Design Better
Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with guests across many creative fields, helping you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration. Whether you’re design curious or a design pro, Design Better is guaranteed to inspire and inform. Vanity Fair calls Design Better, “sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative world.”
Episodes
Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens: authors of WAIL on the constraints that led to timeless designs for Prestige Records
Years ago, two friends in Philadelphia — both designers, both obsessed with jazz — kept noticing the same notation on the back of their favorite records: “recorded by Van Gelder in Hackensack.” So one Saturday they drove out to find it. They tracked down the address in a 1955 phone book, pulled up — and found a parking lot. No sign, no plaque, nothing to mark that Rudy Van Gelder had once turned h
Niyati Gupta: Netflix Product Design Lead on what happens when a designer becomes a product manager, and why your influence might not be in your title
Niyati Gupta describes her career as one long experiment — deliberately putting herself in uncomfortable, ambiguous situations and treating every move as a personal learning loop. That instinct took her from a bachelor’s in design inside one of India’s most prestigious engineering colleges, where almost nobody understood what design was, to a research role at Carnegie Mellon where she studied heal
Mike Schnaidt: Fast Company Creative Director on typography, creative endurance, and designing for the long haul
Typography is often treated as a detail — the thing you finalize after the real design decisions are made. But for our next guest, it’s closer to the foundation everything else rests on. He’s spent two decades in editorial design at some of the most iconic American magazines — Men’s Health, Esquire, Popular Science, Entertainment Weekly — and he’s now the Creative Director of Fast Company, where h
Bonus Episode: Dorrian Porter returns with the Vestaboard Note
There’s something magical about the Vestaboard: it’s a physical, split-flap display connected to the internet that displays missives and useful information with a charm that we love. The Vestaboard in our kitchen greets our family with the family schedule for the day, riddles, updates from our favorite sports teams, and the best/worst dad jokes. Everyone who visits our house is amazed by it.
Vest
Tina Roth Eisenberg: Creative Mornings founder on building communities that run on trust
When Tina Roth Eisenberg moved to New York in 1999 as a new designer, she kept asking herself the same question: where are my people? Eighteen years ago, she answered it by starting Creative Mornings—a free breakfast lecture series that has since grown into what she describes as the world’s largest face-to-face creative community: 252 cities, 70 countries, and more than a thousand volunteers gathe
Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think)
Paul Ford likes to call himself a “fun Cassandra” — someone who, like the priestess in Greek mythology, sees trouble coming, but unlike her tries to make the warning as entertaining as possible. He’s the writer, developer, and co-founder of the tech agency Aboard who saw Claude Code drop last November and immediately understood it was going to change everything — while finding, to his surprise, th
Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are reading it than ever. But pick up almost any commercial edition and you’ll find the same thing: small type, no imagery, nothing that invites you in. Jessie McGuire noticed this too.
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Colin Fisher: The lone genius is a myth
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In jazz, there’s a concept called minimal structures — a rhythmic framework, a harmonic pattern, an implied order of solos. Just enough to hold the band together, but plenty of space for autonomous creativity. It’s a useful lens for thinking about how any team wo
Nir Eyal: Beyond Belief and how to change your mind to change your life
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If you want to understand how much your beliefs shape your reality, try this quick exercise. Google the “checkerboard illusion” below and you can witness first-hand that even when you know two squares are the same shade of gray, your brain still refuses to show you the truth. If it can’t get a simple
Mason Currey: Mason Currey: Author of Daily Rituals on Making Art and Making a Living
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At several points in his life, Eli imagined what it would take to become a full-time artist — a photographer or illustrator free from client work. What he didn’t realize was that he already had an example of a different path right in front of him: his
Etinosa Agbonlahor: Behavioral economist on why pricing belongs in the design process
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For product teams at startups and established tech giants alike, finding the right pricing and value proposition often feels more like alchemy than science. It’s a high-stakes game of guesswork involving the complex psychology, shifting values, and ingrained behaviors of your customers. W
Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio
Both Aarron and I are official Stranger Things nerds. We watched the show ourselves when they came out, and again when our kids were old enough. As children of the 80s, the way it captured that particular feeling of freedom — biking with friends through the neighborhood, the movies and music of the era — struck exactly the right balance of nostalgia: present enough to feel real, but never forced.
Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot
We’re all familiar with the tropes around innovation and how it starts. You just need a garage in Silicon Valley, a few geniuses and visionaries, maybe some good snacks. Our guests today help us debunk that myth.
Rich Braden and Tessa Forshaw wrote a book called Innovation-ish, and that little “-ish” is doing a lot of work. Rich Braden is a design strategist who’s taught innovation at Stanford an
Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you
Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably, irreducibly human. His drawings are populated by bespectacled bird-like figures — part alter ego, part philosophical sparring partner — rendered with the kind of warmth and specificity that no prompt can summon.
There’s a hand behind every line, and you feel it. That’s not an accident. It’s a philosoph
David Shim and Rachana Rele: Read AI CEO and VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe on amplifying creative work — not replacing it
Today we have two guests from two different companies who have one shared conviction: AI works best when it amplifies people, not replaces them. Today we’re joined by Rachana Rele, VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe, and David Shim, co-founder and CEO of Read AI. Together, they’re building very different products — but they share a vision of AI that removes the drudgery from crea
Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot
Leonardo Giusti has spent his career in the spaces between disciplines — between art and science, between research and product, between the physical world and the digital one. It’s not a conventional design path, but it’s one that led him to work most designers never get near.
This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full episode on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/leonardo
Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch
Brooke Hopper stays close to her craft. Before she hopped on a call with us to chat about her role at Adobe, she was deep in Cursor prototyping navigation design ideas. Though Brooke holds an individual contributor role after more than a decade at Adobe, she’s managed to have influence and demonstrate leadership without being relegated to management. This is what many designers dream of—craft and
Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan
You probably already know that exercise, sleep, a good diet, and spending time in nature are the pillars of a healthy life . But what if there’s a fifth pillar we’ve been undervaluing, and in many cases actively cutting? Our guest today argues that the arts belong in that same category.
Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London, where she heads t
Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words
If you’ve ever wondered what a movie production designer actually does, our guest today describes it in the simplest terms: it is everything you see in the frame that isn’t a costume. It turns out, production design has a lot in common with product design.
Our guest is the visionary production designer Fiona Crombie. You’ve seen her work in incredible films like The Favourite, and most recently,
Sam Beam of Iron & Wine: Grammy-nominated musician on creativity, collaboration, and why a good day is finding one great lyric
Most musicians start learning at an early age—or so we think. But that wasn’t the path our guest today took. He was an arty kid—drawing and painting in his bedroom—then a film teacher, before he became the musical success he is today.
This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full interview on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/sam-beam
Five time Grammy-nominated Sam Beam—wh
George Newman: Cognitive scientist on why creativity is more like archaeology than magic
We’ve all heard the mythology around great ideas: the lone genius struck by inspiration, the eureka moment in the bath or shower. But George Newman believes we’ve been thinking about creativity in the wrong way.
This is a preview of a premium episode. To hear the whole thing, head over to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/george-newman
George is a cognitive scientist who’s spent ye
Nate Koechly and Matthew Darby: YouTube's UX Director and Director of PM on redesigning one of the world's most-used apps
Redesigning one of the world’s most-used apps is no small feat, especially when that app is also the second largest search engine in the world: YouTube. Over the last four years, Nate Koechly, UX Director at YouTube, and Matthew Darby, Director of Product Management, have been leading an ambitious effort to balance Google’s metrics-driven culture with the subjective challenge of making an app feel
Bill Burnett: How to Live a Meaningful Life
When we last spoke with Bill Burnett, it was in 2020 and he’d just published his book Designing Your Work Life, co-authored by Dave Evans. The world was in the midst of a pandemic, and work and careers seemed very uncertain. Along with their other bestselling book, Designing Your Life, millions of people found guidance and a process for re-framing how to approach their career and life plans in gen
Austin Kleon: Author of "Steal Like an Artist" on building a sustainable creative practice
To make good creative work, you’ll inevitably do a lot of bad work along the way. So building a thriving creative practice relies on showing up and doing the work consistently, whether you feel inspired or not. And we can get trapped into thinking that if only we had the perfect space, or the best pen, or right notebook, it would all be easier.
This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to
Raffaela Panie: Designing the brand and visual identity for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games
Every four years, the Olympic Games capture the world’s attention—not just through athletic achievement, but through a complete visual identity that must resonate across cultures, languages, and generations. It’s one of the most demanding design challenges in the world: creating a brand that honors Olympic heritage while reflecting the unique spirit of a host city and region.
This is a preview of
Design Better Experts in Residence: Roundtable at Sequoia Capital
We recorded this special live episode of Design Better at Sequoia Capital in Silicon Valley, with our Experts in Residence: Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, and James Buckhouse.
Longtime listeners will recognize these names—Irene appeared on Episode 1 of Design Better, we explored Kevin’s remarkable journey from nuclear engineer to Air Jordan designer in episode 72, and we visited James at Sequoia Capita
Mikon van Gastel: Co-Founder of Sibling Rivalry on why presentation skills matter more than design skills
There was a time when a movie title sequence was just the moment you grabbed your popcorn and waited for the real show to start. But in the mid-90s and early 2000’s, that changed forever with films like Seven and shows like Mad Men and Stranger Things. The title sequence became a prologue—a metaphor for the film itself.
This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full interview, head
Mark Wilson: Fast Company's Global Design Editor on design's defining moments in 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time to pause and take stock of what’s been a transformational year in design. From Figma’s landmark IPO to the rise of AI across every category of product, to major brand evolutions at Nike, Netflix, and The New York Times—this year has been defined by what our guest today calls “mass acceleration.”
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Video Rewind: Cassie McDaniel: How Medium eliminated its PM function and started moving faster
We’re taking a holiday break, so we’re rewinding to one of our favorite episodes this year with Cassie McDaniel, Medium’s head of design. We’re also including video from the episode, which you can watch here or on our YouTube channel at dbtr.co/youtube. We hope you have a lovely holiday season with your family, friends, and loved ones.
—Eli & Aarron
***
Cassie McDaniel, Medium’s head of design,
Aaron Draplin: Field Notes co-founder on what skate culture taught him about design
A larger than life figure in the creative world, Aaron Draplin has been designing everything from logos to posters since 1995. Few designers are as prolific as Aaron. He’s the founder of Draplin Design Co. (DDC). Priding himself on craftsmanship and quality, the DDC has made stuff for Field Notes, Esquire, Nike, Red Wing, Burton Snowboards, Ford, and he’s even designed a US stamp.
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Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett: Designing business tools that support how creatives actually work
Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett first crossed paths at Studiomates, a Brooklyn based co-working space where some of New York’s most talented designers built businesses and influential organizations.
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Jessica, known for her lettering and illustration work with clients like Wes Ander
2025 Holiday Gift Guide
It’s that time of year again—our favorite episode to put together. A moment to look back at the objects, experiences, and ideas that sparked creativity for us this year. From books that moved us to tools that surprised us to experiences we can’t stop recommending, we’ve gathered a set of gift ideas for the designers, makers, and curious people in your life (including you).
We’re starting with bud
Phil Gilbert: Making a 114-year-old, 400,000 person company care about design
Changing the culture of a 400,000-person company isn’t just hard—it’s the kind of transformation most leaders wouldn’t even attempt. But when Phil Gilbert joined IBM as General Manager of Design in 2010, that’s exactly what he set out to do. And remarkably, he had a lot of success.
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Phil led one of the m
Cecilia Brenner: Moving beyond design theater to measurable impact
We’ve talked to many design leaders who have burned out after a decade or more of corporate work. But after 17 years at Philips designing health innovations, Cecilia Brenner wasn’t burnt out…she loved it. And she wanted to find a way to scale her sense of purpose, so she joined Design for Good as Managing Director, and found a way to work with hundreds of designers who want meaningful impact witho
Video Rewind: Jordan Mechner: Pioneering game designer on creating Prince of Persia, Karateka, and a new graphic novel memoir
This is a preview of a premium episode. You can find a video version of the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dvoGPZEY1g
We’ve been on the road this week, recording some in-person episodes in Portland Oregon, with Ryan Coulter—co-founder of The James Brand, and the wonderfully hilarious graphic designer Aaron Draplin.
We’re excited to bring you this episodes
Ben Swire: Author of "Safe Danger" on the hidden reason team building efforts fail
As educators, we’ve grown wary of the term “safe spaces,” especially when what many students really need is a space to engage with “dangerous” ideas. But true dialogue doesn’t begin with risk—it starts with trust. Our guest today, Ben Swire, wrote the book Safe Danger, which offers a thoughtful, practical approach to building the psychological safety that allows curiosity, connection, and even pro
Jeremy Faludi: Sustainability professor on why most sustainable design fails before it starts
Design is a problem solving discipline. We research user needs, explore solutions, make things, and ship them. But one important stakeholder is often missing from the conversation: the world we live in. What toll do the products we design impose upon the environment? Sustainability is an essential part of the discipline of design, but not understood by designers. If only we had a manual to get us
Alison Rand: Leading with radical humanity instead of radical candor
We’ve worked alongside people for years, only to realize that we know nothing about their personal life. And it probably affected our working relationship. Knowing your colleagues as humans reframes inevitable challenges at work. Had we known our colleagues better, would we have worked through disagreements better or found new ways to collaborate? Yeah, we sure would have.
Alison Rand, who helped
The Brief: How our recent past should prepare us for the age of AI
In this issue of The Brief, we’re reflecting on what we learned about the past and future of design from our conversation with Paola Antonelli (The Museum of Modern Art), Mark Wilson (Fast Company), Kate Aronowitz (GV), Mike Davidson (Microsoft), and Meaghan Choi (Anthropic).
Looking back at 30 years of design
by Eli Woolery
Roughly thirty years ago, I was an undergrad, sitting in our dorm’s co
Fitz and the Tantrums: Finding your creative voice in your 40's and why success feels different than you think
This is a preview of a premium Design Better episode. Visit our Substack to hear the whole interview, for bonus content, and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/fitz-and-the-tantrums
With the 150th official episode of Design Better, we’ve got something special for you.
For many of us, if we haven’t had creative success by our 40’s, we feel like we may have missed the boat. But Michael “Fitz
Bonus Episode: 30 years of design with Wert&Co, live in NYC featuring Paola Antonelli, Mark Wilson,Kate Aronowitz, Mike Davidson, and Meaghan Choi
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Today we celebrate 30 years of Wert&Co.—the quiet champions of design who have shaped our field by placing the brightest designers in roles of influence at brands that impact culture, commerce, and community.
Design Better is brought to you by Wix Studio, the most powerful web design
Rewind: Paola Antonelli: How design shapes culture
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Design Better has been on the road recently, recording a live episode in Manhattan for design search firm Wert & Co’s 30th anniversary. Guests for the episode included Paola Antonelli (senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA) Mike Davidson (VP of Design and User Rese
Keith Sawyer: Become more creative by learning to see
This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. To listen to the whole episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/keith-sawyer
The key to creativity isn’t about having brilliant ideas in isolation, but about cultivating our ability to observe the world around us, and make the intuitive leaps that connect disparate ideas. Keith Sawyer, a creativity researcher who sp
Jae Park: Designing a new generation of vehicles at Ford, and why friction matters in the creative process
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As designers and creatives, many of us spent years of our career looking at blank canvases and attempting to find the best place to start solving the problems in front of us. Now that AI can churn out designs and imagery, not to mention writing, video, and even music in seconds, what are we losing from the f
Astro Teller & Ivo Stivoric: Why moonshots require unlearning everything you know
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When a company talks about taking a “moonshot,” it often ends up being something trivial: a new emoji keyboard, or delivering a pizza in less than 30 minutes.
But at X, the Moonshot Factory, which is part of Google, they’re tackling some
Henry Modisett: Perplexity’s VP of Design on embracing ambiguity and leading with curiosity
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AI isn’t just another layer in our digital toolkit—it’s reshaping the tools themselves, and in the process, transforming how we work, think, and solve problems.
Henry Modisett, VP of Design at Perplexity, is in a unique position to challenge many of the norms that have shaped tech for some time now. Per
Elizabeth Lin: Rethinking design education in the age of AI
This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. Head to our Substack to get access to the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/elizabeth-lin
Have you played around with Cursor? If not, it’s time. Designers with no coding skills are passing Cursor Figma files and getting working apps out the other side. And if you have no design, you can just prompt this AI powered development
Nick Foster: Could, Should, Might, Don't—a new way to think about designing for the future
Most designers are comfortable in the world of known problems—we talk to users, gather insights, iterate based on feedback. But what happens when you're designing for a future that doesn't exist yet? When you're creating products for people who haven't been born, or technologies that might not emerge for years?
Today's guest has spent decades designing for the future, a space where design specs a
Tim Brown: Allbirds co-founder on mission-driven design and entrepreneurship
This is a preview of a premium episode. Head to Design Better to hear the whole thing: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/tim-brown
Sometimes your career takes an unexpected turn—and that pivot can lead to something bigger than you imagined.
Tim Brown, co-founder of Allbirds, has been there. After a stint as a professional soccer player, Tim found himself on a different path—one that led to crea
Matt Raw: Balancing legacy and innovation at The New York Times
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Matt Raw, Interim VP of Design at The New York Times, and his team have a tough job. Their work is seen by millions every day who come to the Times website and apps for information they can trust, presented clearly, across platforms, striking a stylistic balance between tradition and innovation. Somehow they
The Brief: Microscopes and telescopes
Microscopes and telescopes
By Aarron Walter
A friend and former colleague called me recently to catch up and get my perspective on an important question. He leads a product team at a major tech company and the design team had just been moved under him.
He’s an exceptional product thinker with a sharp grasp of engineering systems and shipping processes. But managing designers? That was new terr
Rhiannon Bell: Designing the future of search at Google
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We all rely on search—sometimes dozens of times a day—to make sense of the world around us. But behind that simple white box is a vast, dynamic system that has to understand not just language, but intent, context,
Bonus Episode: Inside Sonos's distributed research & design process for the Arc Ultra
For many creative people, music is a central part of life. Count us in that camp. We’ve long admired Sonos products for their quality and easy integration into our homes, and everything they design is beautiful.
The integration of design and technology is often a challenge for companies. From the outside, it would seem that Sonos has something figured out in this department. To learn more about t
Noah Levin: AMA with Figma's VP of Design on their latest releases
Figma is central to most designers' workflow these days (certainly is here at Design Better). So it's important to get familiar with all of the latest features. Who better to give us the back story of the releases announced at Config than Noah Levin, VP of Product Design at Figma. Join us for a conversation with Noah and a closer look at how Figma is helping designers design better.
In this AMA,
Design Better Live AMA at The New York Times
We were recently invited to the The New York Times where we spoke with Matt Raw, the interim head of design at the Times. Eli and I are accustomed to interviewing, but this was a different experience for us as this time we were the ones telling our story.
Matt and the Times design team were curious about the origin story of Design Better, what we’ve learned about creativity and design after more
Video Rewind: Kamasi Washington: A jazz genius on collaborative lessons learned from Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill, and more
This is the second installment in our series of video rewind episodes, with an interview featuring jazz legend Kamasi Washington. Watch the full episode on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/video-rewind-kamasi-washington-a
Jazz is a constantly evolving art form, offering some of the richest lessons in creative collaboration. A melody and chord progression provide the foundation,
Josh Clark and Veronika Kindred: Sentient Design and the future of interfaces
This is a premium episode of Design Better. You'll hear a preview of the episode here, but head over to our Substack and become a premium member if you'd like to access the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/josh-clark-and-veronika-kindred
As designers, we’re entering a new era. AI isn’t just a tool we use behind the scenes, but a collaborator we’re designing with and for. It’s a shi
Bonus Episode: Shani Sandy, VP, Experience Design at IBM, live in NYC for UserTesting's THiS Connect Tour
Maybe you’ve already heard, but we’re in the midst of significant global and technological change. It will be a struggle for many businesses to adapt, but IBM is a company that’s no stranger to change. Time and again, they’ve reimagined, restructured, and refactored their business to stay relevant. Our guest today, Shani Sandy, is playing an important role in IBM’s current transformation as VP of
The Brief: Stop specializing—live a multidisciplinary creative life
by Eli Woolery
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the multitude of people we’ve interviewed for Design Better, it’s that the most innovative creators of our time share an unlikely trait: they refuse to stay in their lane. While conventional wisdom pushes specialization, these polymaths build careers by following curiosity across fields—from nuclear engineering to footwear design, from video
Christopher Lyons: From producing music to venture capital, and why EQ beats IQ in building the future
This is a preview of a premium episode. To get access to the full episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/christopher-lyons
Some careers have clear through lines: pick a college major, get a job in that industry. Others take serendipitous turns. Christopher Lyons is the latter, but with some surprising twists.
Chris started his career as a music producer with Jermaine D
Bonus Episode: Champ Bennett, co-founder of Capsule, on making motion design easy and scalable
We are living through a Cambrian explosion of new tools, powered by generative AI. It can be tough to wade through the sea of options in front of us, and find platforms that actually help us in our workflow instead of being a distraction.
That’s why it was so refreshing to discover the tool Capsule a little over a year ago. We use it to create motion graphics and short videos for Design Better, a
Cassie McDaniel: How Medium eliminated its PM function and started moving faster
This is a preview of a premium episode. Visit our Substack to get access to the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/cassie-mcdaniel
Cassie McDaniel, Medium’s head of design, is someone with a clear vision for how a design team should work. She believes team members should have a breadth of skills, craft should be the foundation of product design, and experimentation is important in bo
The Roundup: AI creative workflow, vibe coding, ethics, agents, and more
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Rarely do we get the chance to pause and reflect on the conversations we’ve been having—and to spot the red threads that run through them. But that’s exactly what we’re doing today.
We’re trying out a new format—we’re calling it The Roundup. Think of it as a prototype. We’d love your f
Bonus Episode: Amy Lokey, Chief Experience Officer at ServiceNow, live in SF for UserTesting's THiS Connect Tour
This interview was recorded live on May 1st for UserTesting’s ThiS Connect City Tour. Interested in joining us for our next live show? We’re joining an incredible lineup at #THiSConnect in NYC (including former Design Better guest Seth Godin), where we’ll talk about customer experience, innovation, and the real impact of AI.
📍 Catch us in New York on May 29th.
Let’s connect, share ideas, and sha
Video Rewind: John Cleese: A cheerful guide to creativity
Hi everyone!
We recently surveyed our audience and learned that many of you would like to see more video. So, we’re kicking off a new run of video episodes, beginning with our interview featuring John Cleese—actor, writer, comedian, and author of Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide.
You can watch the interview on our Substack, or on Youtube. Enjoy!
Original intro
The Ministry of Silly Wa
Marco Suarez: From designer to coffee entrepreneur ☕
A special sponsored episode of the Design Better Podcast
It’s a tough job market out there right now for designers and other creative technologists. Many of us are wondering if there are other ways we might be able to use our skills, and some of us are considering an entrepreneurial path.
Our guest today has done just that. Marco Suarez has had an impressive career in design, but took an interes
Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross: Your Brain on Art
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In school, art is often positioned in curricula as an enrichment subject, not a core skill like math or language arts. But those of us who pursue the arts instinctually recognize that there is something in creative expression that is foundational to the human experience.
Susan Magsamen, e
Rewind: OK Go: Making the impossible possible
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Aarron and Eli are traveling with their families for Spring Break, so we’re bringing back one of our favorite episodes from 2023 with the band OK Go.
In the time since we recorded the interview, they’ve come out with a new album, and with several new music videos, including for the track Love, shot with no cuts…
Jordan Mechner: Pioneering game designer on creating Prince of Persia, Karateka, and a new graphic novel memoir
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As a kid in the 80’s, Eli fell in love with games on computers like the Apple II, Commodore 64, and later the Amiga and Macintosh. One of the very first games he played was called Karateka, which was inspiring for the realistic movements of its digital karate antagonists, even on a black-and-green Appl
Brad Frost: Design systems are about human relationships
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Design systems are the foundation of nearly every piece of software we use. No one has had a greater influence on the philosophy and tactics of building design systems than Brad Frost, author of Atomic Design. After helping countless companies craft design systems, Brad has come to realize that this topic
Heidi Trost: Human Centered Security
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Designing a good security experience is hard. Every time we run into one of those security captchas that requires you to “identify all the motorcycles” in the tiled images, we want to give up and surrender to our robot overlords…or throw our laptop out the window.
Our guest today, Heidi Trost, just publi
The Brief: Afraid of losing your job? Become irreplaceable
Becoming an irreplaceable designer
By Aarron Walter
The software industry is in a tough contraction phase. Teams are downsizing, and companies are prioritizing efficiency. It’s a stressful time for many.
But it’s also an opportunity—to reflect on your work, your skills, and the unique value you bring as a designer. What could you do to make yourself indispensable to your team?
In my career, I’ve
Trenton Doyle Hancock: An artist’s process for creating order from chaos
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Aarron’s friend Trenton Doyle Hancock did something remarkable when they were both in the graduate Painting and Drawing program at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia—he had work in the Whitney Biennial. It was a bit like winning an Oscar while in acting school, just not something that ever
Dan Harden: Form follows emotion—industrial design lessons from George Nelson to Steve Jobs
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If you were mapping out the most amazing career in industrial design, you might dream of working with George Nelson, Henry Dreyfuss, Steve Jobs, and influential companies like Frog design in the early days. It seems impossible that one person could have such a career, but Dan Harden has done all of this and
Kristen Berman: Behavioral economics expert on designing products that change behavior
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Many of the most successful products launched in Silicon Valley lean heavily on behavioral design to increase engagement. Former Design Better guest Nir Eyal talks about this in his books Hooked and Indistractable, and today we have another expert in this field, Kristen Berman, who co-founded Irrational
The Brief: What designers can learn from writers and storytellers
Words are worth a thousand pictures
by Eli Woolery
How does Sir Jony Ive, the famed former head of design at Apple, start every project? If, like me, you guessed by sketching, you’d be wrong. I was surprised to learn when he visited the design capstone class I co-teach at Stanford that he starts all projects by writing.
But Jony gave our class a powerful example of why writing is a far more versat
Gareth Hinds: A golden age for the graphic novel
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Graphic novels are experiencing something of a renaissance recently. As the medium has gained popularity, notable thinkers like Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari and the late John Lewis have brought their stories to life beautifully in graphic novel form. Gareth Hinds has played a big role in shaping the m
From your inbox to your ears: Audio versions of The Brief
Every month, our premium subscribers receive our newsletter The Brief , which assembles wisdom gleaned from interviews with creative thinkers. It’s a chance to go deeper into salient topics like creative collaboration, the ephemeral nature of designing software, and how other creative people in music and film solve problems.
But inboxes are busy places—an issue might slip past you. And everyone le
Kevin Bethune: Nonlinear—Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction
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One core strength that good designers cultivate is the ability to navigate ambiguity. Our guest today, Kevin Bethune, returns to the show to discuss his new book, Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction, which emphasizes that to achieve real innovation, teams must be willing to
Scott Belsky: Adobe's Chief Strategist on navigating the creative Cambrian Explosion
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/scott-belsky
We live in an era where it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the pace of new technology. As designers, creatives, and technologists, we have a wealth of tools at our disposal that people in our roles only a decade ago could only have dreamed of. Yet it can be daunting to know where to focus our efforts: what n
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