Design Better

Epizode

• Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think) 03.06.2026 26min

  Paul Ford likes to call himself a “fun Cassandra” — someone who, like the priestess in Greek mythology, sees trouble coming, but unlike her tries to make the warning as entertaining as possible. He’s the writer, developer, and co-founder of the tech agency Aboard who saw Claude Code drop last November and immediately understood it was going to change everything — while finding, to his surprise, that most people around him simply weren’t seeing it that way. This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full interview on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/paul-ford That same instinct is what drew him into AI early. Where others hedged, Paul dove in — vibe coding nonstop, running full enterprise subscriptions for his entire team, and building in earnest. But he’s not a fanboy. He’s a critical optimist who believes something important is happening, while holding equal concern about the companies pushing it, the students expected to learn from it, and the decades of hard-won knowledge that might be quietly evaporating in the rush. Paul is also an English major who sold an agency, a developer who thinks in prose, and a father of 14-year-old twins — one of the most multi-disciplinary thinkers we’ve had on the show. He won the National Magazine Award for writing an entire issue of Bloomberg Businessweek dedicated to explaining programming to a mass audience — a 38,000-word essay called “What Is Code?” A regular contributor to Wired and published in The New Yorker and MIT Technology Review, he’s one of the rare writers who can make the inner workings of software feel urgent and human. He’s exactly the kind of thinker this moment needs: someone who can write code and read the room, and who cares about quality as much as velocity. He can also make you laugh while explaining why you should probably be a little worried. Bio One of the world’s leading technology thinkers, Paul Ford has written about the way that software works for dozens of publications like Wired, Businessweek, and the New York Times, including his National Magazine Award–winning Bloomberg cover story “What Is Code?” After years of writing about technology, Paul decided to do something about it, co-founding Postlight and Aboard to help deliver quality products to the people who need them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool 27.05.2026 41min

  As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are reading it than ever. But pick up almost any commercial edition and you’ll find the same thing: small type, no imagery, nothing that invites you in. Jessie McGuire noticed this too. Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jessie-mcguire Every copy her studio ordered looked identical — dense, utilitarian, forgettable. So they redesigned it. They printed thousands of copies, donated them to New York City schools, and invited designers like Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast to create posters for each amendment in the Bill of Rights. That project became a turning point — not just for the studio, but for how they think about what design is actually for. Jessie is Managing Partner of Thought Matter, the independent design and creative studio that just won the 2026 National Design Award for Communication Design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum — the field’s highest national honor. It’s an award that recognizes not a single project but a decade of practice, and Thought Matter’s practice has been built around a bold idea: that imagination is a radical act. A Salvadoran-American designer, New Yorker, and mother of two, Jessie brings a perspective shaped by navigating spaces that weren’t always designed for her. She teaches entrepreneurship at Pratt, mentors emerging designers, and leads a studio that works with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and commercial brands — all grounded in the belief that design is civic infrastructure, a tool for helping people see themselves as participants in shaping the world around them. In this episode, Jessie talks about the origin of the Constitution project, what it means to fund the work you actually want to talk about, why she thinks scale and speed aren’t serving us, and why sitting down to make something with your hands — like the beaded bracelets she makes with her kids — still matters. Bio Jessie McGuire is Managing Partner of Thought Matter, the independent design studio that won the 2026 National Design Award for Communication Design from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum — the field’s highest national honor. She leads the studio’s strategy and long-term vision, working with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and commercial brands on work grounded in the belief that design shapes what people believe. A Salvadoran-American designer and mother, Jessie is committed to expanding who gets to lead in the design industry. She teaches entrepreneurship at Pratt Institute, lectures on design as civic infrastructure, and mentors emerging designers. Before Thought Matter, she worked in-house at Kimberly-Clark and led projects for multinational brands. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MPS in Branding from the School of Visual Arts. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium subscriber benefit: we’ve launched a private Slack workspace…join now to connect with designers, product leaders & creative practitioners in our community. And get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Colin Fisher: The lone genius is a myth 20.05.2026 33min

  This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full thing, visit our Susbtack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/colin-fisher In jazz, there’s a concept called minimal structures — a rhythmic framework, a harmonic pattern, an implied order of solos. Just enough to hold the band together, but plenty of space for autonomous creativity. It’s a useful lens for thinking about how any team works, and it comes directly from today’s guest. Colin Fisher was a professional jazz trumpet player before he became one of the leading researchers on group dynamics. He’s now an Associate Professor of Organizations and Innovation at University College London, with a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Harvard, and his new book is The Collective Edge. In it, he makes a case that we systematically underestimate the role groups play in every breakthrough we celebrate. We love stories about lone geniuses — Newton, Einstein, Miles Davis — but when you peel back almost any one of them, you find a group behind it. We just tend to forget that part, because our brains are wired to remember heroes, not ensembles. Ask everyone on a six-person team how much credit they deserve for the group’s output, and one study found the total came to 235%. In this conversation, we get into why teams are 6.3 times more likely than individuals to produce breakthrough work, why the sorting hat in Harry Potter is actually the series’ true villain, and why 84% of managers try to coach their way out of team problems when the real fix is structural. We also talk about the dangers of using competition to motivate creative teams, why the ideal team size hovers around 4.5 people, and what it would take to pull our increasingly individualistic world back toward something more collective — without tipping into the other extreme. Bio Colin M. Fisher is an Associate Professor at University College London’s School of Management and the author of The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups (Avery/Penguin Random House), translated into ten languages. His research on group dynamics, creativity, and improvisation has been published in top academic journals and featured in BBC, Harvard Business Review, NPR, Forbes, and The Times. Before earning his PhD in Organizational Behavior from Harvard, Colin was a professional jazz trumpet player and longtime member of the Either/Orchestra. He lives in London with his wife and two children, and can sometimes be found sitting in at jazz jams around the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Nir Eyal: Beyond Belief and how to change your mind to change your life 14.05.2026 1h 7min

  Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/nir-eyal-returns If you want to understand how much your beliefs shape your reality, try this quick exercise. Google the “checkerboard illusion” below and you can witness first-hand that even when you know two squares are the same shade of gray, your brain still refuses to show you the truth. If it can’t get a simple shade right, imagine what it’s doing with everything else. In his book Hooked, Nir Eyal helped people build habit-forming products for good. Then he wrote Indistractable to help people break free from the ones that weren’t. But after years of hearing from readers who knew exactly what to do and still couldn’t make themselves do it, he realized something was missing from the equation entirely. His new book, Beyond Belief, argues that motivation isn’t a straight line between behavior and benefit — it’s a triangle, and the third side is belief. The convictions we carry about ourselves, our abilities, and our circumstances quietly determine what we see, what we feel, and ultimately what we do. In this conversation, we dig into why your brain actively resists changing its mind, how the placebo effect is reshaping what we know about pain and performance, and what all of this means for designers and creative thinkers navigating the uncertainty of AI. Nir also gets personal about living with ADHD and dyslexia, stage fright, and how a single reframe — not a new fact, just a new belief — changed the way he experiences all of it. Bio Nir Eyal is a globally recognized authority on behavior change and human potential. His frameworks have empowered millions to build better habits, enhance focus, and unlock greater agency in their lives and work. A former lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, Nir has collaborated with leaders and organizations worldwide to boost performance through behavior design. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the international bestsellers Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, which have sold over one million copies in more than 30 languages. Hooked was a finalist for the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards. Indistractable won the 2019 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award and was named one of the Best Business & Leadership Books of the Year by Amazon, Audible, and The Globe and Mail. His third book, Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results, became an instant New York Times best-seller and reveals how to identify and replace the hidden beliefs that define our limits. *** This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium subscriber benefit coming soon: we’re launching a private Slack community…join now so you get access when it launches! And get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Mason Currey: Mason Currey: Author of Daily Rituals on Making Art and Making a Living 06.05.2026 27min

  This is a preview of a premium episode. To the listen to the full thing, head over to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/mason-currey At several points in his life, Eli imagined what it would take to become a full-time artist — a photographer or illustrator free from client work. What he didn’t realize was that he already had an example of a different path right in front of him: his father, a practicing physician whose published poetry earned recognition from luminaries like John Ashbery. Mason Currey’s most recent book explores these alternate paths. He’s the author of Daily Rituals, the beloved book that catalogued the working habits of nearly 200 artists, writers, and composers. His new book, Making Art and Making a Living, goes deeper — into the financial realities, the schemes, the compromises, and the surprising strategies that creatives have used to keep their work alive across centuries. What he found is both humbling and strangely reassuring. Virginia Woolf had inherited investments. Kafka had insurance. Chantal Akerman had a cash register she skimmed from. John Cage had Italian game show winnings. And yet, running through all of it is the same question that Mason has been asking about his own life since the day he sat down to write a novel and couldn’t: How am I going to pay for this? In this conversation, Mason walks us through the four funding models his book explores — family money, day jobs, patronage, and schemes — and what the lives of creatives from Kafka to Murakami can teach us about building a practice that actually lasts. Bio Mason Currey is the author of the Daily Rituals books, featuring brief profiles of the day-to-day working lives of more than 300 brilliant minds. His latest book, Making Art and Making a Living, was published by Celadon Books on March 31, 2026. Currey lives in Los Angeles and writes Subtle Maneuvers, a twice-monthly newsletter on the creative process. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. New premium subscriber benefit coming soon: we’re launching a private Slack community…join now so you get access when it launches! And get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. Premium subscribers get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Etinosa Agbonlahor: Behavioral economist on why pricing belongs in the design process 29.04.2026 48min

  Find the full episode and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/etinosa-agbonlahor For product teams at startups and established tech giants alike, finding the right pricing and value proposition often feels more like alchemy than science. It’s a high-stakes game of guesswork involving the complex psychology, shifting values, and ingrained behaviors of your customers. While it can take years of trial and error to dial in, our guest today is here to help us decode the pricing formula and understand the behavioral drivers that make a product indispensable. Etinosa Agbonlahor is a behavioral economist and founder of Decision Alpha, a consultancy that helps businesses understand the psychology behind how people make financial decisions. She’s worked with organizations like Fidelity and Commonwealth Bank of Australia studying how people save, spend, and invest — and she’s turned those insights toward one of the trickiest challenges any business faces: pricing. In this episode, Etinosa walks us through the cognitive shortcuts that shape how customers perceive value — from anchoring and the decoy effect to the surprising power of round numbers. She explains why pricing should be a conversation that starts early in product development, not an afterthought tacked on at launch. And she offers practical guidance for freelancers and studio owners who struggle with that uncomfortable moment of telling a client what they charge. We even put her to work live on the show, walking through the Design Better membership page to diagnose what’s working and what we could improve. Her advice was immediate, specific, and — honestly — a little humbling. Whether you’re designing a SaaS pricing page or figuring out how to raise your freelance rates without apologizing, this one’s packed with insights you can use right away. Bio Etinosa Agbonlahor is a behavioral economist and CEO of Decision Alpha, a behavioral firm that helps businesses understand what customers value and turn that into clearer pricing and growth. Passionate about helping people reduce financial stress and live healthier financial lives, Etinosa brings over a decade of experience working across the U.S., Australia, Africa, and the U.K. She has shaped financial wellbeing, engagement, and customer behavior strategies for global financial institutions, private businesses, and venture-backed startups. Her work has been featured in MarketWatch, Morningstar, and other leading platforms, highlighting her focus on how behavior drives healthier financial outcomes. Etinosa is the author of How to Talk to Your Parents About Money, a guide to navigating complex financial conversations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio 22.04.2026 32min

  Both Aarron and I are official Stranger Things nerds. We watched the show ourselves when they came out, and again when our kids were old enough. As children of the 80s, the way it captured that particular feeling of freedom — biking with friends through the neighborhood, the movies and music of the era — struck exactly the right balance of nostalgia: present enough to feel real, but never forced. For that, much of the credit goes to the writers. So, we were thrilled to get a chance to talk to one of the head writers for Stranger Things, Paul Dichter. This is a preview of a premium episode. To hear the whole thing, head over to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/paul-dichter We’d always wondered what actually happens in a writers’ room for a show like this. Heated debates? Storyboards and character maps to keep a sprawling plot straight? As we learned in this interview: yes to all of it. And in many ways, the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio — a place where creative ideas collide and combine, and when it’s working well, produce something greater than the sum of its parts. Paul discusses the dynamics of the Stranger Things writers’ room, describing the diverse roles—from enthusiasts to skeptics—that drive creative teams. He explores the discipline of restraint in using 80s nostalgia and the balance between following systemic logic and knowing when to break the rules for a great idea. There’s also a lot here about how story structure maps onto design work — the idea that every scene needs an engine, that meaningful change has to register at every level, and that the best creative decisions often come not from defending what you already know, but from sitting with a note you hate long enough to find what’s really underneath it. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. Get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. Premium subscribers get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot 16.04.2026 46min

  We’re all familiar with the tropes around innovation and how it starts. You just need a garage in Silicon Valley, a few geniuses and visionaries, maybe some good snacks. Our guests today help us debunk that myth. Rich Braden and Tessa Forshaw wrote a book called Innovation-ish, and that little “-ish” is doing a lot of work. Rich Braden is a design strategist who’s taught innovation at Stanford and advised companies around the world. Tessa Forshaw is a cognitive scientist whose lab studies the psychology of creativity — why we lose it, and how we get it back. In this conversation, we talk about why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot — and why chasing moonshots might actually be holding your team back. We dig into the neuroscience of what Tessa calls “innovation hesitation,” the tiny amygdala response that makes us reach for certainty instead of possibility. Bios Tessa Forshaw As a co-founder of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University, Tessa specializes in using cognitive science to develop creative and innovative potential in the workforce. She draws upon her academic research as a cognitive scientist and extensive background as a former designer at IDEO CoLAb and Accenture to turn the cognitive processes involved in design, creativity and innovation into practical insights that can be applied in the flow of work. These insights are also the foundations of what she teaches as a design educator at Stanford University and now Harvard University. Recognized for her impactful design projects, Tessa is the recipient of multiple design awards: a Fast Company Design Award for General Excellence, two Core77 Industrial Design Magazine Design Awards, and the Australian American Chamber of Commerce Innovation Awards. Rich Braden Rich Braden is the founder of People Rocket LLC, a strategic innovation firm based in San Francisco. With over 15 years of academic experience, Rich is a recognized thought leader in design thinking, leadership, and innovation. He is a design educator at renowned institutions including Harvard University, Stanford University, and London Business School, helping shape future leaders. As CEO of People Rocket, he works with clients such as Airbnb, Google, the United Nations, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Red Cross to drive strategic innovation and responsible AI solutions. Rich holds degrees in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium benefit: get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you 08.04.2026 32min

  Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably, irreducibly human. His drawings are populated by bespectacled bird-like figures — part alter ego, part philosophical sparring partner — rendered with the kind of warmth and specificity that no prompt can summon. There’s a hand behind every line, and you feel it. That’s not an accident. It’s a philosophy. Because as we talk about in the show, as non-human intelligence becomes cheaper, the human touch, and real, earned, interpersonal trust will become the rarest currency (to paraphrase Anu Atluru’s quote). Luis’ path is anything but direct. After two decades as a successful art director and editorial designer in Amsterdam — building magazines, running teams, living inside meetings and inboxes — he took a sabbatical in Tokyo and never really came back. Not because the work dried up, but because he found something better: a life built around drawing, shaped by Japanese craftsmanship culture, and grounded in the shokunin ethic that says if you’re going to do a thing, you do it properly, all the way, no shortcuts. Today Luis publishes his work through a membership site he built himself, on his own terms, on a platform he controls. He’s obsessed with making things worth keeping — including a beautifully crafted physical book he sweated every detail of, right down to standing at the press to get the colors right. In a moment when so many of us are asking what creativity even means when machines can approximate it on demand, Luis has an answer: make things that carry your presence. Make things that could only come from you. You can explore his work and join his community at mundomendo.com. Also, Luis has a special offer for Design Better listeners: get 20% off a membership to his site by visiting the link dbtr.co/mundomendo. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. Get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. Premium subscribers get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• David Shim and Rachana Rele: Read AI CEO and VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe on amplifying creative work — not replacing it 01.04.2026 35min

  Today we have two guests from two different companies who have one shared conviction: AI works best when it amplifies people, not replaces them. Today we’re joined by Rachana Rele, VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe, and David Shim, co-founder and CEO of Read AI. Together, they’re building very different products — but they share a vision of AI that removes the drudgery from creative work and makes room for the thinking that actually matters. In this conversation, we dig into some ideas that could genuinely change how you think about your work. David talks about this concept of “storage of intelligence” — the idea that your knowledge, your meeting history, your working style could all be captured and made available as a kind of digital twin that keeps working even when you’re not in the room. And Rachana shares how Adobe is thinking about AI not as a one-shot creative output machine, but as a collaborative partner that helps teams break out of their own blind spots. We also push them on the harder questions — the job anxiety that’s real right now in tech, the surveillance concerns that come with recording your work life, and where they each personally draw the line. Bios David Shim is Co-Founder and CEO of Read AI, an AI productivity platform focused on helping knowledge workers leverage the power of AI to improve how they collaborate, communicate, and get work done. The platform provides meeting insights, search, chat, and proactive recommendations for millions of professionals, integrating seamlessly with the tools teams already use. Read AI is pioneering the concept of the Digital Twin—AI that serves as a true extension of you, built on deep contextual understanding of how you work. Today, Read AI is trusted by teams at 90% of the Fortune 500 and in the past year, was recognized as a Top 10 AI Vendor for Enterprises by Brex, a Top 50 AI App by a16z and Mercury, and named one of Inc.’s Top 16 Companies to Watch Before founding Read AI, David served as CEO of Foursquare and previously founded Placed, which was acquired by Snap in 2017. In 2025, he was named CEO of the Year by Geekwire. Rachana Rele Rachana has spent 20+ years at the intersection of technology and human experience — figuring out not just what to build, but why it matters. At Adobe, she shapes the direction of new products, nurtures ideas from zero to something real, and helps early-stage businesses find their footing and grow. She’s also a perpetual student — currently finishing an MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, with an M.Eng. in HCI from Clemson and a B.E. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot 25.03.2026 28min

  Leonardo Giusti has spent his career in the spaces between disciplines — between art and science, between research and product, between the physical world and the digital one. It’s not a conventional design path, but it’s one that led him to work most designers never get near. This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full episode on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/leonardo-giusti Leonardo is the co-founder and Chief Design Officer of Archetype AI, a company building foundation models trained not on text or images, but on the continuous stream of sensor data flowing from the real world, like factories, power grids, and city intersections. Before that, he spent nearly seven years at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, where he led design on Project Soli — a miniature radar chip that taught devices to understand human gesture and presence — and Project Jacquard, which wove interactivity into everyday objects like Levi’s jackets and YSL bags. He holds a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction from the University of Florence and spent years as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT’s Design Lab. He’s also filed more than 30 patents (!). What makes Leonardo’s thinking distinctive is his insistence that the metaphors we use to describe AI shape everything — how we build it, how we regulate it, and who it ends up serving. He’s skeptical of the dominant vision of AI as an autonomous agent that does things for us, and is pushing toward something different: AI as a tool we think with. In this conversation, we get into his unusual path to design through cognitive science and robotics, what it actually means to treat emerging technology as a design material, why the chatbot is a primitive interface for the physical world, and why he believes augmenting human intelligence might be the most important design challenge of our time. Bio Leonardo Giusti, Ph.D., is an award-winning design and research director. With over 15 years of experience, he excels in transforming R&D projects into innovative hardware, software, and AI products. Prior to Archetype AI, Leonardo was the Head of Design at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects, UX Design and Product Lead at Samsung Design and R&D and interaction design lead at MIT Design Lab. Leonardo was a Post-doctoral Associate at MIT Design Labs and completed his Ph.D, in human-computer interaction at the University of Florence. He has filed more than 30 patents, and published more than 40 scientific papers. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Fast Company and other recognized magazines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch 18.03.2026 47min

  Brooke Hopper stays close to her craft. Before she hopped on a call with us to chat about her role at Adobe, she was deep in Cursor prototyping navigation design ideas. Though Brooke holds an individual contributor role after more than a decade at Adobe, she’s managed to have influence and demonstrate leadership without being relegated to management. This is what many designers dream of—craft and career. Bonus content and more on our Substack: ⁠https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/brooke-hopper⁠ As Senior Principal Designer for Machine Intelligence and New Technology, she helped design the very first Firefly experiments and is now working on unreleased tools that raise fundamental questions about whether things like non-destructive editing, or even layers, still mean what they once did. If you listen carefully, you might get some clues about the products Adobe is cooking up next. But Brooke is more than a product thinker. She’s also a design educator, leading a partnership between Adobe and Parsons called “Not Generated” — a name she chose deliberately to start a conversation, not end one. In this episode, we get into what it actually means to use AI as a creative collaborator rather than a shortcut, why design education needs to stop teaching tools and start teaching taste, and why Brooke believes this moment might be the most exciting time in her career. Bio Brooke Hopper is a design leader, speaker, and champion for artists — passionate about building community through creativity and designing better experiences for some of the most talented people in the world. Her work spans platforms and products, always centered on making space for artists and creators to thrive, collaborate, and stay at the heart of the creative process. With years of experience building 0-to-1 products and leading innovation in ambiguous spaces, she turns uncertainty into opportunity — translating bold ideas into tools that empower creative expression. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium benefit: get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan 12.03.2026 46min

  You probably already know that exercise, sleep, a good diet, and spending time in nature are the pillars of a healthy life . But what if there’s a fifth pillar we’ve been undervaluing, and in many cases actively cutting? Our guest today argues that the arts belong in that same category. Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London, where she heads the Social Biobehavioural Research Group and directs the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health. She’s one of the most cited scientists in her field, and her work sits at a genuinely unusual intersection: the rigorous, data-heavy world of epidemiology and the seemingly softer world of creative practice. Her new book, Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives, makes a case that’s hard to dismiss: that engaging with the arts changes your gene expression, slows your biological aging, reduces your risk of dementia, depression, and chronic pain, and actually helps you live longer. She’s done the longitudinal studies across 52 countries, and she’s lived it personally, watching her premature daughter’s vitals stabilize in the NICU as she sang to her. For designers and creative professionals, this conversation raises some genuinely thorny questions about whether creative work counts, what burnout is actually doing to your body, and why the arts budget is always the first thing to cut even when the data says it probably shouldn’t be. Bio Daisy Fancourt (born June 1990) is a British Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London (UCL) and Head of the Social Biobehavioural Research Group. She is a leading researcher on the health impacts of arts, culture, and social prescribing. Fancourt previously worked in NHS arts programs, has published over 300 papers, and directed a major study on COVID-19's mental health impacts. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium benefit: get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** If you’re interested in sponsoring the show, please contact us at: sponsors@thecuriositydepartment.com If you’d like to submit a guest idea, please contact us at: contact@thecuriositydepartment.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words 04.03.2026 22min

  If you’ve ever wondered what a movie production designer actually does, our guest today describes it in the simplest terms: it is everything you see in the frame that isn’t a costume. It turns out, production design has a lot in common with product design. Our guest is the visionary production designer Fiona Crombie. You’ve seen her work in incredible films like The Favourite, and most recently, in the hauntingly beautiful Hamnet. This film is currently taking the industry by storm with eight Academy Award nominations, including a nod for Fiona herself for Best Production Design. Trailer for Hamnet, nominated for 8 Academy Awards in including Fiona Crombie for production design From the sprawling architecture of a Tudor estate down to the specific curve of a spoon or the texture of a tablecloth, Fiona’s job is to build a physical reality that reflects the interior lives of the characters on screen. In our conversation, we explore how production design shapes performance, how historical accuracy balances with storytelling, how a visual “mission statement” guides an entire crew, and what it means to create environments that carry grief, love, and memory. Bio Fiona Crombie is an Australian production designer, twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Production Design — for The Favourite and Hamnet. Born in Adelaide and raised in Sydney, she trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) before becoming the resident designer at the Sydney Theatre Company, where she developed the deep relationship with text and storytelling that still shapes her work today. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. New premium benefit: get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. Premium subscribers get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Sam Beam of Iron & Wine: Grammy-nominated musician on creativity, collaboration, and why a good day is finding one great lyric 27.02.2026 22min

  Most musicians start learning at an early age—or so we think. But that wasn’t the path our guest today took. He was an arty kid—drawing and painting in his bedroom—then a film teacher, before he became the musical success he is today. This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full interview on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/sam-beam Five time Grammy-nominated Sam Beam—who you know as Iron & Wine—told us his music career still feels like a bit of a fluke, even though it’s been over half his life now. Things started to come together for him when he got his hands on a 4-track recorder. Suddenly, music wasn’t about performing—it was about making something that he could develop and refine, just like a drawing. We talk about how he balances prolific output with raising five daughters, why he used to keep “office hours” for creativity, and how a successful day can be as simple as finding one good lyric. We also dig into collaboration—how working with other musicians and even his daughter Arden on the new record pushes him outside his comfort zone. And why he believes your art should be like a mirror reflecting something. Sam’s new record Hen’s Teeth drops today—February 27th—and he’s heading out on tour hitting Australia, the Midwest, East Coast, and West Coast. But first, we wanted to understand how someone who came from visual art built one of the most distinctive voices in American folk music. Bio Sam Beam is a singer-songwriter who has been creating music as Iron & Wine for over two decades. Through the course of eight albums, numerous EPs and singles, and the initial volumes of an Archive Series - Iron & Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• George Newman: Cognitive scientist on why creativity is more like archaeology than magic 20.02.2026 25min

  We’ve all heard the mythology around great ideas: the lone genius struck by inspiration, the eureka moment in the bath or shower. But George Newman believes we’ve been thinking about creativity in the wrong way. This is a preview of a premium episode. To hear the whole thing, head over to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/george-newman George is a cognitive scientist who’s spent years studying where great ideas actually come from, and his research reveals something surprising: creativity might be less like magic and more like archaeology. In his book How Great Ideas Happen, he argues that ideas aren’t just born in our brains—they’re discovered through a systematic process of excavation. In our conversation, George walks us through the four stages of creative archaeology: surveying the landscape, gridding out the problem space, digging without judgment, and sifting through what you’ve found. He shares fascinating research on “hot streaks”—that pattern where creators explore widely, strike a rich vein of ideas, mine it completely, then move on. And he challenges one of Silicon Valley’s most cherished beliefs, namely that ideas without execution are worthless, using evidence from a study done on Quirky.com showing that good ideas really are worth waiting for. If you’ve ever felt stuck waiting for inspiration to strike, or wondered whether creativity can actually be systematized without losing its magic, this conversation offers both the science and the practical steps to help you uncover your next breakthrough. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. New premium benefit: get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. Premium subscribers get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Nate Koechly and Matthew Darby: YouTube's UX Director and Director of PM on redesigning one of the world's most-used apps 12.02.2026 43min

  Redesigning one of the world’s most-used apps is no small feat, especially when that app is also the second largest search engine in the world: YouTube. Over the last four years, Nate Koechly, UX Director at YouTube, and Matthew Darby, Director of Product Management, have been leading an ambitious effort to balance Google’s metrics-driven culture with the subjective challenge of making an app feel “modern.” Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/nate-koechly-and-matthew-darby In our conversation, Nate and Matt share how they developed predictive measurement tools to gauge user perception, why they pair visual updates with quality-of-life features like comment threading and improved video controls, and how their research process has evolved from measuring clicks to understanding satisfied watch time. We also dig into one of YouTube’s most complex challenges: the algorithm. As Nate and Matt explain, what users say they want doesn’t always match what actually makes them happy on the platform. They also discuss their work exploring ways to give viewers more agency and control, including the possibility of using natural language to tune your feed. Both guests have a genuine passion for how YouTube enables deep expertise and niche interests to find their audiences—from 3D models of the Golden Gate Bridge to forest fire education from Northern California lookouts. Behind the algorithms and design updates is a platform where, as Nate puts it, “when you give people a voice, the things they say are just inspiring.” *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books: You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid *** If you’re interested in sponsoring the show, please contact us at: sponsors@thecuriositydepartment.com If you’d like to submit a guest idea, please contact us at: contact@thecuriositydepartment.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Bill Burnett: How to Live a Meaningful Life 04.02.2026 28min

  When we last spoke with Bill Burnett, it was in 2020 and he’d just published his book Designing Your Work Life, co-authored by Dave Evans. The world was in the midst of a pandemic, and work and careers seemed very uncertain. Along with their other bestselling book, Designing Your Life, millions of people found guidance and a process for re-framing how to approach their career and life plans in general, inspired by a methodology that Bill taught during his many years in the Stanford design program. This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full interview, visit: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/bill-burnett-returns Over the intervening years, Bill and Dave had countless conversations with people who had—at least to some degree—”figured out” work , family, and friends, but still felt stuck. They were stuck on the question of meaning. Bill told us that asking, “What is the meaning of life?” is not the right question. Instead, we should be asking “How can I find meaning IN life?”. In their new book, How to Live a Meaningful Life, Bill and Dave aspire to give you tools and ideas to help you make a life rich with meaning and purpose. In our conversation, we dig into the loneliness epidemic, especially among Gen Z, and why so many people look to work to provide meaning when work isn’t actually set up to do that. Bill introduces a powerful framework: Wonder, Coherence, Flow, and Community which are the four components of meaning-making and influence longevity. If you’ve ever felt like you’re checking all the boxes but still missing something, this conversation offers a practical, design-driven way forward. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books: You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Austin Kleon: Author of "Steal Like an Artist" on building a sustainable creative practice 28.01.2026 28min

  To make good creative work, you’ll inevitably do a lot of bad work along the way. So building a thriving creative practice relies on showing up and doing the work consistently, whether you feel inspired or not. And we can get trapped into thinking that if only we had the perfect space, or the best pen, or right notebook, it would all be easier. This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full interview, visit: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/austin-kleon But our guest today, Austin Kleon, has built a remarkable creative practice around a deceptively simple toolkit: index cards, newspapers, scissors, and glue. He’s the bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, Keep Going, and Don’t Call it Art. What makes Austin’s approach so valuable is how he’s translated these ideas into a sustainable daily practice that’s lasted over a decade. In our conversation, Austin shares why he starts every day writing in his diary before he picks up the phone, how constraints (time, space and materials) actually unlock creativity rather than limiting it, and why the path to doing your best digital work might start with picking up a pen. If you’ve ever struggled to maintain a creative practice, felt overwhelmed by tools and options, or wondered how to keep going when the work feels hard, this episode is for you. Bio Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have sold over two million copies and have been translated into over 30 languages. He’s been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work “brilliant,” The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.” He speaks for organizations such as Pixar, Google, Netflix, SXSW, TEDx, Dropbox, Adobe, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons. Visit him online at www.austinkleon.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Raffaela Panie: Designing the brand and visual identity for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games 21.01.2026 20min

  Every four years, the Olympic Games capture the world’s attention—not just through athletic achievement, but through a complete visual identity that must resonate across cultures, languages, and generations. It’s one of the most demanding design challenges in the world: creating a brand that honors Olympic heritage while reflecting the unique spirit of a host city and region. This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. To hear the whole thing, subscribe via our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/raffaella-panie Raffaela Panie is the Brand, Identity and Look Director for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games—which means she’s responsible for how billions of people will experience these games visually, from the opening ceremony to the medals, from venue designs to digital platforms. It’s a project that requires balancing tradition with innovation, local culture with global recognition, and multiple stakeholders with a singular creative vision. In our conversation, Raffaela shares what it takes to design for one of the world’s most recognizable brands, how she’s weaving Italian design heritage into the visual language of the games, and the unique challenges of creating an identity that needs to work everywhere from mountain venues in Cortina to urban spaces in Milano—all while serving athletes, spectators, broadcasters, and digital audiences simultaneously. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books: You’ll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices