Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Episodios

• Michael Arden 01.06.2026 1h

  Michael Arden is a Tony Award–winning director and actor whose productions, including Parade, Maybe Happy Ending, and Spring Awakening, blend intimacy, spectacle, and extraordinary humanity. Across film, television, and theater, his work returns again and again to questions of belonging, connection, and what becomes possible when people truly feel seen. He joins to discuss the childhood experiences that shaped him, his journey from actor to acclaimed director, and the enduring power of live theater to change lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Julia Sweeney 25.05.2026 1h 6m

  Julia Sweeney is a writer, performer, and actor whose work spans Saturday Night Live, acclaimed television roles, and a groundbreaking body of one-woman shows that blend wit, humor, intelligence, and inquiry to redefine personal storytelling. She joins to reflect on the unexpected turns of her career, how comedy became a way to navigate trauma and identity, and how embracing contradiction and reinvention shaped both her work and her life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Bobby Hundreds 18.05.2026 46m

  Bobby Hundreds is a designer, writer, and co-founder of the pioneering streetwear brand The Hundreds, and currently serves as Global Creative Director at Disney Consumer Products. Recorded live at Canva Create in Los Angeles, he joins for a conversation about growing up between cultures, building The Hundreds from the ground up, and why the strongest brands are built through storytelling, collaboration, and community. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Manoush Zomorodi 11.05.2026 57m

  Manoush Zomorodi is an award-winning journalist, author, and host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour whose work explores how technology shapes our minds, bodies, attention, and sense of humanity. She joins Debbie Millman live at the launch of her newest book, Body Electric, which examines the physical and psychological consequences of our increasingly screen-centered lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Mauro Porcini 30.04.2026 1h 9m

  Mauro Porcini is the President and Chief Design Officer at Samsung, where he leads a global design organization shaping products, experiences, and ecosystems for billions of people through a deeply human-centered approach to innovation. He joins to reflect on his journey from Italy to global design leadership and to discuss the human side of technology amid financial instability, digital toxicity, and existential anxiety. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Jodi Kantor 24.04.2026 1h 18m

  Jodi Kantor is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist at The New York Times whose reporting has reshaped our understanding of power, accountability, and the systems that govern our lives. She joins to discuss breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, her investigations into the Supreme Court, and how to build a meaningful career in a rapidly changing world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Cy Gavin 20.04.2026 48m

  Cy Gavin is a painter whose work resists easy categorization, moving between figuration and abstraction, landscape and memory, and exploring perception through material, atmosphere, and inquiry. In this live conversation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he joins to discuss his unconventional upbringing, his shift away from drawing, and what it means to embrace uncertainty in the creative process. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Pum Lefebure 13.04.2026 1h 4m

  Pum Lefebure is the co-founder and chief creative officer of Design Army, an internationally acclaimed design studio known for blending art, commerce, and cultural storytelling into visually striking, strategically driven work. She joins to reflect on her journey from a shy, art-obsessed child in Bangkok to a global creative leader, and to explore what the rise of AI means for the future of human creativity, vision, and value. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Santiago Carrasquilla 06.04.2026 55m

  Santiago Carrasquilla is a Colombian-born director, designer, and founder of Art Camp, a multidisciplinary creative studio known for blending hand-drawn illustration, 3D animation, live action, and emerging technology to create work rooted in human emotion. He joins to discuss his global upbringing, creative evolution, and the relentless drive and optimism behind a career devoted to making work that truly moves people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Timothy Snyder 30.03.2026 50m

  Timothy Snyder is a leading historian of Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and political conflict, and the author of more than a dozen books, including Bloodlands, Black Earth, On Tyranny, and, most recently, Unfreedom. He has spent his career using the past to help us see and understand the present with clarity, and joins to discuss how we misunderstand freedom, why truth and empathy are under threat, and what this political moment asks of us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Ada Limón 23.03.2026 1h 10m

  Ada Limón—24th U.S. Poet Laureate and author of seven poetry books, including The Carrying and Bright Dead Things—joins to discuss her new book, Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry, her childhood between two homes, her deep sensitivity to the natural world, and how poetry became a way to make sense of life’s strangeness, loss, and love. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Lidia Yuknavitch 16.03.2026 1h 20m

  Lidia Yuknavitch is the bestselling author of The Chronology of Water, Reading the Waves, and The Big M, and a writer whose work blurs genre to explore themes of memory, embodiment, grief, and transformation. She joins to discuss her childhood, her early life as a competitive swimmer, the film adaptation of The Chronology of Water directed by Kristen Stewart, and how storytelling can reshape the narratives we carry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Jack Schlossberg 09.03.2026 42m

  Jack Schlossberg—writer, lawyer, political correspondent, and the only grandson of President John F. Kennedy—joins live at the On Air Fest to discuss political legacy, internet culture, and the future of Democratic leadership. With humor and candor, he reflects on growing up in a historic political family, the power and peril of social media, the spread of misinformation, and why authenticity and risk-taking are essential to reaching a new generation of voters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Kim Hastreiter 02.03.2026 1h 17m

  Kim Hastreiter—co-founder and longtime editor of Paper magazine—joins to reflect on a life at the center of downtown New York’s art, fashion, and nightlife, from scrappy newsprint beginnings to the cover that “broke the internet.” She also discusses her memoir, Stuff: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos, and why artists must document culture before it’s rewritten. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• C. Thi Nguyen 23.02.2026 1h 11m

  C. Thi Nguyen—philosopher, professor, and author of Games: Agency as Art—joins to discuss his new book, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game, and how metrics, from grades to likes, quietly reshape what we value and who we become. Together, they explore games as “libraries of agency,” the allure of scoring systems, and the vital question: Is this the game you really want to be playing? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Quiara Alegría Hudes 16.02.2026 1h 1m

  Quiara Alegría Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, composer, and novelist whose work has reshaped contemporary American theater. The co-creator of In the Heights and author of Water by the Spoonful, she has consistently explored identity, family, and belonging across theater, music, memoir, and now fiction in her new book, The White Hot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Chris Duffy 09.02.2026 1h 21m

  Chris Duffy—comedian, writer, and host of the TED podcast How to Be a Better Human—joins to discuss how humor shaped his path from teaching and improv to podcasting and television. Together, they explore why laughing more isn’t about being funny, but about attention, vulnerability, and connection, and how humor helps us stay human. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Ruth Ann Harnisch 02.02.2026 45m

  Ruth Ann Harnisch is an investor, philanthropist, social activist, media producer, and founder of Harnisch Foundation, which supports work that breaks down barriers to equality and opportunity. She joins CreativeMornings live to reflect on her path from teen broadcaster to first female anchor, and how finding her voice in inequitable newsrooms shaped everything that followed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• Brian Chesky 26.01.2026 1h 11m

  Brian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, a company that began with airbeds and grew into a worldwide community built on trust and belonging. He joins to discuss how imagination and design shaped his path from art school to entrepreneurship, and what it means to design the world you want to live in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 20th Anniversary celebration with the most memorable guests: Jason Reynolds, Marina Abramović, Chris Ware, Richard Saul Wurman, Rick Rubin, and Roxane Gay 19.01.2026 46m

  For the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, Debbie Millman revisits excerpts from her most memorable interviews. Featuring Jason Reynolds, Marina Abramović, Chris Ware, Richard Saul Wurman, Rick Rubin, and Roxane Gay, this episode gathers voices that challenged, surprised, and have continued to evolve in meaning over time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.