Sticky Notes with CJ Cawley and Jack Chitty

What happens when the wins stop coming? When projects drag on, self-doubt creeps in, confidence drops, and you start questioning whether you even know what you’re doing anymore.

We get into:
👉 Why freelance creatives become dependent on “wins” to keep going
👉 What happens when you stop getting sign-offs, leads, or momentum
👉 The dangerous spiral of self-doubt, comparison, and “maybe I’m not cut out for this” thinking
👉 Why nobody celebrates your wins for you when you work for yourself
👉 How to manufacture motivation and create your own small wins
👉 And why having the right people in your corner can completely change everything

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You know that feeling where your taste is up here… but your actual ability feels way down there?
Well, we unpack the constant battle of knowing what “great” looks like, but struggling to create work that lives up to the vision in your head.

EPISODE SPONSOR
SilverStag Type Foundry | Fonts that feel real, intentional, and full of character. Grab 20% OFF all fonts here

TOOLS FOR BRAND & LOGO DESIGNERS 🤙✏️
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Well... this week’s episode took a completely unexpected turn.What started as a conversation about social media, sharing your work online, and building a personal brand quickly became a very real discussion about criticism, hate, parody videos, and what happens when putting yourself out there publicly suddenly blows back in your face.CJ opens up about waking up to a viral parody video mocking his content, personality, and creative style, and the emotional whiplash that comes with becoming the target of public criticism online.We get into:👉 The reality of sharing your work online as a creative👉 Why social media can be both life-changing and mentally exhausting👉 The fear of judgment, criticism, and “cringe”👉 Constructive feedback vs straight-up hate👉 Why you can’t please everyone on the internet👉 The importance of finding your “North Star”👉 And why putting yourself out there is still worth it anywayThis is probably our rawest and most honest conversation yet and it's only episode 1! 😅

Welcome to the very first episode of Sticky Notes - the unfiltered podcast for creative professionals, where we ungatekeep the arts of our careers nobody talks about but everyone goes through.
In this episode, Jack Chitty and I sit down after a long day of building this podcast from scratch (literally by hand) and talk about why we’re even doing this.
We get into:
👉 Why running a freelance graphic design business can feel so lonely
👉 The importance of having someone in your corner
👉 Why there’s no “right way” to build a design career
👉 The problem with gatekeeping in the creative industry
👉 And why we wanted to create a space that’s more honest, raw, and human
This is just the start. Future episodes will dive into topics like finding clients, pricing, burnout, self-doubt, and everything in between.
If you're a graphic designer, brand designer, or creative professional, you’re in the right place.

Welcome to the first-ever episode of Sticky Notes. The podcast for graphic designers, logo designers, and brand designers who are figuring out how to build a freelance design studio.In this episode, we’re tackling one of the biggest questions in the design industry: To niche or not to niche? Should you specialise in one style, one industry, one type of client? Or should you stay broad, flexible, and take on a bit of everything?This is something Jack has been wrestling with, so we break it down properly:– The pressure to niche as a designer– Whether niching actually helps you get clients– The risk of boxing yourself in– My experience niching (and not niching) as a brand designer– How to figure out what you actually want to be known for