On Design with Justyna Green

Fredrik Hellberg is the co-founder of Spacepopular , a research-driven art, design and media studio. Fredrik runs the practice together with Lara Lesmes, and the two met when studying architecture at London's Architectural Association. In our conversation, we discuss Spacepopular's research into the possibilities of Web3 and metaverses and Fredrik shares his expertise on how those spaces can be de...

Yuri Suzuki is a sound designer and partner at Pentagram. Yuri's artistic installations often aim to bring people together, use AI machine learning and crowdsourced data, whilst his commercial work, looks at creating innovative solutions to problems such as the introduction of sound in electric cars. In our conversation we talk about the use of physical synthesizers and capturing tactile sounds, t...

Alex Proba is a New York and Portland-based creative director of Studio Proba. She's a multidisciplinary designer, focused on brand design, art direction, product design, illustration and murals and you must have seen online her playful sculptural installation Tomorrow Land from Design Miami 2021. In our conversation, Alex shares with me her educational path, which spanned dentistry, architecture...

Our guest today is Stephen Briars - the creative director at The Conran Shop. With the high street and physical retail undergoing tremendous change, we dive into what The Conran Shop is now, discuss its 50 years of 'baggage', and look into the future. Stephen also shares his thoughts on the importance of both digital and physical retail experiences, finding young new talent and how the furniture i...

Jade Purple Brown is a New-York based artist. If you've used Adobe Illustrator at any point last year you'd be familiar with Jade's work, as her illustration was the Illustrator's splash page of 2021. Her works are colourful and bold, championing optimism, individuality and empowerment, and include illustrations, packaging design, murals and soft furnishings too. In our chat we dive into what Jade...

Marylou Faure is a London-based French illustrator and artist, known for her easily recognisable female characters and bold, colourful, graphic style of illustration. In our conversation we learn about Marylou's career journey, discuss some of the most fun commercial projects and dive into the importance of personal work, when doing what you love becomes commercially valid. Marylou also offers tip...

In this episode, we speak to Manijeh Verghese who's the Head of Public Programmes at the Architectural Association and co-founder of Unscene Architecture – a practice that operates across disciplines to reveal the unseen forces that shape our cities. She's also the co-curator of this year's British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, with an installation that focused on the privatised...

Allison Filice is a freelance illustrator, designer, and fellow podcaster based in San Francisco. Her style of illustration is graphic with black lines and bold colours and the themes she explores are our inner and outer worlds and illustrating the invisible things. In our conversation, we talk about how Alison got into illustration and how she's brought her interests in psychology and spiritualit...

This week's guest is Monica Ahanonu. She's an LA-based illustrator, known for her bold, colourful vector works, which celebrate beauty in all its forms. Monica worked with clients including Google, Facebook, Peloton, Time Magazine, and Vanity Fair among many, many others. In our conversation, Monica shares her personal story, which features professional gymnastics, surgery on both feet and being i...

Brogan Cox is the creative director at Sebastian Cox. Sebastian is Brogan's husband, and the two together appeared on the 9th episode of the podcast in November 2018. Brogan is the first-ever returning guest and she's had lots happening since we last spoke. Not only she released her first furniture collection, but also managed the business throughout the pandemic, moved out of London and had two b...

Shahar Livne is an award-winning conceptual material designer based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Her work combines biology with science and philosophy and focuses on material research. In our conversation, we discuss some of Shahar's projects that use waste blood and man-made stones with plastic particles as well as her jewellery collaboration with Balenciaga. We also touch on the materiality...

Fran Meneses aka Frannerd is a New York-based illustrator and an all-around creative, well known for her pink and violet-hued comics, which champion Fran's mission to make people feel less lonely. In our conversation we talk about creating personal work, and how to set healthy boundaries online between what's private and public. We also track Fran's creative journey across the world spanning Santi...

Priya Khanchandani is the head of curatorial and interpretation at the Design Museum. Prior to her role there she worked at the V&A as well as the British Council. She also studied modern languages at the University of Cambridge and had a five-year career as a lawyer, before moving to the design industry. In our conversation, we track Priya's career, discuss diversity in the design sector and also...

Shantell Martin is a visual artist best known for her large-scale, black-and-white drawings. Shantell was born in Thamesmead in London, but she also lived and worked in Japan, where she developed her live drawing performances and she now lives and works in New York. Her artistic output is varied and ranges from murals to NFTs to collaborations with The North Face. In this conversation, we track Sh...

Manjit Thapp is an illustrator whose works combine traditional and digital media, and are easily recognisable for their mindful and contemplative aesthetic, with female characters often portrayed in thoughtful moments of solitude. In her works Manjit reflects on wellbeing and mental health and earlier this year she's published her first book "Feelings: A Story in Seasons " , and her solo show at t...

In this special episode, your host Justyna Green is interviewed by design journalist Giovanna Dunmall. Why are we turning the tables? One of the reasons is because for the past three months Justyna has been working on an illustration project called 100 Days of Gratitude, in which every day for 100 days, she illustrated gratitudes submitted by people from the creative industry. And this Saturday 18...

Ellen Turnill Montoya and Mercedes Graves-Johnston are the creative duo at Anyways, a creative agency that is part of the Hudson Bec Group, which also includes It's Nice That and Creative Lives In Progress. In our conversation, we chat about the power of partnerships, how to best collaborate with others and how to awaken our creativity again after the tough 12+ months we've all had. We also dive i...

Emily Forgot is an illustrator, artist and designer, with a multidisciplinary practice. In our conversation Emily discusses her love of working with design, interiors and architecture, to create experiences that are tactile, two or three-dimensional and beautifully fall into the category of functional art. She also tells me about her love of creating memories and going down the rabbit hole of desi...

Nicki Field is the Head of Illustration at Jelly - an animation production company and illustration agency. Our conversation is particularly useful for anybody who wants to start working as an illustrator, whether you're a fresh graduate or have worked in creative industries for a while, and want to pivot your career. We cover many practical topics, from how to find your creative voice, what kind...

Andrew Tuck is the editor-in-chief at Monocle, a media brand publishing the leading global affairs and lifestyle magazine. It is also a 24-hour radio station, book publisher, a series of conferences, and cafes and kiosks across the world. In our conversation, Andrew shares details of his Monocle journey to date and discusses the brand's business model and how it evolved over the years. We also div...

Kelly Anna is an artist, painter and designer, whose bold female figures and Matisse-like collage forms are very recognisable. In our conversation, we talk about Kelly Anna's work on her biggest projects to date whilst heavily pregnant, the evolution of her style and the importance of personal interests feeding into your creative work. We also dive into Kelly Anna's love of sports, and her thought...

Simone Farresin is the co-founder of Formafantasma, a research-based design studio that investigates the ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping the discipline of design today. In our conversation, we discuss the studio's trajectory across over a decade since its inception. We dive into the three aspects of the studio – its research work, commercial projects and work in the fie...

Meng Shui is the creative director at Thinx – a period-proof underwear brand. In our conversation we discuss Meng's approach to branding and shaping Thinx into the brand it is today – bold, taboo-breaking, normalising conversations around periods, and most importantly – inclusive.  It's a brilliant conversation and if you think you might not want to listen to a chat about periods, don't worry, it'...

Tim Hamilton is the head of global creative at The North Face. In our conversation, Tim sheds light on his early success as a fashion designer and years of hard graft in New York, which earned him many accolades over the years. He also candidly talks about a moment in life when at the height of success, he decided to press pause, reconnect to his true north, find balance in nature and move to Vanc...

Lonneke Gordijn is a designer, artist and co-founder of Studio Drift. Studio Drift is an artist collective that explores the boundaries of technology, art and nature. Some of their most popular works include the Fragile Future sculpture which features light-emitting dandelions and the Franchise Freedom installation that consists of an autonomously flying swarm of hundreds of drones. In our convers...