Clever with Amy Devers

Architect and educator Elena Manferdini grew up in Italy, drawing on any surface she was allowed to, and some she wasn’t. After obtaining a degree in structural engineering, a 9-month stint in Los Angeles grew into a 22-year ongoing stay. In LA, she established her studio, Atelier Manferdini, and began teaching. Now the Chair of Graduate Programs at SCI-Arc and a new mother, she’s passionate about...

In this special Clever Presents, we’re sharing an episode of another podcast we produce for Neocon called NeoConversations . What does it take to effectively design brand character into a space? How can brand values and purpose be communicated through materiality, visual language, ambiance and experience? What’s in the tool kit needed to implement a design program company-wide? Amy Devers explores...

Fashion designer Scott Sternberg just wants to feel it. He grew up in Ohio, watching MTV and living an idyllic-ish childhood with requisite darkness. After an economics degree and a stint as a Hollywood agent, he was informed that he was a fashion designer. His first label, Band of Outsiders, was a cult success, but grew to be unsustainable. Now, with his new label Entireworld, he’s doing things d...

Cognitive neuroscientist Sahar Yousef grew up in the Bay Area, the daughter of Iranian immigrants. She became fascinated by human consciousness at a young age and she followed that curiosity to studies in philosophy, then all the way to a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Now, she aims her brain toward helping leaders maximize their potential so they can do their best work, then go home to their fami...

Illustrator Abbey Lossing grew up in the midwest with drawing as a favorite pastime and influence from a grandmother who was a portrait painter. By high school, she was starting to take drawing seriously, and that led to focused college studies in illustration. Always feeling drawn to the freelance way of life, she set herself up for success by first paving the road with two years of corporate “re...

Strategy and design consultant, Alain Sylvain, was born and raised in New York City, the son of Haitian immigrants. His early creativity included playing in fake bands and starting a fake restaurant. After studying international affairs and business he embarked on a brief stint in political campaigns, but that morphed into advertising and he found himself embracing both his creativity and business...

Gregg Buchbinder, Chairman of iconic furniture brand Emeco, grew up in southern California, on a “long leash” and with a constant longing to be surfing or sailing. That love of the ocean infused him with a very strong sense of sustainability as his driving purpose. The story of Emeco began long before Gregg—in 1944 with the 1006 Navy Chair—but their destinies have been intertwined for generations....

Designer / public servant, Ana Monroe, grew up in the south to radio station-owning liberals who taught her to reject the status quo in favor of positive change. While she never did inherit her Panamanian-born mother’s wild, beautiful curls, she did pick up her wide-open ideas about beauty. After graciously rejecting the idea of law school, she embarked on a series of professional adventures that...

Internationally acclaimed designer Humberto Campana grew up in small-town Brazil and found imaginative freedom in crafts and the local movie theater. During his adolescence it was considered subversive, even dangerous, to become an artist so he decided law school was the best way to get to the big city. He eventually abandoned law in order to “construct his life with his own hands.” A near-death e...

Digital designer and writer Amélie Lamont is a native New Yorker and daughter of Jamaican immigrants. A self-proclaimed nerd, she grew up reading Encyclopedia Britannica and teaching herself to code. A life-long learner, she has pursued many different areas of study in school and hated them all, which is probably why her long-term vision for herself involves a PhD and starting a design school! As...

Fine artist and designer, Daniel Arsham, grew up in Miami in the mirror image of the house across the street. After graduating from the Cooper Union, back in Miami he co-founded the artist-run gallery space ‘The House’. An invitation to collaborate with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company led to global adventures in stage design, and in 2007, in order to expand his explorations of spatial manipulat...

Google’s Head of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, learned from her industrial designer father how to see the world for how it’s made, and for the possibilities of how it could be remade. Early professional success as a jewelry designer taught her that life is not about ego hits, it’s about the journey. Fueled by curiosity, she’s traveled through the corporate world as a way to keep learning. She approac...

Industrial designer Carl Gustav Magnusson, was born in Sweden and grew up on a farm in Canada. Early life was informed by wide open spaces and a natural curiosity about cars and industrial farm equipment. After engineering and architecture degrees he got straight to work with Charles and Ray Eames, and then logged 30+ years with Knoll. He’s spent his life dedicated to contributing to society’s nee...

Costume concept artist Gina DeDomenico Flanagan spent the first half of her childhood roller skating around a cul-de-sac and the second half riding a horse around Hawaii. She studied fashion and illustration and then found her way into the entertainment business working with costume designers. After a 10-year motherhood hiatus and a divorce, she re-entered the industry and found that everything ha...

Designer, researcher and author Ingrid Fetell Lee spent her childhood traveling back and forth between divorced parents, indulging her curiosity during unstructured time, and losing herself in books and her journal. Her professional path routed her through creative writing, market research and industrial design on the way to dedicating her life to the study of joy, and helping people understand th...

In this special Clever Extra, taped live at a Be Original Americas event in Los Angeles, we conducted 6 lightning round interviews with leaders in different areas of design and architecture. Our central question of the night: How is original design and authentic voices important to the growth and ecosystem of your industry? Our guests included Gegg Buchbinder, Elena Manferdini, Bret Englander, Ama...

Streetwear designer Bobby Hundreds grew up as a minority of a minority, being both Korean-American and into the socal skate punk scene. He loved to draw, but as the son of immigrants, he was not encouraged to pursue the arts so he got a law degree instead. When he started The Hundreds with a classmate, it took off like a rocket and he learned to fight like both an underdog and a champion. With the...

Experience designer Kristy Tillman was a very studious child, extremely driven academically. Always on the advanced track, she assumed she would one day be a lawyer like Clair Huxtable. Coding and art were background passions until a friend made her aware of design as a profession and she immediately redirected them to the foreground. Having recognized the need and summoned the courage to “invite...

Experience designer David Schwarz grew up “seeking weird things to explore, make and build.” Fast forward to adulthood and he’s still at it. As co-founder of Hush Studios he spends his brain power and energy blending architectural space and digital technology to create installations and experiences that people can inhabit, learn from, play in, and feel things inside of. He arrived via detours in e...

Artist and designer Zoë Pawlak knew in childhood that life in suburbia wasn’t the whole picture, so she saved her babysitting money to spend some time in Chile with relatives. The experience opened the door to fine art and after studying painting in high school and college, a pregnancy dictated she must put her skills to work professionally. Successful in her painting, she is now making a name as...

Lighting designer Pablo Pardo was born in Venezuela 3 minutes after his identical twin brother, making him the youngest of 5. His father’s work as a civil engineer took them to Chile until age 7, and then to Ohio. Making remote control airplanes in Dad’s workshop revved up his curiosity and he followed it directly into industrial design. (So did his twin and a sister, that’s 3 in one family!) Afte...

Design*Sponge founder Grace Bonney grew up knowing she wasn’t straight but not knowing what to do with that. Her love of Riot Grrrl music and angry collages informed her creative identity and after studying art and journalism in college, it all melted together in the creation of Design*Sponge. After 15 years and a lot of success, she’s just announced that she plans to shutter this year and she’s s...

Jeansmith and co-founder of Raleigh Denim Workshop, Victor Lytvinenko, was born with tons of energy and curiosity. As he grew it led to playing soccer, building small engines, and digging deep into whatever was capturing his attention - woodworking, cooking, wine-making... until he found a sewing machine and became obsessed with making the perfect pair of jeans. Together with his now-wife Sarah Ya...

Graphic designer, illustrator and lettering artist, Jessica Hische forged her fierce independence during a tough chapter in childhood. She knew from a young age that she wanted to be an artist, but it necessitated a school transfer to pursue that dream. With candor and self-awareness, she’s forthcoming about the challenging aspects of her work, as well as the triumphs. Her new children’s book is a...

Happy New Year! This episode originally aired on November 14, 2017. International design star, Marcel Wanders, grew up in the Netherlands taking things apart and making gifts from the pieces. After a rebellious and experimental adolescence, he discovered design in school and fell in love. Then he got kicked out. 20+ years later, with many global successes (products, furniture, lighting, and magica...