Design matters

Design Matters

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Design Matters (New Episodes)

As the Co-Founder and CTO of Bespoke Innovations, Scott Summit leads a continuing effort to create products that radically change lives. In this lecture, Summit shares insights from creating customized prosthetic devices using new technologies in nascent markets. He also discusses some of challenges his company faced in discovering a working business model and developing customers.

Scott Summit - Products With a Purpose

Read more: www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/10/massimo-vignelli-debbie-millman/

Excerpt from Debbie Millman's Design Matters interview: https://soundcloud.com/designmatters/massimo-vignelli

Graphic designer Massimo Vignelli on creative nobility

Graphic designer Massimo Vignelli on print vs. digital books

Jake Barton is founder and principal of Local Projects, an award-winning media design studio for museums and public spaces. In this interview with Debbie Millman, Barton discusses his work on the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, the intricacies of designing experiences for public space, and the magic of collaborative storytelling.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Jake Barton

Tina Roth Eisenberg is the "Swiss designer gone NYC" behind the popular design blog Swiss Miss (http://swiss-miss.com), as well as the founder of the global free breakfast lecture series CreativeMornings (http://creativemornings.com)

In this interview with Debbie Millman, Eisenberg discusses her blog, sharing her life with her readers, things that make her smile, four-letter names, crowdsourcing, living and working in Brooklyn, CreativeMornings and the beauty found in ordinary things.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Tina Roth Eisenberg

Marian Bantjes is a typographer, designer, artist and writer. Working from a small island off the west coast of Canada, her personal and obsessive work has brought her international recognition. Her work has been published in books and magazines around the world and is included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

In this interview with Debbie Millman, Bantjes discusses her most recent book, <i>I Wonder</i> (Monicelli and Thames & Hudson), her shift from typesetter to famous designer, ornament, secrets, cipher, coded text, causing pain to type purists and the importance of putting good work into the public sphere. 

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Marian Bantjes

Chris Ware is a cartoonist and the author of the extraordinary new "book" Building Stories (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/05/building-stories-chris-ware/)

In this interview with Debbie Millman, Ware discusses the relationship between storytelling and empathy, the challenges of giving shape to the human experience, the subtle commentary on sexuality in his work, and the role of sadness in writing.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Chris Ware

Aaron Draplin is the force powering Draplin Design Compay (http://draplin.com) in Portland, Oregon. Having made a name for himself with stand-out work for snowboarding companies and their like, he’s now courting more mainstream clients including Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Field Notes, Esquire, Nike, Wired, Timberline, Chunklet, Red Wing, Incase, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Megafaun, Ford Motor Co., Hughes Entertainment, Chuck Prophet, and even the Obama Administration. Born in the Midwest, and a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art, Draplin has become an important voice in the world of graphic design while maintaining a sense of humor.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Aaron Draplin

Karl Heiselman is the CEO of Wolff Olins (http://www.wolffolins.com) and the driving force behind the company’s ambition for clients and optimism for the world. He leads the global business by shaping its strategy for growth and encouraging excellence in its creative work. With over 20 years of branding and design experience, Heiselman has helped create game-changing work for Wolff Olins’s clients including (RED), Skype, GE, PwC, Unicef, Current TV, New York City and Mercedes-Benz. He has expanded the company’s capabilities to include product development, brand-centric innovation and creatively led business strategy. Trained as a designer, Heiselman firmly believes in the value of creativity to drive positive business and social impact. Prior to joining Wolff Olins, Heiselman founded the San Francisco–based design studio The Farm, where his clients included Apple, American Express, FedEx, Swatch and HP. Heiselman attended the Rhode Island School of Design and studied graphic and industrial design.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Karl Heiselman

Michael Arad is an architect who moved to New York City from Israel in 1999. At 34, Arad was selected from 5,201 competitors as the winning designer of the World Trade Center Memorial. After a behind-the-scenes war of wills, we now celebrate his vision with a with "Reflecting Absence", a pair of pools set 30 feet deep in the footprints of the downed towers, with cascading waterfalls surrounded by the names of the dead and a "living park" at ground level meant to symbolize life and rebirth.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Michael Arad

Roman Mars is the host of 99% Invisible (http://99percentinvisible.org), a radio show exploring the 99% invisible activity all around us that shapes the design of our world. Produced with support from LUNAR, this is a project of KALW, the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco and the Center for Architecture and Design.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Roman Mars

Jessica Hische (http://jessicahische.is/awesome) is a letterer, illustrator and self-described “avid internetter,” best known for her personal projects Daily Drop Cap (http://www.dailydropcap.com) and the Should I Work for Free flowchart (http://shouldiworkforfree.com). Just five years out of college, she currently serves on the TDC board of Directors and is one of the more accomplished young "designistrators" working today. Her work has been featured in most major American design and illustration publications as well as a few overseas and she’s been named one of Print Magazine’s New Visual Artist (20 under 30) an ADC Young Guns and a GDUSA Person to Watch.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Jessica Hische

Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings (http://www.brainpickings.org), an inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness and curiosity, bringing you things you didn’t know you were interested in — until you are. She has also written for Wired UK, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Nieman Journalism Lab, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. 

In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Maria discusses curation, creativity as pattern-recognition, growing up in Bulgaria, and her grandmother following her Google Alerts.

Subscribe to Design Matters on iTunes for more great interviews with celebrated designers and creative minds: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Maria Popova

Heather B. Armstrong is an American blogger who resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. She writes under the pseudonym of Dooce about her struggle with depression, entering a mental health hospital, as well as her pregnancies, parenthood and her experiences with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Armstrong was featured by Forbes magazine on its list of "The Most Influential Women In Media" for 2009. She is also the author of the books It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita (Gallery, 2010).

In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Heather Armstrong discusses reconciling with her family after writing about them on her blog, documenting her relationship with her husband, growing up Mormon, her struggle with post-postpartum depression, taking photos of her dog Chuck and tweeting about her broken Maytag washing machine. (04.01.11)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Heather B. Armstrong

Grace Bonney is the creator of the popular blog Design*Sponge, which she started in 2004. The site features store and product reviews, city, product, and gift guides, diy projects, before & after furniture and home makeovers, home tours, recipes, videos and podcasts, and trend forecasting. She been called the “Martha Stewart Living for the Millennials” by The New York Times. She is also the author of the forthcoming book Design*Sponge at Home (Artisan).

In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Grace Bonney discusses being a Phish follower, the future of print, the name "Design*Sponge," investing in and growing her site, shaking off the cute, being a hoarder, and the Design*Sponge scholarship program. (04.08.11)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Grace Bonney

Steve Frykholm has worked for Herman Miller for the last 40 years. He is the creative director and vice president of design for the National Design Award-winning furniture company. In an illustrious career he has worn many hats: designer, art director, artist and client. His work has been widely published and has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and Danish Museum of Decorative Art. In 2010 he was award the AIGA Medal.

In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Steve Frykholm discusses the ups and downs in his long career — and talks about an extraordinary series of posters he has made for the annual company picnic. (04.15.11)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Steve Frykholm

Dori Tunstall is a Design Anthropologist, meaning she tries to understand how the processes and artifacts of design help define what it mean to be human. Design Anthropology argues that by taking into account how others see and experience the world differently, products and services can be designed that work with people and nature rather than disrupt them. Dori is an Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia as well as Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Design. (10.07.11)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695


Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Dori Tunstall

Linda Tischler is a senior editor at Fast Company, where she writes about the intersection of business and design. For the past several years, she has been responsible for the magazine’s October “Master’s of Design” issue, which celebrates the people in the forefront of design thinking. She also oversees design coverage and blogs on Fastcompany.com, where she launched the site’s team of expert design bloggers, including Debbie Millman. She has also written on art and design for Metropolitan Home, the Boston Globe, Better Homes and Gardens, and Maybourne Style, and held editing and writing jobs at the Boston Herald and Microsoft’s sidewalk.com. (10.14.11)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Linda Tischler

Cliff Sloan borrowed $10,000 from his parents in 1993 and started The Sloan Group, a six-person creative marketing shop specializing in youth, entertainment and technology marketing. By 1999, The Sloan Group was 60 people strong, had garnered over 100 awards for creative excellence and boasted a blue-chip client roster that included Nickelodeon, MTV, Turner, MasterCard, AT&T, Disney, HBO and Pepsi. In 2000, The Sloan Group was acquired by The Interpublic Group of Companies, the world’s third largest advertising, marketing and communications organization. The Sloan Group enjoyed Agency of Record status for a diverse roster of clients ranging from entertainment and sports to financial services and government. As President and Chief Creative Officer, Cliff oversaw all agency operations while leading the agency’s strategic marketing, brand engineering, creative and business development divisions. In 2008, along with partner Gary Zarr, Cliff started Phil & Co., an agency dedicated to contemporary marketing for philanthropies and companies “doing good”. He teaches Cause Branding and Marketing at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and is a judge of the 2013 Cause Marketing Forum Halo Awards. 

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Cliff Sloan

Amy Webb is the head of of Webbmedia Group, a digital strategy agency that solves complex strategic and operational problems related to disruptive technologies and emerging digital trends that are catalyzing great change across many industries. Recently, she worked with the City of Chicago to redesign, in every aspect, a modern library system for the 21st century. She co-founded Spark Camp, a 501(c)(3) invite-only working group that brings together the brightest minds in media and technology once each quarter. Prior to starting Webbmedia Group, Amy was a reporter/ writer with Newsweek (Tokyo) and the Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong) where she covered emerging technology, media and cultural trends. She has contributed to the New York Times, NPR, Economist and many publications and appears regularly as a commentator on numerous broadcast shows.

Amy originally attended the Jacobs School of Music to study classical clarinet, and she later graduated with a B.A. in political science. She also has an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Amy has served on the adjunct faculty at University of Maryland, Temple University, Tokyo University and University of the Arts.
Her new book, DATA: A LOVE STORY: How I Gamed Online Dating To Meet My Match was published in January 2013 and has been featured in People, Good Morning America, The View, Marketplace, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Guardian, Wired, Elle Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine and elsewhere. DATA chronicles how Amy used data analytics and smart digital marketing strategies to land her online dating profile at the top, and then built a framework to exploit the algorithms to her own benefit (finding a husband).


Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Amy Webb

Jennifer Sterling is a designer, artist, typographer and book publisher based in New York and the rincipal of Sterling Design. Her work has been exhibited and resides in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Library of Congress. In 2000 she was inducted into Alliance Graphique Internationale and Who’s Who in America. Graphis included her in their “Top Ten Designers in the World” list and USA GD named her as one of “Twelve Designers to change Design into the Millennium.” Additionally she has served on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Design and Accessions Board.

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Jennifer Sterling

Emily Oberman studied at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She began her career working with Tibor Kalman at his legendary studio M&Co., where from 1987 to 1993 she collaborated with Kalman to create groundbreaking work for Knoll, Wieden & Kennedy, Talking Heads, and Bennetton’s Colors magazine. In 1993, she co-founded the design studio Number Seventeen with her partner Bonnie Siegler. She joined Pentagram’s New York office as partner in April 2012. Her clients have included NBC Universal (logos for “30 Rock,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live,” including the opening title sequence for 15 years), Herman Miller, Air America and the creation of Lucky magazine for Condé Nast. Oberman’s book design has included work for the Type Directors Club, HBO’s “Sex and the City,” Glamour magazine, and the deluxe illustrated edition of Stephen Dubner’s Superfreakonomics. Her work has been recognized by the AIGA, the Type Directors Club, and the Art Directors Club, among others. In 2004, she was awarded the prestigious Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award for distinguished alumni from her alma mater Cooper Union. She has served on the national board of AIGA and as president of its New York chapter.

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Emily Oberman

Wendy MacNaughton and Caroline Paul are the illustrator and author, respectively, of the new book Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology (Bloomsbury, 2013).

Wendy MacNaughton is an illustrator and a graphic journalist based in San Francisco. Her documentary series Meanwhile tells the stories of communities through drawings and the subject's own words, and is being published as an anthology by Chronicle Books in 2014. She's also illustrated the forthcoming book The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Wine, by Richard Betts (Houghton Mifflin, 2013). She has degrees in fine art/advertising and social work from Art Center College of Design and Columbia University. When they let her, she likes to talk with students at Art Center College of Design, and she is an artist in residence at Intersection for the Arts.

Caroline Paul is an author based in San Francisco. Paul grew up in New England, with an identical twin, a younger brother, and a menagerie of animals. She graduated from Stanford University, where she studied Communications. In 1989, she became a San Francisco firefighter. She is the author of Fighting Fire (Skywriter Books, 2011), about her thirteen years as a firefghter, and East Wind, Rain (2006) which has been optioned for a movie.

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton

Lawyers have an ethics code. Journalists have an ethics code. Architects do, too. According to Ethical Standard 1.4 of the American Institute of Architects (AIA): 

"Members should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors."
 
A group called Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) has taken the stance that there are some buildings that just should not have been built. Buildings that, by design, violate standards of human rights.

Specifically, this refers to prisons with execution chambers, or prisons that are designed keep people in long-term isolation (or as prison officials call it, "segregation"). The latter kind of prison is called a "supermax," or "security housing unit" (SHU). There is no legal definition for solitary confinement, so it's up for debate as to whether the SHU constitutes solitary confinement.  

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding one SHU at a Northern California prison called Pelican Bay.

Life inside of the SHU at Pelican Bay means 22 to 23 hours a day inside of 7.5 by 12 foot room. It's not a space that's designed to keep you comfortable. But it's not just these architectural features, that concern humanitarian activists and psychiatrists. It's the amount of time many prisoners spend in that cells, alone, without any meaningful activity. Some psychiatrists, such as Terry Kupers, say there is a whole litany of effects that a SHU can have on a person: massive anxiety, paranoia, depression, concentration and memory problems, and loss of ability to control one's anger (which can get a prisoner in trouble and lengthen the SHU sentence). In California, SHU inmates are 33 times more likely to commit suicide than other prisoners incarcerated elsewhere in the state. There are even reports of eye damage  due to the restriction on distance viewing.  Terry Kupers says that a SHU "destroys people as human beings."

Compared with some other prisons in the California system, the Pelican Bay SHU has some redeeming architectural features. Inmates can get natural light from skylights outside of their cells, which drifts in through doors made of a perforated metal. These porous doors also allow for inmates to communicate with each other, even though there are no lines of sight to any prisoner from within the cell. 

But on the other hand, cells don't have windows. Inmates never get to see the horizon. The only times prisoners get to leave the cell is to visit the shower, or the exercise yard--which is an empty, windowless room not that much bigger than a cell, with twenty-foot high concrete walls. 

Again, there is no universally accepted definition of solitary confinement. But some groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have gone beyond calling the SHU solitary confinement--they call it torture. In 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture said anything over 15 days in solitary confinement is a human rights abuse--which other sources have interpreted as torture.
So if it is the ethical code of architects to promote human rights...what is their responsibility to the people who are incarcerated in their buildings? 

Enter Raphael Sperry, a San Francisco-based architect and president of ADPSR. He believes it's up to architects to lead the charge against these buildings. Sperry and the ADPSR are trying to get the American Institute of Architects to adopt an amendment to their ethics code:

"Members shall not design spaces intended for execution or for torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including prolonged solitary confinement."

This episode is a special collaboration between 99% Invisible and the podcast Life of the Law. Find out about their show at lifeofthelaw.com

99% Invisible-80- An Architect's Code

Design Matters by Debbie Millman features interviews with designers, artists and cultural leaders, including Lawrence Weiner, Barbara Kruger, Malcolm Gladwell, Eric Kandel, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Michael Arad, Milton Glaser, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, Steven Heller, Jonah Lehrer, among others.

In 2011, Design Matters received the People’s Design Award from the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards.

Subscribe to Design Matters for free on iTunes, where new episodes are uploaded weekly: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695