WHY DESIGN?

When it comes to sustainability, good intentions aren’t enough.  For Dr Vicky Lofthouse, sustainability isn’t a checkbox or a materials swap, it’s a mindset shift.  As a designer, educator and now founder of En-Able Sustainability, she’s spent over two decades helping companies move past the buzzwords and into the messy, meaningful reality of sustainable product design.  In this epi...

What makes someone leave a 20-year BBC career to build a helmet everyone said couldn’t exist? For Dom Cotton, it wasn’t a midlife pivot,  it was a mission. After years spent covering stories about courage and competition, he decided to live one.  Seven years, countless prototypes, and a steep learning curve later, Dom co-founded Newlane; the company behind the world’s first safety-certif...

“The world needs design more now than ever.”   Most designers want to make beautiful things.  Dan Harden wants to make meaningful ones.  From building dangerous go-karts as a kid to designing more than 1,000 products (and winning 350+ awards), Dan’s career has been a masterclass in lasting impact. As CEO and founder of Whipsaw , Dan has shaped the modern design landscape while stayi...

“You have to be a certain kind of crazy to be a founder, especially in physical products.”   Most people want to build something.  Kenny Perkins actually did.  After nearly dying in a car accident his senior year, Kenny clawed his way into the design world; starting at Fossil, shifting to helmets, and eventually co-founding Osmo, the first kids’ helmet to meet the e-bike safety stan...

“I got laid off weeks before my first child was born… and I was so happy.”  Most people panic when they lose a job.  Jordan Diatlo built a business.  Just weeks before becoming a dad, Jordan was laid off. Instead of spiraling, he used it as fuel to start Leadoff Studio — now one of New York’s go-to design consultancies for health & wellness brands.  In this episode of Why D...

Most hardware startups die broke.  Christian Reed’s didn’t.  He turned a basement side project into Reekon Tools, an 8-figure construction-tech brand with tools that don’t break, content that hit 300M+ views, and a cult following of tradespeople.  In this episode of Why Design, Chris sits down with Christian to break down exactly how he went from MIT → military → Formlabs → scaling...

Most careers follow a path. Jude Pullen chose not to.  “I like being intellectually promiscuous; finding new tribes, then coming back with fresh ideas.”  In this episode of Why Design , Chris talks with Jude Pullen; creative technologist, prototyper, and storyteller. Jude’s career spans Dyson, Sugru, and Lego, with projects ranging from poetic air-quality monitors to complex hardware sys...

Most founders obsess over the product. Jordan Nollman says that’s the wrong game. “We don’t just design the product. We design the tribe around it.” In this episode of Why Design , Chris talks with Jordan Nollman, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Sprout Studios. For over 20 years, Jordan has helped brands like Nike, Bose, and Microsoft create products that don’t just look good — they shape cultur...

From Scarborough to Midtown Manhattan, Stuart Lee’s journey is one of grit, curiosity, and unshakable design intuition. In this episode, Chris sits down in person with Stuart to explore the formative moments that led to the founding of Prime Studio — the product and brand design consultancy behind household names like Harry’s, Welly, and MoMA.  Stuart shares how rewiring motors and welding st...

“What happened was just the market need was so strong… it kept pulling us forward.” — Sam Shames  In this episode, Chris sits down with Sam Shames — materials engineer, MIT grad, and co-founder of Ember Labs, the company behind the Ember Wave: a wearable that helps people regulate temperature and reclaim comfort on their terms.  Over the last 12 years, Sam has led Ember from a student si...

“It wasn’t just about a new product — it was about a new category.”   In this episode of Why Design , I speak with Emilie Williams , industrial designer and co-founder of Hydrific , a new venture within LIXIL focused on building smarter, more sustainable water products for the home.  Based in New York, Emilie has led the creative direction behind dozens of kitchen and bath products for h...

“The goal was always to amplify design’s value — not just make pretty stuff.”   We’re kicking off Series 3 with a true heavyweight in the world of industrial design — Brett Lovelady , founder of the legendary ASTRO Studios and spin-off brand ASTRO Gaming. Brett has spent three decades leading design, brand, and product strategy for culture-shifting companies like Nike, Xbox, HP, Sony, Dell, L...

Episode Summary In this special live episode, Chris Whyte, founder of Kodu and host of Why Design , delivers an energetic and insight-packed session to design students on how to stand out in a competitive job market. Drawing from 12+ years of experience and dozens of podcast conversations with design leaders, Chris shares practical advice on everything from CV writing to LinkedIn networking, prepa...

“We weren’t going to prove durability with a spreadsheet — we needed to drive a lorry over it and watch what happened.” In this final episode of Series 2, I sit down with Nick Ford , founder of PipSqueak 3D and Patent Ferret , to explore how a nontraditional path — from sweeping workshop floors to designing urban furniture used across London — shaped his approach to design, business, and innovatio...

"97% of hardware startups fail. And a lot of the time, it’s the same mistakes repeated over and over again." In this episode of Why Design , I’m joined by Sera Evcimen , Founder of Pratik Development , Innovation Advisor at FORGE and Techstars Paris , and host of the hardware startup podcast The Builder Circle . Sera has built a career around one goal — helping hardware startups avoid the common p...

“There’s a huge amount of innovation in sustainable materials—but very few are truly built around the problem.” In this episode of Why Design , I’m joined by Georgios Gkotsis , CTO at Kelpi , a Bristol-based startup creating high-performance seaweed-based coatings to replace fossil plastics in long shelf life packaging. Georgios has built a career at the intersection of material science, sustainab...

"There’s a huge amount of design talent in the UK—we just need more founders brave enough to commercialise it." In this episode of Why Design , I sit down with Damon Bonser , founder and CEO of the British Design Fund —a team of operators-turned-investors backing early-stage product businesses with real-world impact. Damon knows firsthand why most hardware startups fail—because he’s been through i...

“We had no clue what we were doing. We quoted a massive job… way under… and then had to figure out how to deliver it without losing our shirts.” That’s how Josh Valman , CEO of RPDK , describes one of the earliest—and most painful—lessons from scaling his product development business. In this episode of Why Design , we dive into the unfiltered reality of building a hardware startup from scratch. J...

In this live episode of Why Design , recorded at Blue Garage, I sit down with Tim Perry , a seasoned innovation and design strategy consultant with over 20 years of experience helping creative businesses sharpen their commercial edge. From scaling consultancies and steering agency acquisitions to guiding in-house teams at major brands like Nokia , McLaren , and Logitech , Tim shares his unique per...

In this episode of Why Design , I sit down with Michael Korn , founder of KwickScreen , the modular screen company supplying every NHS trust in the UK, and Blue Garage , a unique makespace and creative hub in Lewisham built to support hardware entrepreneurs and product designers. We unpack Michael’s fascinating journey, from studying manufacturing engineering and design at the RCA, to bootstrappin...

In this episode of Why Design , I sit down with Hugo Martin , Director of Product Design at WMP Creative , where he has spent over 14 years building a multi-award-winning design division from the ground up. We dive into the balance between process and intuition in product design—when to trust your instincts and when structure is necessary. Hugo shares insights from designing everything from life-s...

In this episode of Why Design , I sit down with Claire Trant, co-founder and CEO of Untap Health, a deep tech company using wastewater epidemiology to detect illnesses before symptoms appear. Claire’s journey from Imperial College to Rolls-Royce and then into entrepreneurship is as inspiring as it is challenging. She opens up about the highs and lows of startup life—navigating funding rounds, scal...

Listener discount! Get 10% off a Sensate using code WHYDESIGN or by visiting https://getsensate.com/WHYDESIGN In this episode, host Chris Whyte is joined by Stefan Chmelik, founder of Sensate – a revolutionary consumer product designed to reduce stress and improve well-being through sound and vibration therapy. Before Sensate, Stefan spent 30 years as a clinician specialising in stress, anxiety, t...

In this episode of Why Design? , Chris Whyte speaks with Nick Chubb , Design Director at IDC , about his fascinating journey through the world of product design. Nick shares how his early passion for graphic design evolved into a career in industrial design, the importance of hands-on experience over formal education, and his perspective on hiring and mentoring young designers. From working on con...

Guest: Nichole Rouillac, Founder of Level Host: Chris Whyte, Founder of Kodu Sign up for Why Design? events: https://teamkodu.com/events In this episode of Why Design , I sit down with Nichole Rouillac , founder and creative director of Level , a woman-led industrial design studio in San Francisco. Nichole has spent over two decades shaping consumer tech and medtech, playing a key role in designin...