Design Matters (New Episodes)

On this episode Debbie talks with artist and writer Lisa Congdon about how she sometimes felt like an imposter.

Debbie talks to graphic design guru Steven Heller about how to deliver social critiques with a punch.

Debbie Millman talks to Alison Bechdel about how identifying herself as a lesbian when she was young lead her into a career as a cartoonist.

Debbie Millman talks to Target’s Chief Creative Officer Todd Waterbury about how technology is changing consumption and about how smart phones have raised our expectations for how companies should interact with us.

Debbie talks to writer Caroline Paul about her death-defying adventures, and how girls must learn the difference between fear and exhilaration.

Debbie talks to Amanda about her wild and wandering path to the rock stage, and about how behind her artistic ambitions is the drive to feel real.

Debbie Millman talks to Amanda Palmer about her wild and wandering path to the rock stage, and about how behind her artistic ambitions is the drive to feel real.

Debbie Millman talks with Krista Tippett about her religious orientation, her struggle with depression, and about why it's so hard to understand our historical moment.

Debbie talks to branding designers Greg Hahn and Ryan Moore about their process when working with clients as diverse as Netflix and MoMA.

Debbie Millman talks with writer Kate Bolick about society’s historically skeptical view of a single woman.

On this episode Debbie talks to type designer Tobias Frere-Jones about his career and why typefaces are like the air we breathe. "The stretch of time between when you wake up, and when you first interact with some piece of type that someone has drawn, is probably only a couple of seconds."

This week Debbie talks to Scott Clemons about one of the great printers and designers of all time. "This is an individual who not only put great literature into print for the first time, but did so in a format that made literature portable for the first time."

Debbie Millman talks to designer and AIGA president Su Mathews Hale about her efforts to bring more attention to female designers. "So it's not about celebrating them as women, but just, more awareness. There are women out there kicking ass, and people just aren't aware of it."

Debbie Millman talks to Simon about the fruits of good leadership: "To see your team achieve more than they thought they were capable of, that they will advance the organization further than you even imagined — because they believe, and they are greatful, and they're inspired — it's all worth it. All the sacrifices. It always is."

On this episode, Debbie talks with Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey about their qualifications to run Heath Ceramics. "I threw a pot in high school … it was pretty good;" why they don't advertise: "It's better to be interesting than to hire someone to make you sound interesting when you're not;" and their aim to build a holistic business model, one that integrates designing, making, and selling.

Debbie Millman talks to Design Observer co-founder Michael Bierut about why he thinks graphic design is so cool: It all goes back to high school and designing the poster for the school play, "There were other people acting in the play, and that's one way to go, I suppose, but doing the poster for the play, my god..."

Debbie talks to Timothy Goodman about how, after barely getting through high school, he went on to a very visible career that he is still in the process of defining. "I still don't consider myself an illustrator, it's weird....I consider myself a designer."

Debbie talks to Tiffany Shlain about her films, about starting the Webby Awards, and about the growing presence of technology in our lives. "I think checking email, texts, Twitter, all of it, it's so primal."

Debbie talks to author and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields on his previous careers as a lawyer and personal trainer, and on The Good Life. "The Good Life is not a place at which you arrive, it’s a lens through which you see and create."

Many of the most beautiful books to have been designed in recent years are the work of designer Irma Boom. Born in Lochem, the Netherlands in 1960, Boom has won international acclaim for the iconoclastic beauty of her books. Boom attended the AKI Art Academy in Enschede, Netherlands, where she studied graphic design. She then worked at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague for five years before founding Irma Boom Office in Amsterdam in 1991. She works both nationally and internationally in the cultural and commercial sectors; her clients include the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Wiel Arets, Chanel, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, Inside Outside, Museum Boijmans, Zumtobel, Ferrari, Vitra, NAi Publishers, and Camper. Since 1992 she has been a critic at Yale University in the USA, and has both lectured and given workshops worldwide. Her work has received many awards, and she is the youngest person to have ever been honored with a Gutenberg Prize.

Bob Gill is a designer, an illustrator, a copywriter, a film-maker and a teacher. After freelancing in New York, he went to London on a whim in 1960 and stayed for fifteen years. He started Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, a design office with the two brightest designers in England. F/F/G began with two assistants and a secretary. Today, it's called Pentagram, with offices everywhere except Tibet. Gill returned to New York in 1975 to write and design Beatlemania. Gill has had one-man shows in Europe, South America, the Far East and in the US. He was elected to the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and the Designers and Art Directors Association of London recently presented him with their Lifetime Achievement Award.

Alex Center is a Brooklyn based designer who currently works for the small startup, The Coca-Cola Company. He grew up in the town of Oceanside, New York, home to the world's 2nd Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. He once worked for the New York Knicks as a designer where he met both his childhood idol, John Starks and nemesis Isiah Thomas. He has spent most of his professional hours being creative on behalf of the beverage brand vitaminwater. Over the years he has designed billboards, built breakthrough advertising campaigns, launched innovative new products, even written label copy and once met rapper 50 Cent who told him "You must think you're pretty special." He got nervous and instantly started sweating. In 2011, He was named one of the 200 Best Packaging Designers by Luerzers Archive. Today he works across a portfolio of global brands at Coca-Cola that include vitaminwater, smartwater & Powerade. In his personal time he enjoys rooting for New York sports teams that wear orange/blue, doing improv at the UCB Theatre and searching for the freshest prosciutto in NY.

Terry Teachout is a biographer, playwright, librettist, drama critic for The Wall Street Journal, a self-described recovering musician, and America's first arts blogger. In this interview with Debbie Millman, Teachout discusses the early days of blogging, the poetics of theater, what it's like to be a drama critic for The Wall Street Journal, and his new book, a biography of Duke Ellington.

In 1999, Dawn Hancock founded Firebelly Design, a studio that does “work for people we think are making a difference in the world”. With the mantra “Good Design for Good Reason.™” the studio is a pioneer in socially responsible design, and continues to live the principles of sustainable innovation and social responsibility. In 2004, Firebelly Design started the annual Grant for Good program, which “awards a year’s worth of full-scale marketing, design and business planning services to one deserving nonprofit organization.” Shortly after setting up that program, she decided to launch her own organization, which evolved into an entire socially minded enterprise. The Firebelly Foundation, established in 2006, includes several programs, each a reflection of Dawn’s passion and ethic. Under the Foundation’s umbrella, she established the Humboldt Park non-profit Reason to Give and runs the 10-day intensive Camp Firebelly for hungry young designers. Most recently, she started Firebelly University, an entrepreneurial incubator that emphasizes taking risks and doing good. Dawn holds a BFA in Visual Communication from Northern Illinois University and was named one of The 11 Most Generous Designers by Fast Company.

Jennifer Kinon & Bobby Martin are designers and educators who co-founded OCD (Original Champions of Design). Together they develop brand identity systems for a broad range of clients that include, among others, the National Basketball Association, Girl Scouts of the USA and Friends of the High Line. Their work has won awards from the Art Directors Club, D&AD, AIGA365, Type Directors Club and Print as well as Best of Show and Judge's Pick in the 2011 Brand New Awards. Jennifer Kinon recently served as the president of AIGA/NY. Prior to founding OCD, she worked in the New York office of Pentagram with Michael Bierut, served as design director of New York City’s 2012 Olympic Bid and worked as art director for Graphis Inc. She graduated from the University of Michigan and earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Kinon is the first program graduate to join the faculty. Prior to founding OCD, Bobby Martin developed brand experiences from the inside out while leading internal design teams at Nokia, in London, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has also served on the board of directors of AIGA/NY. He teaches identity design at The Cooper Union and recently joined the faculty of his alma mater, the School of Visual Arts, MFA Design Program where he holds a graduate degree. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Oded Ezer is a graphic artist and typographer in Tel Aviv. Ezer is best known for his typographic design fiction projects (such as Biotypography, Typosperma, Typoplastic Surgeries and, more recently, for his series of eight typographic videos for the V&A), his design for the New American Haggadah and SkypeType poster, and for his ongoing contribution to Hebrew type design. Ezer studied graphic design at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem. In 2000 he went on to establish his own independent studio, Oded Ezer Typography, where he specializes in typographic and fonts design. In 2004 Oded founded HebrewTypography type foundry, selling his own typefaces to leading media companies and design studios. Ezer’s projects, posters and graphic works are showcased and published worldwide, and are part of permanent collections of eminent museums such as the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, NYC), Israel Museum of Art (Jerusalem), Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A, London), Museum für Gestaltung (Zürich) and Design Museum Holon (Tel-Aviv). Oded Ezer was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 2009. His first monograph Oded Ezer: The Typographer’s Guide to the Galaxy was published by Die Gestalten Verlag in May 2009.

Named "America's Best Interior Designer" by CNN and Time Magazine, Sheila Bridges founded her own interior design firm in 1994. Sheila has designed residences and offices for many prominent entertainers, entrepreneurs and business professionals including the 8,300 square foot Harlem offices for former President Bill Clinton and his staff. Along with running a successful interior design business, Sheila hosted four seasons of Sheila Bridges Designer Living for the FINE LIVING Network. Sheila has been a regular contributor on NBC's Today Show, has appeared on Oprah and has been profiled in numerous national and international publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, O The Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Ebony, Essence, House & Garden, Traditional Home and Black Enterprise. In 2007, Sheila's passion for interiors inspired her to design furniture and home furnishings under the name Sheila Bridges Home, Inc. Sheila's Harlem Toile De Jouy wallpaper is represented in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's permanent wallpaper collection. Her work has been showcased in many exhibits and museum including The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Museum of Art and Design, both in New York City. She is the author of Furnishing Forward: A Practical Guide to Furnishing for a Lifetime (hardcover in 2002 and paperback in 2005) and The Bald Mermaid: A Memoir, released on August 1st, 2013.

Chip Kidd is a Designer/Writer in New York City (and Stonington, CT, and Palm Beach, FL). His book cover designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked non-stop since 1986, have helped create a revolution in the art of American book packaging. He is the recipient of the National Design Award for Communications, as well at the Use of Photography in Design award from the International Center of Photography. Kidd has published two novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners, as well as Batman: Death By Design, an original graphic novel published by DC Comics and illustrated by Dave Taylor. He is also the author of several books about comics, notably Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross, Batman: Animated, Jack Cole and Plasticman (with Art Spiegelman), Batman Collected, Shazam! The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal, Bat-Manga: The Secret History of Batman in Japan. He is also the co-author and designer of True Prep, the sequel to the beloved Official Preppy Handbook. His newest book Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design is “An excellent introduction to graphic design" according to Milton Glaser. A distinguished and prolific Lecturer, Kidd has spoken at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, RISD and a zillion other places. His 2012 TED talk has garnered over 400,000 hits, and is cited as one of the 'funniest of the year.'

Michael Rock is a founding partner and Creative Director at 2x4 and Director of the Graphic Architecture Project at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. At 2x4, he leads a wide range of projects for Prada, Nike, Kanye West, Barneys New York, Harvard and CCTV. Before starting 2x4, he was co-founder of Information incorporated in Boston. From 1984–91 he was Adjunct Professor of Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and since 1991 he has been a member of the design faculty at the Yale School of Art where he holds the rank of Adjunct Professor. In addition, he was a fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and a contributing editor and graphic design journalist at I.D. Magazine in New York. His writing on design has appeared in publications worldwide. He holds an A.B. in Humanities from Union College and a M.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the recipient of the 1999/2000 Rome Prize in Design from the American Academy in Rome and currently serves on the board of the Academy. He is the author and editor of Multiple Signatures, on the history and development of 21st century design.

Maggie Macnab is a designer, educator and author. She founded Macnab Design in 1981 and received highest honors from the American Advertising Federation ADDY for logo design in 1983. She has continued to receive national and international recognition for creating design that focuses on meaning, beauty and usefulness. Her unique approach integrates symbolic information into design to create effective and accessible visual communications that translate into any language and any culture. She is the author of Design by Nature and Decoding Design.

Jessica Walsh is a designer, art director, and illustrator working in New York City. She is a partner at the New York based design studio, Sagmeister & Walsh and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. Her work has won numerous design awards from the Type Director’s Club, Art Director’s Club, SPD, Print, and Graphis. She has received various celebrated distinctions including Computer Art’s “Top Rising Star in Design”, an Art Director’s Club “Young Guns” award, and Print Magazine’s “New Visual Artist”.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Sara Blake, aka “ZSO”, is an NYC based illustrator, artist, and designer. She graduted from NYU’s Galllatin School of Individualized Study in Graphic Art and Postmodern Studies. Her commercial clients have ranged from Condé Nast to Kobe Bryant to Marc Jacobs, as well as projects for charities. Her work, a combination of hand-drawn illustration and digital enhancements, is a dizzying array of swirling inks and vibrant colors. Based out of the West Village, she is also a freelance art director, currently working for IBM and owner and manager of ZSO-NYC, a small textile company. She currently has two pieces in the ON! exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Debbie Millman spoke to her in the member's lounge of the museum.

Designer, author, critic, co-chair of SVA’s MFA program in design and National Design Award recipient Steven Heller talks to Debbie Millman about ideas from his new ebook, Design Cult: 25 Essays on Design Culture — the first of a series of three titles published exclusively as e-books through the DesignFile consortium from the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. In Design Cult Heller expounds on such disparate topics as Milton Glaser, Japanese masks, velvet touch lettering, anthropomorphism and people in glass apartments. In this podcast, Steven and Debbie discuss how design is both a cult and culture, the dirty decade, the death of a trend and what designers have in common with Harvey Weinstien. On Design Observer: observermedia.designobserver.com/audio/steven-heller/37737/ On iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/desig…lman/id328074695

Clement Mok is an award winning designer, digital pioneer, software publisher, app developer, author and design patent holder. He began his career in the design department at CBS, then moved to Apple, where he joined the Macintosh team. During his five-year stint as a creative director at Apple, he made computers friendlier and more accessible. When he left Apple he started Studio Archetype, which he eventually sold to Sapient Corp. in 1998. He has founded multiple other successful design-related businesses, including CMCD and NetObjects. He is the reason phrases such as experience design, information design, information architecture, interaction design, strategic design, brand identity, interface design and customer experience are part of our lexicon. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/audio/clement-mok/37721/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich is currently principal at his own design firm in NYC specializing in publications, restaurant design and branding. He speaks frequently on typography and type design. He is also the author of several books featuring his own work. His most recent book To All Men of Letters and People of Substance, was selected as one of the AIGA’s 50 best books of 2008. He has received numerous awards from the Art Directors Club, AIGA, D&AD, Communication Arts, Eye, Graphis, How, Print, Type Directors Club and two Webby Awards. He is on the board at the Type Directors Club and was the chairman for the TDC competition of 2011. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/audio/roberto-de-vicq-de-cumptich/37699/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Born in 1970, Sophie Blackall grew up in Australia where she learned to draw on the beach with sticks, which has not altogether helped her sense of perspective. She completed a Bachelor of Design in Sydney in 1992 with honors, which furnished her with useful Letraset, bromide and enlarger machine skills. The following few years were spent painting robotic characters for theme parks, providing the hands for a DIY television show and writing a household hints column. In 2000, Blackall was seduced by New York. She has lived and worked in Brooklyn for the past ten years. Her editorial illustrations have appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Architectural Digest, Town and Country, Vogue and Gourmet, and she has animated nine tv commercials for the UK. In 2002 she illustrated the children’s book, Ruby's Wish by Shirin Yim Bridges (Chronicle Books), which won the Ezra Jack Keats award in 2003. Since then, she has illustrated dozens of other books for children including the book she wrote about her son, Are You Awake? Her "Missed Connections" illustrated series was published in 2011 as Missed Connections: Love Lost and Found.

Jen Bilik is the founder, owner, and overall head honcho of Knock Knock. She grew up in California, moved to NYC, and eventually ended up in publishing. Happenstance landed Jen in coffee-table books, exciting mini-productions unto themselves with graphic designers, illustration sources, four-color printing, authors, and copyediting. While serving as the point person for text on late-breaking books, she inadvertently enjoyed a series of deskside internships in graphic design. After a freelance stint that included editing many books as well as co-authoring two (Todd Oldham: Without Boundaries and Women of Taste: A Collaboration Celebrating Quilt Artists and Chefs), Jen moved to Los Angeles to ponder how she might make her elusive mark. A few years and a million head scratches later, Knock Knock was born out of Jen’s desire to play with paper and wit. With Knock Knock, Jen and the team seek to create products distinctive in concept, content, and design, immune to the disease of committee homogenization.

Marian Deuchars is an illustrator, designer and author. Her three books, Let's Make Some Great Art, Let's Make Some Great Placemat Art, and Let's Make Some Great Fingerprint Art, encourage everyone to create art, and include foolproof instructions on drawing a bicycle. Deuchars studied illustration and printmaking at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London where she graduated in 1989 with a MA with Distinction. She, along with other fellow RCA students, formed an art and design studio in North London where she has created commercial work for publishing, editorial, packaging and advertising clients. Her distinctive hand-lettering has been featured on the cover of Esquire, in the Guardian, throughout Jamie Oliver's cookbooks, and on Royal Mail stamps. (01.11.13) On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Christopher Simmons is a designer, writer, educator, design advocate and principal of the noted San Francisco design office MINE™. He is the author of four books, the most recent being Just Design: Socially Conscious Design for Critical Causes. His work has been exhibited at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art (Japan), the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design and the Smithsonian Institution and is part of the permanent design archives at the Denver Art Museum. Simmons is an adjunct professor of design at the California College of the Arts. He is an active advisor and mentor to Project M and a past president of AIGA San Francisco. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Louise Fili designs specialty food packaging and restaurant identities, and is pazza for tins that speak Italian. A graduate of Skidmore College, Louise designed books at Alfred A. Knopf in the mid 70's, worked for Herb Lubalin from 1976-78 and then joined Random House as Pantheon’s art director in 1978. In her eleven-year tenure as art director of Pantheon Books she reinvented book jacket design. Louise’s passion for 1930s Italian and French poster design migrated from her book covers to her restaurant design. You can read more about Louise in the introduction to her most recent book, Elegantissima. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Rafael Esquer is a native of the Sonora desert of Mexico who has made New York City his home for more than 15 years. As Creative Director at @radical.media, his group’s work in communication design received the National Design Award in 2004 from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He now runs Alfalfa Studio, whose clients have included The New York Times Magazine, Kate Spade New York, Nike, Björk, AIGA, The Philip Johnson Glass House, The Houston Rockets, Tommy Boy Records, Target, IBM, Scholastic, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., Museo del Barrio, and MTV. Some of his work is contained in the Library of Congress poster collection, the Museum of Fine Art in Montreal, the Poster Museum in Poland and the Olympic Museum in Switzerland. Esquer teaches at the School of Visual Arts, and he has taught at the Art Center College of Design and NYU. He has been a visiting artist in the graduate graphic design program at Yale and served on the board of directors for the American Institute of Graphic Arts/New York. (11.30.12) On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Mirko Ilic is a Bosnian-born designer and illustrator. His visual biography Fist to Face has recently been translated into english and published by by Print Magazine. Throughout his illustrious career, Ilic has collaborated with design luminaries like Steven Heller and Milton Glaser. He has designed album covers for Rage Against the Machine, created film titles for You've Got Mail, and written or designed a number of books, including Genius Moves, The Design of Dissent, The Anatomy of Design, and Stop Think Go Do. He has taught advanced design classes at Cooper Union with Milton Glaser and now teaches illustration at the School of Visual Arts. His studio, Mirko Ilic Corp., has received awards from the Society of Publication Designers, the Art Directors Club, I.D., Print, and HOW. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Austin McGhie is the President of the Strategy Group at Sterling Brands. Since he joined Stering Brands in 2002 he has overseen the more than doubling in size of the strategy practice. Austin s an active, working strategist and he is also responsible for the quality of all the strategic output for Sterling Brands. Prior to joining Sterling Brands, Austin was CEO of Young & Rubicam, San Francisco and before that CEO of creatively acclaimed agency Cole and Weber in Seattle. Earlier he had worked his way up the packaged goods ladder to become Regional Director: Sales & Marketing for Kellogg’s Australasia. His recent book, Brand is a Four Letter Word draws on his 30-year career working with some of world’s best-known brands, including Disney, ESPN, Nike, Google, Visa, Expedia, Best Buy, Microsoft, Anheuser-Busch, Abbott and YouTube. In it he tackles the strategic essence of positioning and creating differentiated advantage. He deftly weaves the positioning discussion throughout the book with a series of real-life anecdotes to deliver a crisp, clear view of what it means to build a brand. On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the Designer as Author MFA Program and co-founder of the MFA in design criticism program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is the editor, author or co-author of over 100 books on design, political art and popular culture. His website is Hellerbooks.com. (05.04.12) On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Ken Carbone is a designer, artist, musician, author and teacher. He says he can't spell, can't type and only learned to swim after he turned fifty. He's never won an Oscar, never watched the Simpson's and secretly loves opera. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director of the Carbone Smolan Agency in New York City. Their client list includes: W Hotels, Morgan Stanley, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Canon, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Corbis Images, Architectural Record Magazine and the Musee du Louvre. Their work has been recognized for design excellence and published internationally. He is currently a featured design blogger for Fast Co. magazine. However, he says he would give it all up to play guitar for Nora Jones. (04.27.12) On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/ On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695