In a world racing toward AI and screens, print is more valuable than ever. While everyone fights for attention on the same crowded feeds, the designers reaching for paper, ink, and real tactile work are the ones getting noticed and remembered. The Print Design Podcast is about how they pull it off.
Each episode digs into the real stories behind great print and packaging, the substrates and techniques that made them work, the problems solved on press, and the impact the finished piece had out in the world. You'll get the behind-the-scenes details, practical tips, and creative thinking that help you make print worth holding onto, and grow your work with it.
Hosted by Dave Hopkins, founder of Print Design Academy, where thousands of designers are learning to bring beautiful print to life. If you're a graphic designer who wants to stand out in a digital world by creating things people can actually touch, this one's for you.
Episode 85 - Why freelance designers are stuck at $50k/year and how to grow past it
If your design business hit some early growth and then flatlined, this one's for you.
In this solo episode I get into the three problems that quietly stall out most freelance designers, your work is invisible, you're underpaid, and clients vanish after one project, and why none of it is a talent problem. It's a visibility problem, and print is the fix for all three.
In this episode
The three problems keeping freelance designers stuck
Why a plateau is almost never a talent problem, and what it actually is
How print makes you visible when everyone else is fighting to be seen on the same feeds
Earning commission cheques from printers
Reselling print work
The revenue stack: paid design, commissions, and print resale, and how fast it adds up
The first move to make to start growing again
Print Club Pro Coaching: CLICK HERE (https://joinprintclub.com/)
Print Design Academy IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/printdesign_academy/)
17 Aug 2026
Episode 84 - How to Build a Cult Brand in Print - with Kierian Cameron, Editor of Brand Cult Newspaper
Kierian Cameron is the editor of Brand Cult, the UK's first print-only business newspaper, and it's unlike anything else landing in a mailbox: wax sealed, wrapped in tissue, shipped in an ominous black envelope, and hit with its own custom brand scent.
In this one Kierian tells the wild story of how a completely self-taught designer went from substitute teaching in London to building three businesses, and why print became her "third door" into an industry that wouldn't hire her as an intern at 37.
We get into the ikigai moment that made her go all-in on design, how she pre-sold 50 subscribers off nothing but a pitch to fund her first print run, and her whole philosophy of building "cult brands" people obsess over. It's a masterclass in networking, persistence, and finding a creative spin on a medium that's been around for hundreds of years.
In this episode
What Brand Cult is: a wax-sealed, scented, print-only business newspaper built as a full immersive brand world
Kierian's career-pivot story, from Hong Kong to London classrooms to self-taught designer
The "third door" theory: when the front door and the VIP door are closed, you find the crack nobody else is looking at
Why print-only is the whole point, and how she gives founders a reason to step away from the screen
Networking and persistence as a business engine: keep following up until they tell you to go away
How designing her own newspaper turned into a bespoke newspaper design service for other brands
The Links:
Print Club Pro - 90-day coaching: Check the Details here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2vF1u2VnCj2Iil326tfzDD2H2O9x9FpNCTJqMdBT14/edit?usp=sharing)
Brand Cult Newspaper: Great Print Here (https://brandcult.uk/)
Brand Cult IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/brand.cultuk/)
Kierian Cameron LinkedIn: Connect Here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/envoytocultleader/)
Print Design Academy IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/printdesign_academy/)
10 Aug 2026
Episode 83 - How a Newspaper can land your next Client - With Kaye Symington from Newspaper Club
Kaye Symington is the CMO of Newspaper Club and co-founder of Glasgow Print Fair. A self-proclaimed "print enabler" rather than a printmaker.
In this one we get into how Newspaper Club went from three friends printing what their mates made online to 40 million newspapers and counting, and why newsprint is booming instead of dying.
Kaye shares a stack of real stories, including an LA photographer who swapped his ignored email newsletter for a quarterly newspaper and landed a $50k campaign and nearly a Louis Vuitton gig off the back of it.
We also get into why print sticks in your brain longer than a screen ever will, how younger designers are falling for newsprint with zero nostalgia attached, and the exact math on why spending $120 on 20 newspapers is one of the smartest moves a designer can make to get noticed. Stop emailing PDFs nobody opens and make something that lands on the desk and won't get ignored.
In this episode
What Newspaper Club is, and the "print what your friends made on the internet" origin story that became 40 million newspapers
Why "newspapers are dead" was always a myth, and how AI made everyone suddenly notice print again
The LA photographer who turned a quarterly newspaper into a $50k campaign
The real cost math: why $120 for 20 newspapers beats another ignored PDF portfolio every time
How designers are using newsprint as a portfolio that actually sticks around on people's desks
Why print is multi-sensory and memorable in a way a screen just can't match
Print-first thinking: design for the newspaper, then spin it into your social, blog, and audio content
The Links:
Print Club Pro - 90-day coaching: Check the Details here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2vF1u2VnCj2Iil326tfzDD2H2O9x9FpNCTJqMdBT14/edit?usp=sharing)
Newspaper Club: Great Print Here (https://www.newspaperclub.com/)
Newspaper Club IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/newspaperclub/)
Kaye Symington IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/kaye_symington/)
Kaye LinkedIn: Connect Here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayesymington/)
Print Design Academy IG: Click Here (https://www.instagram.com/printdesign_academy/)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
18 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
15 ratings
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