Krista Kim is a contemporary digital artist, known for creating the Mars House, which was the first sold digital NFT home in the world. She's a pioneer of digital art and the founder of techism movement, a manifesto of which she published in 2014. At the heart of Krista's work is bringing well-being to people through Web3 and using the new technologies to build communities and help us heal through art. And whilst Krista is deeply involved in Web 3, our conversation really is about what makes us ...
Nov 23, 2022•59 min•Season 8Ep. 118
Sumayya Vally is the founder of Counterspace, an architecture and research practice. She’s also the youngest architect to have designed the Serpentine Pavilion and she was appointed as the artistic director of the first Islamic Arts Biennale that takes place this coming January in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. In our conversation, we learn about Sumayya’s architecture and research practice, which explores, among many other things, perspectives of difference – questioning current narratives, and bringi...
Nov 16, 2022•55 min•Season 8Ep. 117
Andres Reisinger, is a digital artist, and you might know him best for his Hortensia Chair, which was a digital design, then translated into a physical product by Moooi, or Winter House he designed. Our conversation though is one of those chats, that didn’t follow what I might have thought it will be. We start our conversation by discovering that Andres’s first love was music, and we dive into his approach to creative work, focused on discipline and practice. We then explore his visual work, and...
Nov 09, 2022•49 min•Season 8Ep. 116
Suzie Hackney is the creative director and category lead for Gifts at Lush Cosmetics. But Suzie is also so much more… From her interests in primates, to studying dance, being a sculptor and a yogi, Suzie covers a whole spectrum of creative disciplines. Our discussion covers her role at LUSH, the importance of responsible gifting – which I believe is super important and our chat also flows further afield into movement therapies, grief and translating it into art. It’s a wholesome discussion and o...
Nov 02, 2022•56 min•Season 8Ep. 115
Ricardo Cavolo is an artist and illustrator whose work is surreal and colourful, mixing medieval influences with comic art. You’ll find in his works lots of familiar characters from popular culture – from Duffy Duck and Gollum to The Powerpuff girls. But if you look at the meaning of his works, you’ll discover that he covers topics linked to mental health, fear, depression, or difficulties faced by teenagers. In our conversation, we talk about Ricardo’s life and how it influenced his work, how h...
Oct 26, 2022•48 min•Season 8Ep. 114
India Mahdavi is an architect and designer, renowned for her love of colour and joy, and her original pink design of Sketch in London. In our conversation, we discuss India’s love affair with colour, her international upbringing, the meaning of home and rediscovering her Iranian and Egyptian roots. We also talk about how to be original in the age of social media and how to champion positivity in everyday life. India's website: https://india-mahdavi.com/ -- This season of the On Design podcast is...
Oct 19, 2022•48 min•Season 8Ep. 113
Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer and the founder of Faber Futures. This R&D studio creates biologically inspired materials and works with businesses and organisations on shaping their biodesign and material work to be sustainable, regenerative and more thoughtful. In our conversation, we discuss Natsai’s upbringing and how she was introduced to creativity and technology, before she moved to the UK to study architecture. We follow her path as she joined the Material Futures course at Centra...
Oct 12, 2022•49 min•Season 8Ep. 111
Steve Green is the Senior Global Creative Director and Nike. And oh my god, Steve has done everything at Nike in his almost 12 years – from having a blank slate to reimagine its Skateboarding department, to infusing the Running department with his vision, to heading up the Global Tee Studio. In our conversation he shares his early love for skateboarding, giving up everything in his hometown to move to New York, hating Portland in the first two years after joining Nike, learning to go with the fl...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Season 8Ep. 110
Yoko Choy is a journalist and many of you will know her as the China Editor for Wallpaper* magazine. She’s also the co-founder of a creative consultancy Collective Contemporist. Yoko has dedicated her career to design, to the Chinese design scene and to building the east-west connections and enabling international dialogue, idea exchange and collaborations. In our conversation, she shares a wealth of knowledge of Chinese design and how it has evolved in the past 15-20 years, from both the manufa...
Sep 28, 2022•48 min•Season 8Ep. 109
Stephen Mai is the founder of Woo – a new media brand and a marketplace with a mission to champion wellness for Gen Z. Before Stephen created Woo, he drove award-winning content and marketing campaigns at LADBible, Vice and Boiler Room, and before that, he actually started his career at MTV Australia. In our chat, we discuss his career and the award-winning campaigns he created along the way. We learn about his approach to content marketing, and how to design successful campaigns that break the ...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Season 8Ep. 108
Veronica Fuerte is a designer and founder and creative directress of Barcelona-based Hey Studio. The studio works on design and illustration projects with clients across the globe. What makes Hey’s work stand out is its disciplined creativity, bold, geometric forms, and harmonious designs. The studio also runs a popular Hey Shop, in which it sells the results of its personal projects – from posters to fashion. And the studio is also the driving force behind the Women at Work podcast, championing...
Sep 14, 2022•47 min•Season 8Ep. 107
Stefan Sagmeister is a designer whose work over the years delighted and surprised people across the world. He started his studio in 1993 and worked predominantly in the music industry, creating album covers for the likes of The Rolling Stones, David Byrne and Brian Eno. For his work with the latter two, he received two Grammies. He’s worked across commercial and cultural projects with partner Jessica Walsh and only in the past few years has withdrawn himself from the agency to focus on non-comme...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 8Ep. 106
Bethan Laura Wood is a multidisciplinary designer, easily recognised for her design aesthetic, as well as her playful and eye-catching dress sense. Bethan’s works range from furniture to decorative objects, lighting to installations and they all share Bethan’s love of materials, colours and cultures. In our conversation, we dive deep into materials, and Bethan’s design process when creating one of her latest collections called Meisen. We also discover the properties of colours – how they transla...
May 11, 2022•48 min•Season 7Ep. 105
Alex Valdman is the head of creative at AllBirds, a company that makes planet-friendly shoes made with premium natural materials. Prior to joining AllBirds Alex was also a chief creative officer at Rapha and we discuss both of those roles, as well as one of his first breaks in the creative industry, which came when he worked with Kanye West. In our conversation, Alex also shares with us the story of his upbringing, as he was born in Ukraine and his family emigrated to the United States when he w...
May 04, 2022•55 min•Season 7Ep. 104
Refik Anadol is a Turkish-American new media artist and designer. His works are just incredible – at first sight, they’re abstract and dream-like video works, constantly shapeshifting. What’s the most fascinating about these works, is how they come to be – through data-driven machine learning AI algorithms. In our conversation, Refik explains the ins and outs of his work, through beautiful and often poetic language, talking about machines dreaming and hallucinating, and Refik himself painting wi...
Apr 27, 2022•46 min•Season 7Ep. 103
Nadja Lossgott is the chief creative officer at AMV BBDO. In our conversation, Nadja shares how her upbringing shaped her early interests in creativity and how she fell in love with graphic design and art direction. She also sheds light on her early career in her native South Africa and her move to London to join the AMV BBDO team. We also dive into her amazing campaigns including Guinness Clear, Womb Stories and Trash Isles, and find out what makes her tick and what’s the recipe for her success...
Apr 20, 2022•50 min•Season 7Ep. 102
Marina Willer is a graphic designer, filmmaker, and partner at Pentagram. Marina is renowned for her design work, which includes branding work for Tate, the Southbank Centre, Rolls Royce as well as the Battersea animal rescue centre. Over time, her work has centred on reimagining identities of brands that contribute good to the world – whether that’s charities or not-for-profit organisations. In our conversation, Marina discusses her early childhood influences, the beginnings of her career in Br...
Apr 13, 2022•52 min•Season 7Ep. 101
It’s episode 100 of the podcast! To celebrate our episode 100, we have a very special guest – Alex Bec, who’s the co-founder of It’s Nice That, which celebrates its 15th birthday this week. In our conversation, Alex discusses the beginnings of It’s Nice That, how the media brand grew over the years, and how it enabled a whole group of creative businesses to flourish. Our chat is a great lesson in growing a business organically, and Alex shares great thoughts on how to grow a company together wit...
Apr 06, 2022•53 min•Season 7Ep. 100
Ella Ritchie, is the co-founder of Intoart – an art and design studio in South London working inclusively with people with learning disabilities. In our conversation, Ella shares how Intoart started over 20 years ago now and she explains its mission - Intoart truly is an alternative art school, as the current education system doesn’t provide creative opportunities for people with learning disabilities. We also learn about Intoart’s artists and how they are shaping the future of the organisation,...
Mar 30, 2022•43 min•Season 7Ep. 99
Anab Jain is the co-founder of design studio Superflux . Superflux specialises in designing possible future scenarios – sometimes utopian, often distopian, based on the world we currently live in, with its trends and social, economic and political shifts. Their work is heavily involved with environmental issues, technological advancements, and the drawbacks of the Anthropocene era. In this episode, we dive into Superflux’s work and some of its most prominent projects, discuss the importance of h...
Mar 23, 2022•43 min•Season 7Ep. 98
Fredrik Hellberg is the co-founder of Spacepopular , a research-driven art, design and media studio. Fredrik runs the practice together with Lara Lesmes, and the two met when studying architecture at London’s Architectural Association. In our conversation, we discuss Spacepopular's research into the possibilities of Web3 and metaverses and Fredrik shares his expertise on how those spaces can be designed and most importantly, how our physical and digital worlds will be interacting in the future. ...
Mar 16, 2022•54 min•Season 7Ep. 97
Yuri Suzuki is a sound designer and partner at Pentagram. Yuri’s artistic installations often aim to bring people together, use AI machine learning and crowdsourced data, whilst his commercial work, looks at creating innovative solutions to problems such as the introduction of sound in electric cars. In our conversation we talk about the use of physical synthesizers and capturing tactile sounds, the problem with Thomas Heatherwick’s bus, sound design for the public transport, the sound design sc...
Mar 09, 2022•50 min•Season 7Ep. 96
Alex Proba is a New York and Portland-based creative director of Studio Proba. She's a multidisciplinary designer, focused on brand design, art direction, product design, illustration and murals and you must have seen online her playful sculptural installation Tomorrow Land from Design Miami 2021. In our conversation, Alex shares with me her educational path, which spanned dentistry, architecture and product design. We discuss her career in creative industries, which included design roles at Kic...
Mar 02, 2022•47 min•Season 7Ep. 95
Our guest today is Stephen Briars - the creative director at The Conran Shop. With the high street and physical retail undergoing tremendous change, we dive into what The Conran Shop is now, discuss its 50 years of 'baggage', and look into the future. Stephen also shares his thoughts on the importance of both digital and physical retail experiences, finding young new talent and how the furniture industry could learn from fashion. Mentioned in the episode: The Conran Shop website: https://www.con...
Feb 23, 2022•55 min•Season 7Ep. 94
Jade Purple Brown is a New-York based artist. If you’ve used Adobe Illustrator at any point last year you’d be familiar with Jade’s work, as her illustration was the Illustrator’s splash page of 2021. Her works are colourful and bold, championing optimism, individuality and empowerment, and include illustrations, packaging design, murals and soft furnishings too. In our chat we dive into what Jade refers to JPB world, and her plans for its future. We also follow Jade’s career, discuss the import...
Feb 16, 2022•45 min•Season 7Ep. 93
Marylou Faure is a London-based French illustrator and artist, known for her easily recognisable female characters and bold, colourful, graphic style of illustration. In our conversation we learn about Marylou’s career journey, discuss some of the most fun commercial projects and dive into the importance of personal work, when doing what you love becomes commercially valid. Marylou also offers tips for sticking to your creative guns and how to weather the storms of freelance life. Mentioned in t...
Dec 08, 2021•45 min•Season 6Ep. 92
In this episode, we speak to Manijeh Verghese who’s the Head of Public Programmes at the Architectural Association and co-founder of Unscene Architecture – a practice that operates across disciplines to reveal the unseen forces that shape our cities. She’s also the co-curator of this year’s British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, with an installation that focused on the privatised public spaces. In our conversation, we speak about Manijeh’s view of architecture and approach to c...
Dec 01, 2021•47 min•Season 6Ep. 91
Allison Filice is a freelance illustrator, designer, and fellow podcaster based in San Francisco. Her style of illustration is graphic with black lines and bold colours and the themes she explores are our inner and outer worlds and illustrating the invisible things. In our conversation, we talk about how Alison got into illustration and how she’s brought her interests in psychology and spirituality into her visual practice. She also reveals her new dream project and discusses the importance of p...
Nov 24, 2021•48 min•Season 6Ep. 90
This week's guest is Monica Ahanonu. She's an LA-based illustrator, known for her bold, colourful vector works, which celebrate beauty in all its forms. Monica worked with clients including Google, Facebook, Peloton, Time Magazine, and Vanity Fair among many, many others. In our conversation, Monica shares her personal story, which features professional gymnastics, surgery on both feet and being in a wheelchair for a period of time, studying animation, getting into Dreamworks and then deciding t...
Nov 17, 2021•48 min•Season 6Ep. 89
Brogan Cox is the creative director at Sebastian Cox. Sebastian is Brogan’s husband, and the two together appeared on the 9th episode of the podcast in November 2018. Brogan is the first-ever returning guest and she’s had lots happening since we last spoke. Not only she released her first furniture collection, but also managed the business throughout the pandemic, moved out of London and had two babies. In our conversation, we get to know Brogan before she joined Sebastian to run the business to...
Nov 10, 2021•55 min•Season 6Ep. 88
