Artist and technologist, Ari Melenciano, spent her youth obsessed with music, art, and gadgets. A year in Barcelona, a city that valued art as she did, left a meaningful impression on her. Back in the US, frustrated at the racial inadequacy of academia and technology, she founded Afrotectopia, a cultural institution building at the nexus of art, science, and technology through an Afrocentric lens. Images and more from Ari at cleverpodcast.com! Special thanks to our sponsor: Wix Studio is a platf...
Jul 01, 2025•48 min•Ep. 188
Multidisciplinary designer, Rodolfo Agrella, grew up in Venezuela with a happy place at a kid-sized table. A self-described weirdo and excellent dancer, he put it all to work as a social butterfly. Now at the helm of an award-winning studio designing products, interiors and experiences, he’s on a steady and colorful streak translating the vibrancy of the tropics into a universal design language. Images and more from Rodolfo Agrella on our website! Special thanks to our sponsor: Wix Studio is a p...
Jun 24, 2025•59 min•Ep. 191
Co-founders of House of Rolison, Amanda Leigh and Taylor Hahn, grew up on opposite coasts but were both self-described angsty teens. Both had a deep love for art and architecture, choosing different professional paths before they met online and their fates intertwined. Their first date turned into a road trip and then quarantine-based cohabitation. Since starting House of Rolison, they’ve renovated a number of forgotten old homes into warm, elegant, modern beauties. Their complementary strengths...
Jun 17, 2025•47 min•Ep. 211
Live experience & interior designer Willo Perron grew up in Montreal surrounded by creativity. An industrious kid, he dropped out of high school at 14 to follow his own entrepreneurial and creative path. He got his start around the nightclub scene in Montreal doing everything from designing flyers, to lighting, to scouting DJs, and designing streetwear. Since then he’s gone on to design the now-famous aesthetic for American Apparel retail stores, as well as collaborate with many of pop music...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 160
Cognitive neuroscientist Sahar Yousef grew up in the Bay Area, the daughter of Iranian immigrants. She became fascinated by human consciousness at a young age and she followed that curiosity to studies in philosophy, then all the way to a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Now, she aims her brain toward helping leaders maximize their potential so they can do their best work, then go home to their families, and sleep! Here she shares what you need to know to accelerate your creativity and stop draini...
Jun 03, 2025•28 min•Ep. 97
Custom surface artists Lisa Donohoe and Brynn Gelbard met and fell in love in the queer underbelly scene of San Francisco in 2002, a time before bi-national same-sex marriage was legal. Their diverse community was built on love, curiosity and celebrating each other's differences. In an evolution that was equal parts organic maturity and cosmic intervention, Brynn and Lisa moved to Los Angeles and founded Londubh Studio, specializing in elaborate and maximalist hand-applied surface designs. Now t...
May 27, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 218
Charlotte McCurdy is a designer, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of climate change, futures, and materials. She shares how her work—"charismatic objects" such as a carbon-negative raincoat and a high-fashion algae sequin dress—offers more than just striking aesthetics. They are rigorous, tangible experiments in building a bio-based future that doesn’t just reduce harm but actively supports planetary healing and human well-being. In the process, she paints a vivid picture of ...
May 13, 2025•57 min•Ep. 224
Dan Heath, author (or co-author) of bestselling books like Made to Stick and most recently, Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working , and host of the podcast What It’s Like to Be has a self-described “unnatural curiosity” that leads him head-first into his work. A Thanksgiving dinner caused him to wonder what his relatives' daily lives were really like and sparked the podcast What It’s Like to Be. He’s since talked to everyone from brain surgeon to stadium beer vendor – and in the process turned...
Apr 29, 2025•59 min•Ep. 223
Branding & design strategist Jessie McGuire was born in El Salvador and adopted by a “wholehearted feminist” single mother. She grew up exploring her creativity and getting encouragement to go to art school. After a few degrees and a slew of work experience she’s now the managing director of ThoughtMatter, where she’s fostering a culture of work worth doing, building a justifiable case for creativity and spreading the gospel of curiosity, thoughtfulness and generosity. And redesigning the co...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Artist, creative technologist, and educator, Idris Brewster grew up in Brooklyn, being filmed for a documentary about his education as a black student at a prestigious, primarily white, school. His coming-of-age, only partially caught on camera, included a lot of basketball and hands-on artistic development. A grant awarded in college gave him early access to VR technology which opened a path to combining all of his talents and interests and expressing them through new media. Now, as co-founder ...
Apr 15, 2025•57 min
CEO of digital experience studio, ustwo, Nicki Sprinz, was born in London and attended a convent primary school with strict rules that tended to squash curiosity - something she has had to consciously unlearn in the years since. A couple of harrowing chapters with significant health challenges presented Nicki with opportunities to learn to overcome and practice optimism. A resulting deep sense of carpe diem, has her leaning into hopefulness and making a positive impact for others. Since joining ...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 222
John Christakos, co-founder and CEO of Blu Dot, grew up taking road trips with his father to textile mills, skipping school in favor of real-world experiences. He went on to double major in economics and studio art, a combination of creativity and business which proved itself invaluable later in life. After a life-changing year traveling the world with his closest friends, John eventually co-founded Blu Dot alongside them in 1997. In the decades since, under John’s leadership, Blu Dot has grown ...
Mar 18, 2025•57 min•Ep. 221
Fashion designer Mary Ping was influenced at a young age by a stylish grandmother who taught her to sew. Always knowing she’d one day run her own label, she studied art at Vassar and worked in east London’s scene before founding her conceptual line, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, a living archive of wardrobe classics, reexamined. Not one to participate on the hamster wheel of trends, she prefers injecting social commentary and sartorial wit into her work. Plus, her photographic memory weirds peo...
Mar 11, 2025•46 min
Alma Jimenez Lopez is a creative force — a designer, artist, and curator who builds bridges between cultures and communities. In this episode, she shares how growing up as a first-generation Mexican American shaped her superpower: empathy. From honing her skills as an interior designer and building bridges across sectors of the design industry, to curation and community-building with the co-founding Of Threads, which celebrates the richness of Mexican American stories through art, design, and fa...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 220
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series where we dig into the lesser told stories of the darker side of design; the shadowy, sometimes sordid, tales hiding under a glossy top coat of respectable legacy. In this episode we peel back the glittering façade of one of Australia's greatest design icons, Florence Broadhurst—a woman whose legendary creative genius was rivaled only by the mystery surrounding her violent demise. This journey takes us from the sunlit streets of Sydney’s Paddington ...
Feb 11, 2025•25 min
In the heart of downtown Los Angeles sits Hollywood’s undisputed architectural superstar — the Bradbury Building. The imposing structure’s character is definitive. Its origin story, however, is much murkier… How did a young draftsman design one of the most remarkable buildings in the world? Why did he never again do anything of note? Or did he? Was all his creativity spent on this one masterpiece? Was this a case of stolen intellectual property? Or could this have even been a brush with the supe...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy. In Ep. 5 we explore the haunting tale of E-1027, an architectural masterpiece born of love but marred by betrayal, obsession, and tragedy. From its creation by Eileen Gray to its desecration by Le Corbusier, and its descent into decadence during World War II, this house has borne witness to some of humanity’s darke...
Jan 28, 2025•37 min
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy. In Episode 4: Olivetti and the Race to Create the First Personal Computer, host Amy Devers and writer Andrew Wagner unravel a captivating story that challenges our assumptions about the origins of the personal computer. Many credit Silicon Valley with this innovation, but should we really look elsewhere? Olivetti w...
Jan 21, 2025•38 min
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy. On the afternoon of August 14th, 1915, fire ripped through Taliesin, the Spring Green, Wisconsin home of the world’s most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. When the smoke cleared seven people would be dead, murdered with an axe at the hands of Julian Carlton, a servant of Wright’s. But why? The motive remains a...
Jan 14, 2025•29 min
On the morning of August 19th, 1993, mid-century architect, Norman Jaffe, parked his car in his client’s driveway, walked to Ocean Beach in Bridgehampton, New York, stripped down, folded his clothes, and dove into the Atlantic. He never returned and his body was never recovered. Was it murder? Was it suicide? Did he fake his own death? What happened to Norman Jaffe? Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales ...
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Ben Clymer grew up in a New York suburb, raised by middle-class public school teachers and enamored by his grandfather’s swagger and style. An Omega Speedmaster, a gift from said grandfather, is the piece that captured his heart and sets his story in motion. A painstakingly shy student, he began to gain self-confidence in high-school and a need to differentiate in college. In 2008 he started a tiny blog, HODINKEE, a passion-project about watches that gained traction and sent him on a mission to ...
Dec 17, 2024•56 min
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy. In Ep. 5 we explore the haunting tale of E-1027, an architectural masterpiece born of love but marred by betrayal, obsession, and tragedy. From its creation by Eileen Gray to its desecration by Le Corbusier, and its descent into decadence during World War II, this house has borne witness to some of humanity’s darke...
Nov 26, 2024•37 min
Founder and CEO of Canoa, Federico Negro, was born in Uruguay during a time of political turmoil and lived in four countries by age 14. As a teenager in Chicago, he used music as a means of learning English, and during college became fascinated by forensic architecture, which informed his fixation with “how we build with what we build.” An Architect, designer, toolmaker, and entrepreneur, his first company, CASE, was acquired by WeWork. From there he served as the Global Head of Design for Wewor...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 219
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into the darker side of design - the shadowy, sometimes sordid tales hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy. In Episode 4: Olivetti and the Race to Create the First Personal Computer, host Amy Devers and writer Andrew Wagner unravel a captivating story that challenges our assumptions about the origins of the personal computer. Many credit Silicon Valley with this innovation, but should we really look elsewhere? Olivetti w...
Oct 29, 2024•38 min
Custom surface artists Lisa Donohoe and Brynn Gelbard met and fell in love in the queer underbelly scene of San Francisco in 2002, a time before bi-national same-sex marriage was legal. Their diverse community was built on love, curiosity and celebrating each other's differences. In an evolution that was equal parts organic maturity and cosmic intervention, Brynn and Lisa moved to Los Angeles and founded Londubh Studio, specializing in elaborate and maximalist hand-applied surface designs. Now t...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 218
Co-Founder of Deem Journal, designer Nu Goteh was born in Liberia and came to the US with his family as a refugee at the age of 3. His first career ambition, as a model son of African parents, was to become a doctor / lawyer. But as a sneakerhead, skater, and early-adopter of the internet, he kept making opportunities for himself in marketing, promoting, and graphic design. He even landed a job at Puma while he was only a Sophomore in college. After successful roles at Red Bull and Sonos, he was...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 31 min
Founder and President of ThinkLab, Amanda Schneider, grew up outside of Chicago, inspired by a blend of engineering and design. Now a self-described “designer by degree, journalist by accident, and researcher by choice” at the helm of ThinkLab, she examines the ecosystem of the design world, unearthing and synthesizing the social and cultural shifts and drivers that impact the interiors industry. Together with her team, she offers insights and context that can empower better decision-making whil...
Sep 17, 2024•41 min•Ep. 217
Legendary visual artist Cey Adams grew up in NYC immersed in the excitement and danger of graffiti, embellishing buildings and tagging “Cey City” on subway cars. From there, he began selling in galleries along with contemporaries Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and designing merch, logos and singles for Run DMC, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J. As founding Creative Director of Def Jam he designed cover art for Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, etc., toured with his go...
Sep 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Natsai Audrey Chieza spent her youth in Zimbabwe in a close-knit extended family where she and her cousins were “in each others’ pockets.” In her teenage years the national economy crashed, necessitating a family relocation to the UK, and she began learning the skill of “not belonging.” Architecture studies proved alienating so she found a way to combine them with her love of fashion (to the consternation of her professors.) Rejecting the prescribed path of a professional architect, she instead ...
Sep 03, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Sound Designer Dallas Taylor picked up the trumpet in grade school and a whole new world opened up. After a debilitating chapter, he needed to find a new way to translate his love of sound into a profession. He went from music to recording, and into post-production for TV and film. Now he’s the creative director of his leading sound design studio, Defacto Sound, and the host of a lovingly crafted (and very popular) podcast, Twenty Thousand Hertz, about the stories behind the world’s most recogni...
Aug 27, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 199
