For the final episode of Season 2, I didn't want a victory lap. Simon Flöter is a German illustrator, designer and developer living in Amsterdam, and he told me early on: this is not a success story. This is from the trenches.

His commercial illustration work vanished this year, and he suspects AI swallowed it. Money got extremely tight. He just landed a job that should carry him through the rest of the year. And through all of it, he kept drawing, the way he has since he was a kid tracing Batman comics and getting rejected from every art school he applied to. We talked about the trenches most designers are actually in right now, why the anger at AI is really anger at corporate greed, and his advice that gives this episode its title: never make decisions from fear.

In this episode:

• Growing up in Munich, where nobody said the word artist
• Tracing Batman comics and Playboy pages to learn anatomy
• Getting rejected from every art school, and drawing anyway
• Germany vs the Netherlands: who asks for your diploma
• The year the illustration jobs vanished
• His Zwarte Piet website, and why traditions can change
• Why coding feels like a puzzle, and what AI took from it
• "We can do this now, but is it good? Do we have to?"
• Don't decide from fear, and separate yourself from your work
• The poster he made for his partner Tracy

Find Simon here:

• Design: https://floter.design/
• Illustration: https://floter.ink/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/floter.ink
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/floter/

Find me here:

• Website: https://captnoffscript.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/captnoffscript

The final Friday bonus of the season: I asked Simon what he'd work on if money stopped mattering tomorrow. His answer involves his grandfather's love letters from 1930s Germany, a zine with friends, and a video game. Newsletter subscribers get it 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: Martyna Wędzicka (S02/E33) — another conversation about holding onto your own way of working when everything pushes you to compromise.

That's Season 2. Thank you for listening to every conversation, the big names and the trenches alike.