“Innovation” is one of those words that gets overused so much it’s starting feel devoid of meaning.

Richard Walzer isn’t interested in new for the sake of it. As Design Director of Breakthrough Innovation at PepsiCo (Europe), he works in the uncomfortable space most businesses avoid – the unknown unknowns. The problems no one has defined yet, let alone solved.

In this episode, Richard pulls apart what real innovation actually looks like when there’s money, scale and risk on the line. And we hate to break it to all the light bulb moment die-hards out there, but true innovation (at least for Richard) is not about eureka moments or big creative swings. It’s rigour, it’s watching what people actually do, not what they say. It’s spending most of your time making sure you’re solving the right problem, before you even think about the solution. One of the biggest creative lessons to glean from this episode is that most teams aren’t failing at execution, they’re just designing the wrong thing.

We also get into the discipline behind design thinking, the myth of differentiation, and why “distinctive” is the only thing worth chasing. From sacrificial prototypes to future consumers, Richard maps out how ideas move from vague hypothesis to something that can survive the real world.

This is creativity with true commerciality at its core.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if a home was composed like a work of art?

In this ep of Creative or Dead, we speak with interior designer Susannah Holmberg, founder of Susannah Holmberg Studios (www.susannahholmberg.com) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Susannah approaches interior as immersive installations – spaces where art, architecture and materials intersect.

We talk about her unconventional path into design, the idea that beauty might actually be a form of function, and how her studio develops personal interiors by drawing on unexpected references – from favourite films and books to travel and landscape.

The conversation also explores creative process: why blocking time for deep work matters, how tension between contrasting elements can spark originality, and why handmade pieces and craftsmanship remain central to her projects.

And, in our usual Creative or Dead fashion, we finish with our final question: if you could design your own death, what would it look like? Susannah’s cinematic vision involves black veils, oversized florals and a rainy green landscape.

Hosted by Aleesha Callahan and David Constantine, this is a conversation about creativity, craft and designing spaces that feel like living works of art.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Creative or Dead, we chat to Ty Symonds – a designer who thinks like an artist.

Ty’s creative origin story starts in Far North Queensland, where rainforest and lace-like fungi created an unforgettable impression on his psyche. This early education in the art of observation has underpinned everything that followed: from designing textiles at Peter Alexander, to navigating big-box retail, to reshaping Country Road Homewares through collaboration and long-term thinking.

This is a conversation about trusting your intuition versus over-analysing, and building impactful collaborations with a commercial mindset – all without losing your soul. We get into leadership as a creative practice, the importance of making (not just designing on screens), and why nature doesn’t believe in waste.

We also jump into flow states, mermaids, and a manifesto for slowing the hell down. It’s an episode about listening to materials, to place, to your gut, and trusting that creativity will surface when you make enough space for it.

Follow Ty on Instagram to stay up to date with what he's up to next.

Creative or Dead is hosted by David Constantine and Aleesha Callahan.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.