Northward: Canada's Design Future

06: Lynsey Thornton on building design culture that scales Host Michael Grigoriev and Lynsey Thornton — former VP of UX at Shopify and now VP of Experience Design at Jobber — dig into building and scaling design teams and how strong design cultures become engines for business success. Thornton reflects on scaling Shopify’s design team from a small group of generalists into the largest design organ...

05: Joseph Hofer on designing for commercial success Host Michael Grigoriev and Joseph Hofer — product design strategist and founder of Hofer Studio — get in depth on how design is a vehicle for commercial success. Hofer reflects on lessons learned at BlackBerry, where he helped shape some of the company’s most iconic devices, and how those experiences inform his current work with entrepreneurs. H...

04: Ana Serrano on designing Canada's civic future Host Michael Grigoriev explores how design can shape Canada’s civic future with Ana Serrano, President and Vice-Chancellor of OCAD University. Ana argues that design in Canada is still too often understood as object-driven that's focused on logos, furniture, or typefaces when it should be embedded into the systems, policies, and spaces that define...

03: OD Krieg on Designing the Future of Housing Host Michael Grigoriev speaks with OD Krieg, President of Intelligent City and a national voice in the movement to industrialize housing through design. Together, they explore how Canada can move beyond one-off construction and toward scalable, sustainable building systems without compromising design quality to meet Canada's housing challenges. OD re...

02: Dylan Horvath on why Canada needs to get serious about Industrial Design Host Michael Grigoriev sits down with Dylan Horvath, a leading figure in Canada’s industrial design community as they explore what industrial design really means far beyond just “making things look sexy” and dig into its power to solve human problems at scale. Dylan unpacks Canada’s untapped potential in using design to c...

01: Ian Chalmers on listening to Canadians In this inaugural episode of the Northward podcast, host Michael Grigoriev talks to Ian Chalmers, a prominent figure in Canadian design, founder of Pivot Design Group and DesignMeets . They explore the essence of Canadian design, its evolution, and its impact on society. Ian shares his journey from graphic design to human-centred design, emphasizing the i...

Episode 00: Michael Grigoriev - The very first episode of the Northward podcast, in which host Michael Grigoriev explains why we need to have conversations about the role of design in this country. Project Northward is about bringing a spotlight to design in this country, and the power it has to proactively shape a better future. This podcast, is an opportunity to learn and spotlight leading desig...