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CAPTN OffScript

CAPTN OffScript

By: CAPTN OffScript
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There's a version of the creative career conversation that almost never gets recorded. Not the award acceptance. Not the process breakdown. Not the polished origin story where every setback was secretly a setup. That version exists everywhere. This isn't that. CAPTN OffScript is where designers, founders, illustrators, and makers sit down and talk about what's actually going on — the fear before the pivot, the year where the work dried up, the identity crisis that came with success, the moment they almost stopped, and what kept them moving. The messy, honest, deeply human side of building a creative life. I'm Alen. I run a one-person type foundry called SilverStag Type, and I've been working in and around the design industry long enough to know what gets edited out of most interviews. I started this show because I was tired of highlight reels dressed up as conversations. I wanted to hear what creative people actually think — about money and meaning, about burnout and reinvention, about imposter syndrome and identity and the thousand invisible decisions that quietly add up to a career. So that's what we do here. We go long. We go deep. We don't rush to the takeaway. And because I'm not just a host — I'm a working designer who's navigated a lot of the same terrain — the conversations tend to go places most interviews don't reach. Guests have included Jessica Hische, Elliot Jay Stocks, Sophia Yeshi, Kieron Anthony Lewis, Philipp Louven, and Sergio del Puerto. What they share isn't a follower count or a famous client list. It's that they showed up willing to say something real — something I hadn't heard them say before, in any interview, anywhere. That's the bar. The show runs in two formats. The long-form Conversations are the main event — unscripted, one-on-one, unhurried. The kind of interview where we're still discovering things an hour in. Then there are the Monday Break(Through) episodes: shorter solo pieces from me, working through ideas and observations as a creative founder. Less polished. More honest. No five-step frameworks. No sponsor reads dressed up as advice. No artificial urgency. Just two people taking creativity seriously, and seeing where that leads. CAPTN OffScript started as The Type Convo — a typography-focused show — and evolved into something bigger when I realised the conversations I most needed to hear weren't about fonts. They were about what it actually costs to build something on your own terms, and what it means to keep going when the path stops being clear. If the "official" version of a creative career has never quite matched the one you're actually living — the doubt, the detours, the days when you're not sure what you're building or why — this show was made for you. New episodes drop regularly. Come in anywhere. Stay for the honesty.2025 - 2026 CAPTN OffScript Art Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • Bonus 004 - Gemma O'Brien: Making Peace with Burnout & Studying the Flow State

    Bonus 004 - Gemma O'Brien: Making Peace with Burnout & Studying the Flow State
    Jul 3 2026

    This is the fourth bonus episode of Captn OffScript. When Gemma O'Brien and I recorded her main episode, we got into burnout and flow, and I held that part back for this.

    It went to newsletter subscribers first as a private YouTube link. Today it's available here too.

    Gemma has talked about burnout in a lot of other interviews, so I didn't want to rehash it. What I wanted, as someone who leans towards overworking, was the thing underneath it: how she sees it coming, and what she actually does about it now. Her answer was calmer than I expected. She's made peace with burnout by treating it as information about her process rather than a catastrophe. She talks about a sweet spot, too much work and you burn out, too little and you're bored and understimulated, and about looking after the foundations: sleep, rest, human connection, nature. Then we got into flow, which she's now studying formally, reading neuroscience papers on the very thing she's spent her life inside. Her line on it: she's like a chef who cooks an incredible meal for someone else, then comes home and eats McDonald's.

    In this conversation we talked about:

    • Why she's made peace with burnout
    • The sweet spot between overworking and being understimulated
    • The foundations that make high-level work sustainable
    • Studying flow state from the outside, and why that's tricky
    • Why flow matters more as AI makes everything convenient

    Timestamps: [Awaiting confirmation]

    The main episode this bonus extends: S02/E35 — Gemma O'Brien on Getting Bored of Herself & Refusing to Pick One Thing https://captnoffscript.com/s02-e35-gemma-obrien-bored-of-herself

    Find Gemma here:

    • Website: https://www.gemmaobrien.com/
    • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrseaves101
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/studiogemmaobrien/

    Find me here:

    • captnoffscript.com
    • @captnoffscript

    If this resonated, listen to: Radim Malinic (S02/E34) — another conversation about overwork, the cost of doing too much, and learning to look after yourself.

    This was the fourth Captn OffScript bonus episode. Newsletter subscribers get future bonuses on YouTube a week before they reach the podcast feeds. Subscribe at https://captn.myflodesk.com/newsletter.
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    11 mins
  • Bonus 003 - Radim Malinic: The Sabre-Tooth Tiger in Your Head & Why You Can't Unlearn Fear

    Bonus 003 - Radim Malinic: The Sabre-Tooth Tiger in Your Head & Why You Can't Unlearn Fear
    Jun 26 2026

    This is the third bonus episode of Captn OffScript. When Radim Malinic and I recorded his main episode, the conversation about fear came near the end, and it was good enough that I kept it back for this.

    It went to newsletter subscribers first as a private YouTube link. Today it's available here too.

    It's short, and it's the most reassuring thing I've put out in a while. Radim used to think you could unlearn fear, get rid of it entirely, and then realised you can't. Fear isn't a fault in the system. It's the system doing what it was built to do. We've been wired by evolution to look out for things that could kill us, and that wiring hasn't changed even though the threats have. So when you think about sharing your work with a thousand strangers, your body runs the exact same programme it would run for a sabre-tooth tiger in the bushes. Same mechanism, same flood of fear. The line I'd want you to keep: when you freeze, ask whether the tiger is actually coming. Most of the time, it isn't.

    In this conversation we talked about:

    • Why fear can't be unlearned, only understood
    • Why your brain treats sharing your work like a sabre-tooth tiger
    • How we're wired for survival but live in an era of pleasure
    • Why the reward only comes after the difficult part
    • Real risk versus the risk your body invents
    • Fear as a sensation you can work with
    • The question to ask when you freeze

    The main episode this bonus extends: S02/E34 — Radim Malinic on Creativity as Escape & Becoming More of Who You Already Are https://captnoffscript.com/s02-e34-radim-malinic-creativity-as-escape

    Find Radim here:

    • Website: https://radimmalinic.co.uk/
    • Podcast: https://radimmalinic.co.uk/podcast/
    • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radim.malinic/
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandnu/

    Find me here:

    • captnoffscript.com
    • @captnoffscript

    If this resonated, listen to: CJ Cawley (S02/E32) — another conversation about doing the work and putting yourself out there even when everything tells you not to.

    This was the third Captn OffScript bonus episode. Newsletter subscribers get future bonuses on YouTube a week before they reach the podcast feeds. Subscribe at https://captn.myflodesk.com/newsletter.
    Show More Show Less
    6 mins
  • S02/E35 - Gemma O'Brien on Getting Bored of Herself & Refusing to Pick One Thing

    S02/E35 - Gemma O'Brien on Getting Bored of Herself & Refusing to Pick One Thing
    Jun 23 2026

    Gemma O'Brien is a lettering artist, a fine artist, a muralist, and most recently a student of neuroaesthetics. She's painted a billboard in Times Square, had work acquired by a museum, and she has a public Strava profile on her website, because running is as much a part of her as the lettering is. I'd been trying to get her on the show for a long time, and the hardest part was knowing where to start.

    So we talked about how someone ends up doing this many things at once, and why she has no intention of narrowing it down. The line that stayed with me: after ticking off every career goal she'd ever dreamed of, she went back to university because she'd grown "almost bored of myself."

    In this episode:

    • Her intuitive path from law to lettering to neuroscience
    • Why she has Strava on her website, and runs to galleries
    • The 2008 video she uploaded by accident that launched her career
    • Going back to school after a Times Square billboard and a museum acquisition
    • Getting bored of herself, and wanting to feel fresh on stage again
    • Where her love of lettering really came from
    • Refusing to pick one thing, and making peace with the boring parts
    • Still feeling imposter syndrome, and forgetting her own achievements
    • The one word she'd keep if she had to destroy everything else

    Find Gemma here:

    • Website: https://www.gemmaobrien.com/
    • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrseaves101
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/studiogemmaobrien/

    Find me here:

    • captnoffscript.com
    • @captnoffscript

    This week's Friday bonus: Gemma and I go deeper into burnout and the flow state, the hidden cost of doing this much, and what it takes to protect your focus. It goes to newsletter subscribers first, a week before it's public. Subscribe at https://captn.myflodesk.com/newsletter.

    If you enjoyed this episode, leaving a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify takes less than a minute and helps more people find the show. I'd be incredibly grateful.

    If you liked this episode, listen to: Jessica Hische (S02/E21) — another lettering artist on building a creative life on her own terms, and why imposter syndrome never fully goes away.
    Show More Show Less
    55 mins
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