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

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.