've done a few books and people are like, "Oh, I love your first book." And I was like, "I would happily delete it now." just like there's some good moments, but like that thing has passed. Like it's gone. what I wanna know as someone who works very digitally, mean, we do things with hands for, for our branding clients.

we still, use a lot of post-processing and retouching. But in a physical world, sometimes you can make that brush stroke only once. How do you process that dissonance between the two worlds, the digital and the physical, where in the digital world you can make as many iterations as you want, in the physical art aspect, you can only make sometimes one decision?

How does that work against each 

other? 

Frances Yeoland: it's such a good question and like I feel like a lot of, if designers and creatives are listening to this, it's like you see a mistake and you're like, "Oof, I just wanna fix it." But that's the impulse that I'm fighting in that moment, I think. I just posted a photo on my Instagram and there was like a bit of the paint went over the line on the edge and I was like, "I could retouch it," but I really asked myself not to.

I was like, "This is what it means to be handmade." And obviously I wish that I had done it neater or inside the lines or whatever, but I think you have to... It's a process of acceptance and being like, "Okay, that's what it means to make something, and here it is."

Radim Malinic: earlier I liked when you said, "I can retouch it." I know exactly what you mean. in a way, the latest pieces of work that you've been doing for a while, I'm fascinated to understand the stories of the, you said as a teenager loving art, you could tell stories or you can see stories in this work.

 I'm not gonna ask you for inspiration, but where do you go in the point of creation and understanding what you want to create, and is there a certain plan? Because you quite beautifully say, some people hope to get it right on a first take. with a blank piece of paper, let's turn into a masterpiece.

press P for masterpiece, job's done. Never happens, Obviously So where does this work come from in a way? Like, where do you find your way of, you know, exploring this particular visual language, but colors, pieces, shapes, understanding, sizes. Is it ever pre-planned or does it just, let it come together naturally? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, it's a good question. It's like, where does anyone's art come from? But for me, it, as I said, it comes from an emotional place. It, and it's usually with language. So I also write poetry. and those sort of fragments of language become the basis for the piece. So I am very interested in the momentum of language and something that has meaning that you can take out of that context and put it in a new context and it takes on new meaning.

So usually it starts with the language, and there's a lot of feeling in that writing, and then I will make an artwork based on a line from one of those poems. and recently I've been exploring how you can create rhythm visually that parallels the rhythm of the language itself. So obviously it's abstract art that I make, and it's a lot about color, but you know, as creative directors and designers, we know that color is imbued with a lot of emotion.

So the choices around the color are equally as intuitive, but it's also about the places that I'm in. So I have an album on my phone that is color stories, and I just take photos of different little like urban compositions, and I pull the colors from that. but it's all a bit unknown. It's like when you start to mix the colors, I'm not an expert on color theory, and so the color often turns out to be something different.

And again, gotta go with it. It's not like you have an eyedropper and you can match it perfectly, right?

Radim Malinic: I've never met an expert on color theory who would be actually interesting. There's actually a fellow Australian, Daniel Jones, from Silverchair, who was once described by one of his collaborators who said, "You cannot teach interesting." he's interesting, and you cannot teach that.

And I think sometimes knowing too much about what you want to do can stifle your progress because There's many amazing session musicians that can play whatever, They can play Bach or Rachmaninoff and Jessie J at the same take, with different hands. And, they are not the best-selling artists.

They are just the workhorses behind, some big musicians. And I think what you're describing is it's the feel, it's the story. And you just dropped something in your answer just now, which I was like, Oh. wait a minute. Okay, so that's what we're gonna talk about next." Because you said, "I first write a poetry."

I'm like, "But there's no poetry on your Instagram. I can't-- I, I didn't know that's what you do." So I really wanna go deep, I really wanna deep on how you do this, not just necessarily how you write poetry, but you said, "I find a rhythm in the language and then build the visual representation." So we're gonna spend half an hour on this This is

incredible. I'm like so excited about this.

Frances Yeoland: I'm so ex- I just feel so honored that you're interested in my art. I thought we were gonna be talking about a lot of commercial projects, so it's a real joy to be able to share this with you. also can't believe you mentioned Silverchair. Frogstomp was my first CD I got.

Incredible. 

Radim Malinic: I just got goosebumps. You just mentioned Frogstomp and I got goosebumps. Like I'm here and seeing him tomorrow. oh my God. Well, we grew up in a good decade. 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, exactly. 

Radim Malinic: Yeah. 

 so where words, I was not expecting anything, but like I'm surprised that the words came up as the sort of the, the nexus of what you're creating.

So I know you told me you've got color stories on your phone, but Where do the words come from? Is it a picked up language? Is it something that you tried to project of? I would just ask you the question, where do the words come from?

Frances Yeoland: Where do words come from? yeah. I think for a long time I separated writing and visuals and, as I was working on design projects and a lot of it advertising and campaign driven and about delivering this message, I was afraid to try my hand at writing. And then I just started, like, sneaking into layouts, language and ideas for taglines or for,different copy.

And it really, opened up this whole world of bringing it all together. So the writing and the visuals and being able to, tie it together to tell this story was really fun. And I think that has always been something I've loved. I've been interested in language and studied Italian, and I've studied Spanish and,

I just enjoy words. They bring me so much joy, and I think the rhythm of it and the layering and the fun that you can have with it, and how you can corrupt language and create new meaning and evolve it into something new is so exciting. and so yeah, I started just writing poetry.

I'm not, and, I haven't studied literature and, in lots of ways I feel self-conscious about the quality of the writing. But I think then I resist that again because I think that language has always been something that's been pushed and changed and subverted in these different ways. So I try to play with that, and I find it fun and the humor in it and the meaning that you can build is really, a playground, I think

Radim Malinic: In absolute way. This is the thing,as a fellow visual creative who's now turned very much to introduce himself as an author first rather than designer or creative, I couldn't understand in my late 20s, mid-20s when there were designers who went into writing careers. I'm like: What are you doing?

I used to measure my happiness by hours of Photoshop. I basically by spending my hours in Photoshop. It's like I've just spent eight hours illustrating the Photoshop, like this is brilliant. Like it was my purpose, it was my sort of happiness and measure of happiness.

And I've spent most of my time now in, in Word documents and working as a guest editor on other people's books and doing all sorts of things on that way and as a consultant, but always retaining that visual aspect. But words are mostly now the first, what would you say, like my first medium in a way.

Like it's the symphony of the black and white letters on white paper. And I never thought that would be possible. But what you're describing, like it was similar to what you describe like having a go at a few taglines. I was like: Ooh, I,I can potentially, sneak in here. And then, you try to do a little bit, I've, I just tried my hand in poetry too, and it's just when you look back at it going: Oof, it's just a bit rudimentary.

But at that moment I felt like a superhero because you're exercising something new. Your brain was discovering something new about what you can do and taking it somewhere. you don't have to judge it in a way. you can let it, you can let it judge, but you can see other people's work.

anyone can judge anything. You don't have to look too far for one s- yeah, for one-star review of some amazing pieces of work, because like some- it's not for everyone. I think that's when we understand And agree that they were like, okay, it's for some people. In fact, it's for very few people, and that's when it re- that's where it really lands.

So when you make your poems, let's call them poems, how do you then transfer it into, as you said, as the sort of flow of the language and the flow of lines that you, that inspire you to create this visual representation of your work? So Can you explain it?

Frances Yeoland: again,it's what I'm working on at the moment, and I don't know if I've cracked it, but I think that it is a combination of forms organized in a sort of rhythm that reflects the energy as I experience it of the words themselves. So let's say it's a sentence. one I did recently was, like, under forever under restriction, or I had another one that was, empire will empire.

I liked that one. And it was this feeling of we all exist within this system, and the machine will keep churning, and then I try to tap into that feeling, and then whatever comes out onto the page is connected to that feeling. That was a pretty bleak one, but it is true that is the kind of ideas that I'm playing with in the work

Radim Malinic: It's amazing. I'm now looking through your pieces of work, and now it all makes sense. 

Frances Yeoland: Okay, good. 

Radim Malinic: And 11 weeks ago 

 you posted, "On wanting many things," and I replied, "Love this." but I was clearly talking about a visual piece. Now I know that this meant something a little more. But

Frances Yeoland: fascinating process.

Radim Malinic: I just love to know what all of this means because as I said 11 weeks ago, I was like, "This piece is great and that piece is great," and I just love that cut and paste nature. Like I, I feel like the, the way you draw and the way, like it still looks quite collagey and quite put together, and I think that's incredible work as a, let's say, as a designer and brand storyteller.

When you think about it, you're just you're moving things in the right place and right shape that they make sense. You create the things in between that you need but it's more than not rewarding to find the answer within what already exists. Because when we go through that first sort of egoistical phase of our creative life, we're like, "Oh, I'm gonna invent everything.

I'm gonna change fonts. I'm gonna do this." And then you realize,no, all you have to do is just make this just a bit better and make it more connect with more people and whatever. And I think what you using as a sort of visual linguistic, objects like words and then turn them into this representation, I think it's fascinating because it almost seems as you...

The more I look into your work, basically, I can see now how you do this, because before that it was just a collection of beautiful visuals and shapes and textures, and now we're like, "Oh." So you like, as you said, you like ambiguity. you like to deeper into sit with ambiguity, but now we're putting more color into what you do.

I'm enjoying it

more. 

Frances Yeoland: So what's it like to describe this process to people? Because obviously it's very personal, but it's connecting. 

Yeah, it feels great. I think I haven't had so much space to share my work. I had one solo show in New York at a gallery called Duplex Art, which the show was curated by a really talented curator called Sydney Fishman. and she did an amazing job of kind of drawing this out of me in the same way that you did, and helping me express my work in a more organized way.

And I think I was so afraid to do it, and it felt so vulnerable, like most art is. but I realized that it gave other people permission to be vulnerable as well and to share whatever it was they were making. So one of the things we did was a dinner in the space, and there was a reading, and we invited different writers and, professional writers, other artists, some people that had never shared their work to also share, and that was transformative for me.

And I think that it was really a wonderful thing to create space for other people to share their work. And, that's what you're doing here. You are inviting people in to share their ideas and to connect with different people, and I really believe that community is how we will save ourselves, and I think it's so important to fight for it, but takes a lot of work and time.

So thank you.

Radim Malinic: Oh, you're most welcome. And I realize that the key to community, to expression and, is generosity. There's a twist. There's a change or a breakpoint when you realize "Hey, I wanna be known for this. I'm doing this just like everybody else, I'm doing this." And then you realize, "I'm gonna talk about everybody else and not myself."

And then realize, "Oh, now people are listening. Now people are like... Now there's interest. Now you make friendships," because the generosity in how we get out there is changing. So yeah, I agree with you.

And I think part of it is a word that you mentioned in, your previous answer, which is the word vulnerable.

 I think one of the key aspects of creative community is that being vulnerable is so unlocking in potential in a way saying, "Hey, you know what? I'm not okay. you know what? I don't know what I'm doing. You know what? I could do better, but you know what? Whilst I'm sitting in my own sort of questions and those sets of questions, I will appreciate what you do," because you might be having very much the same, not hypothetically, you might be having the same sets of questions.

But if I'm giving you the energy and telling you, "You're fine," because what you c- the only person you can see in a mirror is you. there's nobody else standing in front of a mirror. But if somebody says, "I can see you in that mirror from the side, and you're okay," that vulnerability, I think, sort of dissipates and b- becomes, a lot more seen and I think more understood.

Because what you were describing working with curators, there's a true real skill in actually getting the show right. So what was it like for you to be vulnerable, having someone else to see you in the mirror and getting it out of you, like actually being able to draw it out of you? what did that feel like? 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, it's really, hard. And after the show opened, I wanted to go into my room and not come out for two weeks. It was very socially vulnerable, but it was also the work itself. But, I think I enjoyed that process, and I think it's a beautiful thing for people to connect around art, and it gives us a place to be vulnerable.

I keep talking about art as a destination or this kind of, physical space, but I do think it is. and I encourage more and more people to step into that space and be vulnerable. But it's not just vulnerable in ... Ooh. New York. not just vulnerable in, in the sense of not knowing what to do or it's unrefined.

I think you can be vulnerable in being who you are, and sharing your true identity wherever you are. We work with creatives across the world, We have some people in Brazil. We have people like yourself in London or, Australia, whatever it is. And everyone comes from a different kind of context and situation, and I think bringing who you are to the table in terms of ideas and generation of different kinds of work makes the work so much richer.

But I think people are a bit afraid to do that. I think people are afraid to say what they really care about or the kind of tension they see in the work or, what scares them about it or what they're uncomfortable with. And I always, as a creative director, try to encourage that space for people to talk about, like what's going on in Venezuela right now or what's going on wherever in the world, and I think that it just makes the work so much more interesting when it comes from that place of vulnerability and authenticity, which I think is an overused word, but here it makes sense.

Radim Malinic: I think, it's a good word to use in this instance because as a creative director, you wanna see the people that you work with and understand them and be their guiding light. one of my great friends, David Sheldon-Hicks from, the founder of Territory Studio once said that if a creative director needs to tell, art director what fonts to use or designers what fonts to use, you've failed.

And it's like, how do you understand the people? How do you make connections? And I think get to really understand, as, as we keep talking about it, their vulnerabilities and their insecurities, because we all have them. They don't go away. You just need to learn to how to manage them better. Having someone on your side in that sort of humane, compassionate way obviously matters because that, that's how we all win. 

I still wanna go back to one part of your creative art sort of artistry, and I asked it, asked your fellow, Australian Gemma O'Brien a few months ago, a few years ago, asked her, "What do you think about when you're making the pieces?

do you have time? Is it meditative process? is it relieving?" You know, likewhen, there's alwaystension and solace, at the beginning, and tension was more about, like making money and making sure that this works, and solace is more about your sp- your space and the peace to create art.

What I wanna know, there's never not creative tension when you're creating something because you g- we got all ambition, right? We want to make something that looks good, and we wanna be praised for it, or at least it clicks for us. So creative tension and creative solace, what do you go through when you're creating your work?

can you enjoy it? Do you doubt it? I'm just trying to find ways of how your work might be coming together. 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, I doubt it all the time. And sometimes I'm like, "I can't believe I've put so much time into this. What am I doing?" And then I realize that it's not about the final product, it's about the process for me. And, if someone connects with it, that's amazing, and someone enjoys the beauty of the work or finds beauty in the work, then that is a bonus.

but yeah, it's quite a hard process, I think. It's frustrating and, I've had two weeks just now of going into the studio, and it felt a bit like pushing a boulder up a hill. and I think I struggle because it's hard... It's difficult to do one day of the weekend or two days of the weekend and then go back to work Monday to Friday.

And, just as you get in the rhythm or you're opening up, you need to step away from the studio and go back to work. And I love my commercial work, my Monday to Friday, too. I find great satisfaction in that. But I think not having consecutive time for the art has been difficult, and it's frustrating

Radim Malinic: I can imagine because again, it's our brain. It was like just, it's almost like a meadow when there's a path in the middle, which is your commercial work, and then you try to go to the right. And you're like, "Oh, I need to make a new path. I need to go back there." Oh, it's beginning to open itself up, and by then you have to go back to the regular path.

it's amazing because I see there's an easy way subjectively to make an own narrative about your work because I look at your work and I'm like, that looks meditative, that looks peaceful, that looks, It's, you don't see the backstory. We don't talk about it loud enough, and I think sometimes that's, it's a problem with our perception because reality changes with the way we look at it.

You can have two people looking at your work. One will try to buy it for a million dollars, and the other one will step away and go like, "What's going on here?" "I've got other things to do."

Frances Yeoland: could do that 

Radim Malinic: Yeah, Absolutely. and never did. And I think this is the way of we talked about living eulogies, we talk about what goes behind the scenes of a being an artist and always doubting yourself.

Where do you reckon is it possible to find creative solace where we don't doubt ourselves? or is it a death of an artist when you find your place where you don't doubt yourself? 

Frances Yeoland: So I guess I would ask what is the value of not doubting yourself and what is the value of doubting yourself? why is the goal to not doubt yourself?

Radim Malinic: You asking me? 

 I think there is a point where you realize that you can see yourself in the work that you wanted to create. So let's say personally, I just written seventh book. No one's asked me to write my seventh book. I've been obsessive about that book for a year and a half.

I could see it. I could see the chapters for a year and a half or a year. I couldn't unlock the link between the chapters, even though I just did like a TEDx talk on it. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I just couldn't find the pebbles, making that, story. But I never doubted that I was going to produce something wrong because I never c- I, I don't care if you sell one book or 5,000 or 50,000 books.

I want that book to exist, and it, the process of making it made me very happy. It was a very long process. I've managed to make books before in three months, and this was like a year and a half, and it's just I, my patience, luckily I'm a bit older now, my patience is better. Did I ever doubt it? I don't think I've ever doubted it.

I never really cared in a way of will anyone fall in love with this? Because it's a advice. It's a way of, I guess with words that you can, never give people the book in the right time. They need to find a book at the right time. So the book, in the words of Alain de Botton, "The book is only good if it finds the person at the right time."

It might also be something similar with art.if people find it in the right frame, state of mind, frame of mind, they connect with something and someday they're like, sometimes it could-- it takes us six months, a year to a public statue or a public piece of art. We're like, "Oh, I get it now."

we we catch up with this. But the doubt, I think there's a part of aging. I used to doubt everything. I was never happy. I was never doing anything. But I think now I know that the focus on my own patch, like I make my own books in the way I want to make them. I'm in charge. I can do whatever I want.

It gives me more freedom to be like, "I need to do this for myself," and we see what happens next. of course you can especially digitally or you can like the, the book interior illustration could be done in different colors or different style. the cover could be different.

It's more about like, how do you make that decision? I think that come, comes from the world of branding, visual storytelling. Like we have to come to one final answer. 

Frances Yeoland: Of course, you can improve it, you can revise it, you can tweak it, but everything's encapsulated at that moment and you're like, "Okay, this is me now."

Radim Malinic: And as I told you myself, like I would happily delete my first six books and like they were great. They did exactly what I needed to do, but I would have never written them again in the same way. 

Frances Yeoland: Yeah, but they're all connected, those books led you to your latest book, and I think that it's about acceptance of the process and being gentle with yourself and saying, it might not be exactly perfect or what you imagined, but I think that we must be kind to ourselves and give ourselves room to make the art that we need to make at that moment, and it is a reflection of who we are, 

Radim Malinic: It's interesting 'cause my chapters, again, I don't wanna talk about my book too much even though it's nice to promote it. But it finishes with gratitude, but it starts with permission. so

people say, one of my ed- one of the editors was like, "Okay, why don't we start with curiosity and then we go into permission, then into acceptance?"

Because I feel permission is to do something. For example, like you give yourself two days to work on this. That's your permission. that's your now versus how. Like basically you've got the time now and who knows what we'll do, what the how bit's gonna look like. But it's the permission to do this.

Like basically you go to this. And the acceptance is goes afterwards because you say, "I can only make my piece of art the way I can do it. I can make it my own way." And if I agree with myself that's what I can do, the comparison falls a- falls away. no the com- like no competition or comparison falls away because you can realize, oh, the next is curiosity.

Where does it take me? Like what can I do with this? Because curiosity is very physical. It's almost like needing to drink water. Like it's a physical aspect of our being. And then you realize, oh my God, I'm doing this and it's taking me to the place of gratitude, realizing I can't believe I've been able to do all of this.

And that's interesting because you mentioned ac- acceptance, which validates some of my points. It's how do we see it? Because to bring something to the world out of new from that blank page, and as you said, like some people would really wanna smack it in the first draft into fucking finished shape going like, I'm winning here."

there is the process of getting there through the bumpy road and finding your own way and doubting yourself, am I doing this right or not? it's a human nature, but in a way, some people can let it derail themselves. And I think in my opinion, it's when you accept that you making your decisions on your own with your own way, is there a difference between fear and doubt?

is there ancestral hardwiring, making us worry that sharing work with thousand strangers on the internet is similar to being threatened by a saber-toothed tiger rustling in the leaves, it's how we need to under- you know, how do we understand ourselves? But it's interesting how we got to doubt and the way you work.

But before I let you go and stop talking about my book too much,I never wanna ask people like, where do you see yourself next or what's the future plan? Because I never really asked that question. But have you got a piece of work you're going to do this weekend that you're already planning or the weekend after? 

Frances Yeoland: Yes. I'm actually, I'm going to London next week, so I'm hoping to see some good art when I'm there. But before I go, I'm gonna spend some time in the studio and I think I'm continuing this, process of language as it combines with the visual. So I haven't quite cracked that connection. I think of my art, like you were saying, when you look at it, it feels very meditative and peaceful, and that's what you feel.

And it's funny that I'm not finding a way to express the tension that's in the writing and the feeling in the artwork, and I find that really strange, and maybe it's interesting. I don't know. Why is there a disconnect between the feeling of the artwork and the feeling of the idea behind it? So yeah, you've given me something to figure out.

Thanks for the homework.

Radim Malinic: I'm potentially the first ever guest to come out with the homework.

But look, as I told you before we started,I come to this with two blank pieces of paper. They are now fully sketched with your words. And I just love finding these stories because this would be the story if we were introduced by our mutual friend, Mitch Monson, in a room somewhere at a festival, that would be the conversation I would like to have because I feel like we all grow stronger and wiser from stories like yours.

Just to bring it on the human level, just to show that behind the finished piece, there's so much behind it. There's so much that goes in it, and kinda remind ourselves that we are all the same. We all break the same, we all cry the same. Like we have similar feelings about what we do, and it's just like being reminded that, that reality that you perceive from one point of view is similar from somebody else if you've just got different flavor to it.

It's incredible. So Frances, thanks for talking to me today. II'm a big fan of what you do and looking forward to more poetry being turned into more beautiful pieces of work with, from Rusty maybe less doubt. Thank you. 

Frances Yeoland: Yes, maybe I will find a way to be more vulnerable with the poetry and share it. But thank you so much for talking with me, and it was a really interesting conversation. I feel very inspired 

Radim Malinic: Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Radim: Hey, thank you for joining me on this episode of Daring Forever Podcast. As always, I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, and even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinic. Thank you for being here, and I hope to catch you on the next episode

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