It's here! Curious Minds Podcast S2: Drawing on the Margins

Our podcast returns to discuss more curiosities of the creative world, starting with the seemingly innate impulse to doodle...

Curious Minds is an original podcast by Domestika that explores the curiosities and untold histories of the creative world. Every two weeks, we interview renowned creatives to discover the strange and fascinating stories behind different topics: like why stop motion endures in the digital age, or what makes a book cover memorable.

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After a successful first season, spent over-analyzing Comic Sans (why do people hate it so much?) and pondering why so many artists create self-portraits, we are excited to be back with season two of Curious Minds.

This time, we’re delving into a wide range of art and design disciplines, from travel photography to fan art to memoir writing. And we have questions! Why is polymer clay, a relatively cheap and accessible material, suddenly popping up in bespoke and refined jewelry designs? How do you condense an entire book into a single image, to make a cover people simply have to pick up? These questions and many more will be hashed out by top creatives and Domestika teachers, and we hope you’ll join us for the ride.

For now, let’s go back to basics for the very first episode of this new season. The most fundamental practice that comes so naturally to children and adults alike…the phenomenon of doodling:

Click on the link below to listen and subscribe on Spotify. Alternatively, you can find the episode on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Season 2, Episode 1: Drawing on the Margins

It can happen anywhere: sat in a quiet classroom, or in a long meeting, or outside with a sketchbook. As your mind wanders over the space around you, you suddenly feel an itch in your fingers. And before you know it, there’s a stick figure comic, a flower garden, or just some eerie unblinking eyes on your page. Even if you don’t consider yourself much of an artist, the impulse to doodle seems to flow through all of us. But so often, we’re encouraged not to do it—whether by a strict teacher, or a boss, or our own sense that we "should" be doing something else.

There are lots of examples of historical figures doodling at "inopportune" times. We even have centuries-old manuscripts, back when books had to be laboriously copied by hand, that include some cheeky doodles in the margins. So the urge has been with us for as long as we’ve been able to draw or write.

In this episode, we speak with Sunni Brown, Saher Kahn, and Mattias Adolfsson, about the enduring magic of doodling. Why we draw what we draw when our minds are set free. Why the stigma against it can be so strong (and why it's so wrong!). Then, we dive into the many benefits of doodling, from its simplicity and affordability, to how it can actually unlock the depths of our creative thinking and lead to breakthroughs and discoveries.

Sunni Brown is the author of The Doodle Revolution and an entrepreneur with a specialty in exploring this powerful impulse. In fact, she's analyzed so many doodles that she sees patterns in them—"signature styles" that people show in their instinctive drawings.

Saher Kahn is a mind-mapper, creative director at an ad agency, and self-described avid doodler. She advocates for the power of advanced, purposeful doodles, that unlock our problem-solving brain.

Finally, Mattias Adolfsson (@mattiasadolfsson) is an illustrator and teaches two courses here at Domestika, on detailed creative sketching, and using your sketchbook to develop your style and share it with the world. He loves the freedom of doodling as it "lets the drawing be", and allows us to use "more heart than mind".

Trust us, you'll want a pen and paper at hand while you listen, so you can see what emerges as you engage in this timeless act of creation.

Listen and subscribe to the Curious Minds podcast

Remember, to stay up to date with every episode, you can subscribe to Curious Minds for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

If you'd like to discover more stories behind curiosities of the creative world we often take for granted, explore all the episodes from Curious Minds season one on our blog.

You may also like:

- What is Doodle Illustration?
- Comic Tutorial: How to Create a Comic Strip
- 10 Online Courses for Learning How to Draw with Pencils
- Drawing Tutorial: 3 Ways to Unblock Your Creativity