Hello to Beyond Design

This podcast has lived in my heart (and notebooks) for years. BEYOND Design is finally here—and in this first episode, I’m taking you back to where it all began. From the agency days in Cape Town to flipping through a phone book in Windhoek looking for my first freelance clients… this is the story behind the story.

We talk about why design is only 20% of what we do—and how the other 80% is life, boundaries, burnout, faith, and figuring it out as we go. This space is for the creatives who are building something real, messy, and meaningful. I’m so glad you’re here.

🖤 Want to dive deeper or explore the tools I mentioned? Head to the show notes: kunshuis.com/my-journey-beyond-design

Thanks for listening to BEYOND Design ✨

If this episode spoke to you, here are a few ways to keep the conversation going:

Website & Resources → kunshuis.com
Shop creative tools → The Kunshuis Collective
Show notes & blogs → kunshuis.com/blog

Free support for creatives:

• 21-Day Creative Reset Challenge
• Download: Asking Better Questions (Client Guide)
  
  

🖤 My favourite tools for life + business:

• The Playbook Planner
  — your creative sidekick for focus + flow
• The Playbook Desk
  — a Notion-powered space to run your freelance business with ease

Let’s connect & stay inspired:
📸 Instagram
Join the Beyond Design Room on Facebook

Because design is only 20%… the rest is life.
Thanks for being here, friend. You’re not alone in this journey—let’s design it together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi friend, wow, I can't believe I'm actually recording this. This has been in my heart for such a long time, I think almost two years. This podcast Beyond Design has lived in notebooks in my morning pages in conversations with other creatives. And in those deep voice notes from you guys, other designers asking me questions about design and freelancing, and I get the response like, I wish someone had told me this earlier. Thank you for being here. It means the world to me. But let's just get to know each other. My name is Nalate. I've been in the design industry for about 25 years, plus minus. I started in Cape Town. I studied there for three years and then I started working there as well. But I missed my home, I missed my people. So I came back to Namibia and I got the opportunity to work for international ad agency here locally. I loved it. I loved the people, I loved the work, I loved the rhythms. We were in love with our work. It was fast-paced, it was exciting. I was learning new design skills, learning strategy, learning design programs. Adobe came out while we were there with Illustrator and Photoshop. And just to tell you how long I've been in this industry, we studied on Freehand and Quark Express. Yeah. It's been quite a while. At the agency, we got to work with big name clients. After five years there, I met my now husband. And my season of life changed instantly. From being able to work like nights and holidays and weekends or agreeing to ridiculous deadlines, because I was single and seemingly free. But when I met my husband, like at this pull two rhythm in life, equal parts, enjoying real life and being at work, enjoying my work. My husband wanted to ask me to marry him after two months together. I asked him why what was his longest relationship and he said six months. I said, okay, fine, if we're together in six months, then you can ask me. On our six-month anniversary, he wanted to go away. But I forgot about this conversation and I couldn't get leave from work. I only got leave the next day. And we went away and he asked me to marry him. And it was wonderful and romantic and at a lodge with a t with cheetahs. And then afterwards he told me that he actually wanted to ask me on the day of our anniversary, which was the day before. And something just snapped. Why should I ask permission to live the important things in life? And that's when I decided I'm gonna go on my own. And that's what I did. I kept on working at the agency, but I started very slow. I remember grabbing the phone book on my head like it was yesterday, and I was flipped through the pages looking for small businesses or corporate companies and just thinking of who might need design. And I started calling and emailing and telling everyone who would listen and everyone that I knew that I'm yeah, if you need a logo, a brochure, a business card, a poster, car branding, I'm yeah, let me know. And then I bought my first Mac laptop with my savings and with no fancy portfolio or sleek websites. Back then I just started. After eight months of doing this consistently, like after hours and weekends and squeezing design work into every little gap I could find, showing up, saying yes to everything, working late and early and in between my agency work, I landed one client on a monthly retainer. That one client covered my basics. No profit, just basics. Pension, medical aid, car payments. It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't easy, but it was enough to leave the agency world behind and just go all in. And that was the real beginning of Ken Size. Not with a bang, but with tiny brave steps, with absolutely no clue what I was doing, and absolutely no resources on the internet, believe me. I searched, back then no one was sharing their knowledge, but I said yes to everything. Logos, wedding invites, car branding, business cards, you name it. And slowly, little by little, I learned not how to design better, but how to run a business, how to write quotes, handle feedback, navigate late payments, communicate boundaries, handle difficult clients. And let me tell you, no one warned me that this would be the hard part. I thought being a designer was all about making things pretty. I thought with a laptop, internet and a printer, off I go, but it was not. I learned the hard way that design is only 20% of what we do. The other 80%, it's business, it's people, it's mindset, it's expectations, and boundaries, confidence, cash flow, imposter syndrome, and learning to trust your gut. And that's why I started this podcast. Beyond Design is a space for all the parts of this life that don't fit in neatly into our client folder, the messy parts, the growing pains, the moments where you question everything and then come back to your desk anyway. This podcast is for the woman who's designing her own path, whether you're a freelancer or a student, an agency girly or somewhere in between, here's what I believe with my whole heart. You designer are powerful. And we'll get to that in the episodes why I say that. And I just want you to know that even on the days when you feel like you're faking it, even when the feedback kind of stings, even when you're in between clients or staring at an empty to-do list, wondering what's next, being a designer is more than just knowing Adobe, Affinity, or Canva. It's how you see the world. It's how you solve problems. It's the way you take someone's messy thoughts and turn them into meaning. That's not small, that's not pretty always, but that's extremely powerful. So what can you expect from Beyond Design? We're going to talk about how to price your work without wanting to hide under the table. Working with clients who goes to question your value or turn out to be not your people. Building rhythms instead of trying to find balance because there's no such thing as balance. Life is like a bicycle. Sometimes you lean one way, sometimes more on the other side, sometimes more in the middle. It's more about leaning into the season of life that you're in, and then finding the overall rhythm of your season. We're going to talk about using tools like the Playbook Planner that I've developed for you to make your life just so much easier, to create flow and not just checklists. The emotional side of freelancing, the stuff that doesn't show up on Instagram, boundaries and burnout, saying no and saying yes to the right things. We'll also talk about the real life things, motherhood, faith, mental health. And for me, being Afrikaans and figuring out how to show up in English, I recently realized after interacting with designers on LinkedIn from all over the world, Germany, Dubai, India, that running a creative business in a small town or from your farm office or from your home office in New Delhi or Hamburg, we all go through the same things. Different boats, same freaking sea. This isn't going to be polished or perfect, but it will be honest. And I hope every episode feels like a friend sitting beside you going, You've got this, I'm here for you and we're together in it. Before we close, I want to say this. If you're feeling tired, uninspired or unsure, if you've lost your rhythm, your confidence or your why, I get it. But you don't have to figure it all out in one go. That is what this podcast is for. To walk with you to remind you what's possible, to help you come home to the reason you started in the first place. You don't need to be perfect to belong here. You just need to be you. If this resonated, I'd love for you to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Leave a review if you're feeling kind. It helps the podcast reach more designers like you. And if you know a friend, a colleague, a designer, or someone who's in the trenches right now, send them this episode. Invite them into this space. The more the merrier. You can also explore my tools that I've created for you because I'm not just here to talk, I'm here to equip you too. If you're looking for structure that still feels creative, the playbook planner is for you, my go-to paper tool, where I journal, plan, dream, and keep my freelance brain together. You'll find pages for weekly planning, meeting notes, client follow-ups, even a bit of guidance on the business side. And then there's a playbook desk, my digital notion system. I built this for freelancers who want everything in one place. Quotes, invoices, client hub, creative notes, onboarding guides, systems, payment schedules. It's all there. Both tools were made with you in mind to support you as you design a business and a life that works for you. It's all my systems I've been using for the last 25 years. All neatly made just for you. I just want to say thank you for listening and thank you for being brave enough to build a life that's a little less conventional, a little more creative, and completely your own. Design your life wherever you are. I'm cheering you on always. But I'll see you quickly in the next one. Okay. Enjoy your day. Bye.