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 curious or a design pro, Design Better is guaranteed to inspire and inform. Vanity Fair calls Design Better, “sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative world.”
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Nov 13, 2026 · 46:27
This episode continues our special series recorded live at the Creative Leadership Retreat in Sonoma, which we co-hosted with our friends at September Works in late September. We…
Nov 4, 2026 · 1:00:58
This episode kicks off a special series recorded live at our Creative Leadership Retreat in Sonoma, which we co-hosted with our friends at September Works in late September. We…
Oct 28, 2026 · 51:28
For eleven years, Maurice Cherry made a weekly podcast called Revision Path showcasing Black designers from around the world. He recorded more than 500 episodes with designers on…
Oct 21, 2026 · 40:03
Tom Foley didn’t set out to design typefaces. As a postgraduate student at Central Saint Martins in London, he was researching why Ireland, unlike Switzerland, the Netherlands,…
Oct 14, 2026 · 39:22
Kevin Flores has been part of the Design Better community for years — we first met him in 2017, while he was leading design at 23andMe, back when we were researching how design…
Oct 7, 2026 · 40:15
In graduate school, Randy Hunt poured his heart and soul into a poster for Milton Glaser’s class, a picture built entirely from hand lettering that read as an image from across…
Oct 5, 2026 · 55:45
When Aarron was fresh out of grad school, working at an agency outside Philadelphia, he and his coworkers used to crowd around a monitor to study volumeone.com. Most websites…
Sep 23, 2026 · 28:22
Blaine Billingsley is a staff designer at OpenAI, and his path there was anything but a straight line. He studied music composition and comparative religion, played guitar in…
Sep 17, 2026 · 44:27
In the mid-1950s, North Carolina was one of the poorest states in the country. Its economy ran on tobacco, furniture, and textiles — all three in decline — and its universities…
Sep 10, 2026 · 24:16
When Samsung’s CEO asked Federico Casalegno to redesign the cameras on the company’s phones, Federico told him he was the wrong person for the job. He wasn’t an optical engineer.…
Sep 2, 2026 · 44:00
Jonathan Adler was one of our favorite guests, so we’ve been angling to get him back ever since. He started as a potter and now designs furnishings and interiors that are…
Aug 28, 2026 · 23:39
We all know that there is something fractured about the workplace, that makes it inefficient, and at times inhumane. If only someone was thinking deeply about those problems, and…
Aug 21, 2026 · 52:38
A few years ago, Dropbox redesigned its website and revenue dropped by thirty percent. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment: people working weekends, everyone hunting for a…
Aug 13, 2026 · 50:33
Like a lot of parents, Eli struggled over the years to get his kids more into reading and away from screens. He wasn’t necessarily on the search for a technological solution, but…
Aug 5, 2026 · 46:15
This is a special bonus episode, an interview with Rivian’s Chief Design Officer, Jeff Hammoud. We’ve got all the audio here, but it’s worth heading over to our Youtube channel…
Jul 22, 2026 · 34:23
Fifteen years ago, Eric Ries handed a generation of founders a playbook. When Eli was in a Palo Alto-based startup accelerator in 2011, The Lean Startup felt like the only book…
Jul 15, 2026 · 47:16
A few years ago, Ian Bogost wrote what he thought was a throwaway Atlantic piece about how electric vehicles would finally kill the manual transmission. It went off like a bomb —…
Jul 1, 2026 · 24:48
Years ago, two friends in Philadelphia — both designers, both obsessed with jazz — kept noticing the same notation on the back of their favorite records: “recorded by Van Gelder…
Jun 25, 2026 · 44:00
Niyati Gupta describes her career as one long experiment — deliberately putting herself in uncomfortable, ambiguous situations and treating every move as a personal learning…
Jun 17, 2026 · 23:47
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 foundation everything else…
Jun 11, 2026 · 39:03
There’s something magical about the Vestaboard: it’s a physical, split-flap display connected to the internet that displays missives and useful information with a charm that we…
Jun 10, 2026 · 37:49
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 ago, she answered it by…
Jun 3, 2026 · 26:17
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…
May 27, 2026 · 41:14
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…
May 20, 2026 · 33:07
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…
May 14, 2026 · 1:07:03
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…
May 6, 2026 · 27:04
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,…
Apr 29, 2026 · 48:26
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,…
Apr 22, 2026 · 32:22
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…
Apr 16, 2026 · 46:18
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…
Apr 8, 2026 · 32:17
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 —…
Apr 1, 2026 · 35:30
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…
Mar 25, 2026 · 28:44
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.…
Mar 18, 2026 · 47:07
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…
Mar 12, 2026 · 46:45
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…
Mar 4, 2026 · 22:10
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…
Feb 27, 2026 · 22:54
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…
Feb 20, 2026 · 25:07
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…
Feb 12, 2026 · 43:22
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,…
Feb 4, 2026 · 28:57
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…
Jan 28, 2026 · 28:35
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,…
Jan 21, 2026 · 20:07
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…
Jan 14, 2026 · 59:30
We recorded this special live episode of Design Better at Sequoia Capital in Silicon Valley, with our Experts in Residence: Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, and James Buckhouse. Longtime…
Jan 6, 2026 · 24:48
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 and early 2000’s, that changed…
Dec 31, 2025 · 42:23
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 AI across every category of…
Dec 24, 2025 · 27:00
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 including video from the…
Dec 17, 2025 · 27:14
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 prolific as Aaron. He’s the…
Dec 9, 2025 · 1:08:48
Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett first crossed paths at Studiomates, a Brooklyn based co-working space where some of New York’s most talented designers built businesses and…
Dec 4, 2025 · 44:41
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 creativity for us this year. From…
Nov 25, 2025 · 44:09
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 Gilbert joined IBM as General…
Nov 18, 2025 · 22:53
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 innovations, Cecilia Brenner…
Nov 14, 2025 · 24:57
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=3dvoGPZEY1g We’ve been on the…
Nov 5, 2025 · 50:20
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. But true dialogue doesn’t…
Oct 28, 2025 · 21:48
Design is a problem solving discipline. We research user needs, explore solutions, make things, and ship them. But one important stakeholder is often missing from the…
Oct 21, 2025 · 46:37
We’ve worked alongside people for years, only to realize that we know nothing about their personal life. And it probably affected our working relationship. Knowing your…
Oct 20, 2025 · 14:47
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 Museum of Modern Art), Mark…
Oct 15, 2025 · 29:20
This is a preview of a premium Design Better episode. Visit our Substack to hear the whole interview, for bonus content, and more:…
Oct 10, 2025 · 1:12:14
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more:https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/bonus-episode-30-years-of-design Today we celebrate 30 years of Wert&Co.—the quiet champions of…
Oct 1, 2025 · 59:17
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/rewind-paola-antonelli Design Better has been on the road recently, recording a live episode in…
Sep 24, 2025 · 28:14
This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. To listen to the whole episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/keith-sawyer The key to…
Sep 23, 2025 · 47:11
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jae-park As designers and creatives, many of us spent years of our career looking at blank…
Sep 10, 2025 · 27:27
This is a preview of a premium episode. To hear the full episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/astro-teller-and-ivo-stivoric-why When a company talks…
Sep 3, 2025 · 47:27
Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/henry-modisett AI isn’t just another layer in our digital toolkit—it’s reshaping the tools…
Aug 26, 2025 · 20:11
This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. Head to our Substack to get access to the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/elizabeth-lin Have you played…
Aug 20, 2025 · 59:26
Most designers are comfortable in the world of known problems—we talk to users, gather insights, iterate based on feedback. But what happens when you're designing for a future…
Aug 14, 2025 · 22:27
This is a preview of a premium episode. Head to Design Better to hear the whole thing: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/tim-brown Sometimes your career takes an unexpected…
Aug 6, 2025 · 46:49
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/matt-raw Matt Raw, Interim VP of Design at The New York Times, and his team have a tough job.…
Jul 30, 2025 · 9:49
Microscopes and telescopes By Aarron Walter A friend and former colleague called me recently to catch up and get my perspective on an important question. He leads a product team…
Jul 23, 2025 · 20:15
This is a preview of one of our premium Design Better episodes. To listen to the whole episode, head over to our Substack and subscribe:…
Jul 17, 2025 · 30:52
For many creative people, music is a central part of life. Count us in that camp. We’ve long admired Sonos products for their quality and easy integration into our homes, and…
Jul 16, 2025 · 1:03:43
Figma is central to most designers' workflow these days (certainly is here at Design Better). So it's important to get familiar with all of the latest features. Who better to…
Jul 9, 2025 · 46:42
We were recently invited to the The New York Times where we spoke with Matt Raw, the interim head of design at the Times. Eli and I are accustomed to interviewing, but this was a…
Jul 2, 2025 · 1:01:15
This is the second installment in our series of video rewind episodes, with an interview featuring jazz legend Kamasi Washington. Watch the full episode on our Substack:…
Jun 25, 2025 · 35:51
This is a premium episode of Design Better. You'll hear a preview of the episode here, but head over to our Substack and become a premium member if you'd like to access the full…
Jun 17, 2025 · 27:47
Maybe you’ve already heard, but we’re in the midst of significant global and technological change. It will be a struggle for many businesses to adapt, but IBM is a company that’s…
Jun 11, 2025 · 13:48
by Eli Woolery If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the multitude of people we’ve interviewed for Design Better, it’s that the most innovative creators of our time share an…
Jun 10, 2025 · 17:25
This is a preview of a premium episode. To get access to the full episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/christopher-lyons Some careers have clear…
Jun 4, 2025 · 50:15
We are living through a Cambrian explosion of new tools, powered by generative AI. It can be tough to wade through the sea of options in front of us, and find platforms that…
May 30, 2025 · 27:08
This is a preview of a premium episode. Visit our Substack to get access to the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/cassie-mcdaniel Cassie McDaniel, Medium’s head of…
May 21, 2025 · 45:49
Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/the-roundup-ai-creative-workflow Rarely do we get the chance to pause and reflect on the…
May 13, 2025 · 31:40
This interview was recorded live on May 1st for UserTesting’s ThiS Connect City Tour. Interested in joining us for our next live show? We’re joining an incredible lineup at…
May 7, 2025 · 34:22
Hi everyone! We recently surveyed our audience and learned that many of you would like to see more video. So, we’re kicking off a new run of video episodes, beginning with our…
Apr 29, 2025 · 49:32
A special sponsored episode of the Design Better Podcast It’s a tough job market out there right now for designers and other creative technologists. Many of us are wondering if…
Apr 24, 2025 · 46:31
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/susan-magsamen-and-ivy-ross In school, art is often positioned in curricula as an enrichment…
Apr 16, 2025 · 55:35
Visit our Substack for bonus content: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/rewind-ok-go Aarron and Eli are traveling with their families for Spring Break, so we’re bringing back one…
Apr 8, 2025 · 24:22
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jordan-mechner As a kid in the 80’s, Eli fell in love with games on computers like the Apple II,…
Apr 3, 2025 · 1:09:48
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/brad-frost Design systems are the foundation of nearly every piece of software we use. No one has…
Mar 25, 2025 · 32:23
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/heidi-trost Designing a good security experience is hard. Every time we run into one of those…
Mar 20, 2025 · 8:14
Becoming an irreplaceable designer By Aarron Walter The software industry is in a tough contraction phase. Teams are downsizing, and companies are prioritizing efficiency. It’s a…
Mar 18, 2025 · 25:58
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/trenton-doyle-hancock Aarron’s friend Trenton Doyle Hancock did something remarkable when they…
Mar 12, 2025 · 1:05:36
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more:https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/dan-harden If you were mapping out the most amazing career in industrial design, you might dream…
Mar 11, 2025 · 27:16
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/kristen-berman Many of the most successful products launched in Silicon Valley lean heavily on…
Feb 28, 2025 · 14:27
Words are worth a thousand pictures by Eli Woolery How does Sir Jony Ive, the famed former head of design at Apple, start every project? If, like me, you guessed by sketching,…
Feb 26, 2025 · 45:02
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/gareth-hinds Graphic novels are experiencing something of a renaissance recently. As the medium…
Feb 21, 2025 · 7:13
Every month, our premium subscribers receive our newsletter The Brief , which assembles wisdom gleaned from interviews with creative thinkers. It’s a chance to go deeper into…
Feb 19, 2025 · 21:05
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/kevin-bethune-returns One core strength that good designers cultivate is the ability to navigate…
Feb 11, 2025 · 43:07
Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/scott-belsky We live in an era where it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the pace of new technology.…
Feb 4, 2025 · 27:05
Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/idris-brewster In Berlin, there are memorials to the Holocaust called Stolpersteine, or “stumbling…
Jan 28, 2025 · 54:51
Design sprints have become a staple of the creative process at companies around the world and an indispensable tool in the pursuit of innovation. We owe a debt of thanks to Jake…
Jan 22, 2025 · 21:11
We live in an era where the boundaries are beginning to blur between roles like designers and developers. Generative AI tools are making it easier for designers to code quick…
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