Design Better
Channel Details
Design Better
Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with guests across many creative fields, helping you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration. Whether you’re design...
Recent Episodes
253 episodes
Ian Bogost: Game designer, Atlantic writer, and philosopher of the ordinary, on the small stuff that makes life delightful
A few years ago, Ian Bogost wrote what he thought was a throwaway Atlantic piece about how electric vehicles would finally kill the manual transmissio...
Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens: authors of WAIL on the constraints that led to timeless designs for Prestige Records
Years ago, two friends in Philadelphia — both designers, both obsessed with jazz — kept noticing the same notation on the back of their favorite recor...
Niyati Gupta: Netflix Product Design Lead on what happens when a designer becomes a product manager, and why your influence might not be in your title
Niyati Gupta describes her career as one long experiment — deliberately putting herself in uncomfortable, ambiguous situations and treating every move...
Mike Schnaidt: Fast Company Creative Director on typography, creative endurance, and designing for the long haul
Typography is often treated as a detail — the thing you finalize after the real design decisions are made. But for our next guest, it’s closer to the...
Bonus Episode: Dorrian Porter returns with the Vestaboard Note
There’s something magical about the Vestaboard: it’s a physical, split-flap display connected to the internet that displays missives and useful inform...
Tina Roth Eisenberg: Creative Mornings founder on building communities that run on trust
When Tina Roth Eisenberg moved to New York in 1999 as a new designer, she kept asking herself the same question: where are my people? Eighteen years a...
Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think)
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 m...
Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are...
Colin Fisher: The lone genius is a myth
This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full thing, visit our Susbtack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/colin-fisher
I...
Nir Eyal: Beyond Belief and how to change your mind to change your life
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/nir-eyal-returns
If you want to understand how much your...
Mason Currey: Mason Currey: Author of Daily Rituals on Making Art and Making a Living
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
Etinosa Agbonlahor: Behavioral economist on why pricing belongs in the design process
Find the full episode and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/etinosa-agbonlahor
For product teams at startu...
Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio
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 ch...
Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot
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, mayb...
Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you
Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably, irreducibly human. His drawings are populated by bespec...
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
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...
Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot
Leonardo Giusti has spent his career in the spaces between disciplines — between art and science, between research and product, between the physical w...
Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch
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 naviga...
Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan
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 fif...
Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words
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 i...
Sam Beam of Iron & Wine: Grammy-nominated musician on creativity, collaboration, and why a good day is finding one great lyric
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 i...
George Newman: Cognitive scientist on why creativity is more like archaeology than magic
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 be...
Nate Koechly and Matthew Darby: YouTube's UX Director and Director of PM on redesigning one of the world's most-used apps
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: YouTub...
Bill Burnett: How to Live a Meaningful Life
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 w...
Austin Kleon: Author of "Steal Like an Artist" on building a sustainable creative practice
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 do...
Raffaela Panie: Designing the brand and visual identity for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games
Every four years, the Olympic Games capture the world’s attention—not just through athletic achievement, but through a complete visual identity that m...
Design Better Experts in Residence: Roundtable at Sequoia Capital
We recorded this special live episode of Design Better at Sequoia Capital in Silicon Valley, with our Experts in Residence: Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, a...
Mikon van Gastel: Co-Founder of Sibling Rivalry on why presentation skills matter more than design skills
There was a time when a movie title sequence was just the moment you grabbed your popcorn and waited for the real show to start. But in the mid-90s an...
Mark Wilson: Fast Company's Global Design Editor on design's defining moments in 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time to pause and take stock of what’s been a transformational year in design. From Figma’s landmark IPO to the rise of...
Video Rewind: Cassie McDaniel: How Medium eliminated its PM function and started moving faster
We’re taking a holiday break, so we’re rewinding to one of our favorite episodes this year with Cassie McDaniel, Medium’s head of design. We’re also i...
Aaron Draplin: Field Notes co-founder on what skate culture taught him about design
A larger than life figure in the creative world, Aaron Draplin has been designing everything from logos to posters since 1995. Few designers are as pr...
Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett: Designing business tools that support how creatives actually work
Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett first crossed paths at Studiomates, a Brooklyn based co-working space where some of New York’s most talented designe...
2025 Holiday Gift Guide
It’s that time of year again—our favorite episode to put together. A moment to look back at the objects, experiences, and ideas that sparked creativit...
Phil Gilbert: Making a 114-year-old, 400,000 person company care about design
Changing the culture of a 400,000-person company isn’t just hard—it’s the kind of transformation most leaders wouldn’t even attempt. But when Phil Gil...
Cecilia Brenner: Moving beyond design theater to measurable impact
We’ve talked to many design leaders who have burned out after a decade or more of corporate work. But after 17 years at Philips designing health innov...
Video Rewind: Jordan Mechner: Pioneering game designer on creating Prince of Persia, Karateka, and a new graphic novel memoir
This is a preview of a premium episode. You can find a video version of the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dvo...
Ben Swire: Author of "Safe Danger" on the hidden reason team building efforts fail
As educators, we’ve grown wary of the term “safe spaces,” especially when what many students really need is a space to engage with “dangerous” ideas....
Jeremy Faludi: Sustainability professor on why most sustainable design fails before it starts
Design is a problem solving discipline. We research user needs, explore solutions, make things, and ship them. But one important stakeholder is often...
Alison Rand: Leading with radical humanity instead of radical candor
We’ve worked alongside people for years, only to realize that we know nothing about their personal life. And it probably affected our working relation...
The Brief: How our recent past should prepare us for the age of AI
In this issue of The Brief, we’re reflecting on what we learned about the past and future of design from our conversation with Paola Antonelli (The Mu...