Design Better

Find the transcript, full show notes, and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/brian-tyler Our conversation today takes us further into the creative process across different mediums. If you’re a fan of Yellowstone, Crazy Rich Asians, Iron Man 3, or the recent Mario Brothers movie, then chances are good that one of the soundtrack clips in the trailer below is familiar to you. And...

Find the transcript, show notes, and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/eric-snowden Adobe has been the big wrench in our creative toolbox for decades. But there’s a new tool shaking up our workflow —Generative AI. Eric Snowden, leader of Adobe’s design team, sees a big opportunity for designers to extend and enhance the creative process by folding generative AI into each of o...

Visit our Substack for transcript, show notes, and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/kate-aronowitz Few designers have an instinct for business fundamentals. Those that do are able to position design as a competitive advantage for a business and pave the way for design teams to collaborate more effectively. Kate Aronowitz is one of those rare birds. Kate has held high level design roles at...

For decades, graphic designers have been introduced to typography by Ellen Lupton’s book, Thinking With Type. It was certainly a staple in Aarron’s courses when he taught graphic design. It’s now in its third edition, with loads of new content. It’s worth noting, the layout of each page of this book is beautiful and entirely designed by Ellen herself.  We chat with Ellen about what’s new in this e...

Visit our Substack for the transcript, additional show notes and links, and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jonathan-hoefler Chances are you have a few fonts on your computer designed by Jonathan Hoefler. Since 1991, Apple has included Hoefler Text on every Mac. Ideal Sans, Knockout, Archer, Verlag, and Sentinel—are a few more of Hoefler’s well known typefaces —each is steeped in history a...

Visit our Substack for the transcript, links, and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/hamish-smyth Design systems have been on the minds of those of us in the software industry for more than a decade now and for good reason. To create large scale software with a consistent experience, standards are needed to guide contributors.  This is not a new problem, though. Before software designers crea...

Find a transcript and more show notes on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/hiroki-asai Airbnb and Apple have a few things in common: They’re both design-centric companies, they sell products through best-in-class marketing, and they’ve achieved incredible success by focusing on the customer. There’s one more thing they have in common—Hiroki Asai who currently leads marketing at Airbn...

Find the transcript and full show notes on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/vanessa-gennarelli Change at work is tough, and it’s seemingly constant. New leadership, new boss, new role, new responsibilities, new strategies. Suddenly, everything you thought was certain has been upended and you’re left fretting about what’s next.  Though change at work is a constant, the stress and con...

With a more than 100 year history, movie making has a lot to teach us about collaboration and creativity in complex environments. How do directors bring together so many people with such different skills for months, sometimes years, to make a movie that holds together as a story that entertains and makes a profit? That’s exactly what we asked Scott Rice, an Emmy-award winning film and television d...

Find more show notes and the transcript on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/autumn-durald-arkapaw-cinematographer The Marvel Cinematic Universe has dominated the box office and streaming platforms for years, and our guest, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, has played a significant role in shaping the look of the series. Autumn was the cinematographer for Wakanda Forever—the critically acclaime...

We hope that you’re having a festive holiday season, and that you’re able to take some time off to be with friends and family. Today we’re rewinding to our interview with Robin Petravic, co-owner of Heath Ceramics. We love Heath Ceramics. They're the types of objects you pass on from generation to generation, the kind of gift you bring to a wedding, or the dishes that you'd want to put on a beauti...

Find the transcript, show notes, and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/barry-katz We bet you don’t know where the term “interaction design” comes from, but Barry Katz does. Katz’s book, Make It New, captures the lost history of digital design that should be required reading for all in the software design industry. Eli first got to know Barry Katz as a professor at Stanford du...

Find the transcript, show notes, and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/dorrian-porter-vestaboard The sound and movement of a split flap display mesmerizes us like few things can. There’s a charm to these things. Travelers linger in front of them in train stations anticipating new information, happy to stick around to watch the magic. Dorrian Porter’s encounter with a split fl...

Find show notes, transcripts, and more at https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/paola-antonelli The Museum of Modern Art brings to mind images of Van Gough’s Starry Night, Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory, and Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans. But thanks to Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA exhibitions also encompass the role design has played in s...

As designers, we can’t help but be particular about the gifts we give and receive. We’ve put together a list of beautiful and useful gifts at varying price ranges to help you satisfy everyone on your holiday shopping list this year, including yourself. Wishing you and yours a happy, safe holiday season filled with love, gratitude, and connection. Your pals, Aarron and Eli *** For the full gift gui...

Find the episode transcript and show notes on designbetterpodcast.com Our show starts with a little sample of the music that fuels our creative work. Eli’s been listening to Tycho, aka Scott Hansen, since 2006. It just happened to coincide with the first time he took the leap into being a creative entrepreneur, starting his own small design consultancy as well as co-founding a magazine about under...

Find the transcript and episode notes here: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/gil-gershoni#details October is dyslexia awareness month, and we were recently introduced to Gil Gershoni, who is on a mission to help us all recognize dyslexia as a creative superpower. Gershoni runs an influential agency that’s been reshaping brands with the power of dyslexic design thinking for decades. One in five pe...

Show notes and transcript: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/ok-go Not many bands hire Russian pilots to film a Zero-G video on their cosmonaut training plane, known as the “vomit comet”. But those are the kinds of extremes that OK Go will go to in the pursuit of creativity. Tim Nordwind and Damien Kulash, the band’s founders, met at camp as pre-teens in search of a fellow creative nerd, and found...

Over the seven years doing the show, we noticed a pattern in those who achieve their career goals fastest—they consciously invest in themselves by building skills and knowledge. And one of the best ways to learn is to have direct access to people who inform and inspire. Today, we’re launching a premium service called DB+ designed to help you learn faster and grow your career. Subscribers to the Po...

Aarron first met Paula Scher as a grad student in Philadelphia. He worked at the Temple University gallery and was hanging an exhibition of her posters when they first spoke about her work. He didn’t know at the time how significant her influence on graphic design was, but her work made an impression on him. Paula’s work and kinetic typography sits in the canon of graphic design history. Described...

Show notes and transcript: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/bonus-episode-matt-d-smith#details We’ve got a special bonus episode for you today. Matt D. Smith, better known as MDS, is the founder of Shift Nudge, and he has a mission to lead a new generation of interface designers to build the digital products of the future. Matt’s courses on Shift Nudge have helped thousands of students at top com...

Show notes and transcript: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/llisa-demetrios#details Mid century modern design aesthetics are enduring and as relevant today as ever. Perhaps no designers influenced those philosophies more than Charles and Ray Eames whose body of work transcends media and is still being produced today. It’s hard not to think of the Eames’ as monolithic design heroes, but today we’r...

Hey everybody, we have a special bonus episode for you today. We're having a conversation with Bayard Winthrop, the founder and CEO of American Giant, one of our favorite clothing companies. This episode is all about the intersection of design and entrepreneurship. Designers often hear that they need to develop business acumen: they need to know how a business works, and how a product makes money....

Welcome to our second Design Better episode on the creative process. You may not know Ed Catmull’s name, but there’s almost no doubt you’re familiar with his work. As the co-founder of Pixar, he’s responsible for helping to create movies ranging from the original Toy Story on through The Incredibles, Wall-E, Moana, and Inside Out.  Ed has a background in computer science, and as someone who pionee...

Welcome to the first episode in our Design Better series on the creative process. In this series, we’re going beyond the confines of design to speak with some of the most creative people in the world, to learn how they approach collaboration, come up with innovative ideas, and overcome creative obstacles. We’ll speak with guests like Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar; Autumn Durald Arkapaw, cinemato...