Clever with Amy Devers
By: Amy Devers
Language: en
Categories: Arts, Design, History, True Crime
Clever is an award-winning, independent podcast that offers a window into the humanity behind the design of the world around us.In each episode, designer Amy Devers has candid and revealing conversations with the visionaries, culture-makers, and creative forces who shape our world and inform our society. Through a disarming mix of raw candor and honest shop-talk, Clever peels back the layers to unearth the gritty, authentic and sometimes surprising details of their creative paths.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, ta...
Episodes
Ep. 233: Clever Extra - Mick De Giulio on Designing Kitchens That Sing
Dec 16, 2025For over 40+ years, Mick De Giulio has been dedicating his talents to designing kitchens that sing. It all starts with listening, and the results are masterpieces of flow, proportion, beauty, utility and emotional resonance. A devotee of craft, he’s known for having an unusual command of detail and materials. He brings it all together in service of designing dynamic shared spaces that foster connection, care and magic moments. The author of two books, Kitchen Centric and Kitchen, with a third out in 2026, he is an unmatched leader in the field who also supports the industry and elevates the ar...
Duration: 00:49:37Ep. 232: Studio O’s Liz Ogbu on Spatial Justice and the Role of Design in Healing Grief
Dec 02, 2025Designer Liz Ogbu grew up in Oakland as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, but it wasn’t until her first trip to Nigeria at 16 that she grasped the profound role place, family, and cultural context play in shaping who we are—and what we create. Drawn to the creative possibilities of architecture, she studied both architecture and engineering before traveling across Africa on a Watson Fellowship, an experience that sharpened her understanding of who her work is ultimately for: the people most impacted by design.
Today, Liz is catalyzing what design can do—in transforming informal marketplaces, helpin...
Duration: 01:01:12Clever Presents: Everything They Missed
Nov 25, 2025If you caught last week’s interview with Stephanie Tinsley, you heard a compelling, second chapter creative journey in which she summons her inner strengths and plunges herself into the world of investigative podcasting.
This week, we’re presenting an episode of Everything They Missed, Stephanie Tinsley’s gripping new true-crime podcast reexamining the 2007 murder of Danny Harris — a case officially closed, but full of unanswered questions. Episode 1, “Protocol,” exposes a disturbing crime scene, a baffling timeline, and an investigative response that feels far too casual. As Stephanie digs deeper, overlooked evidence and unheard voices suggest the truth may...
Duration: 00:30:50Ep. 231: True Crime Podcaster Stephanie Tinsley on Everything They Missed
Nov 18, 2025When her life collided with a high-profile murder trial, longtime true-crime devotee Stephanie Tinsley found an unexpected path into creative agency and advocacy. After a career in sales and private equity, everything shifted when her husband, attorney Mark Tinsley, was thrust into the spotlight during the Murdaugh murder trials. In this episode, she and Amy discuss the making of Everything They Missed, the inner resources she had to marshal to tell the story well, and why centering human dignity is her driving force in true-crime storytelling.
Images and more from Stephanie Tinsley on our website!
<... Duration: 01:00:58Ep. 230: SVA’s Molly Heintz on Why Design Writing Matters
Nov 04, 2025Molly Heintz grew up fascinated with Greek mythology, and eventually, fashion – drawn to enthralling storytelling and visual aesthetics. She carried this interest in Greek mythology over to studying archeology but when she became burned out in academia, she transitioned to work as a fashion editor, setting her on an entirely new careerpath. From there, she worked in marketing and communications, eventually co-founding Superscript and teaching at SVA, chairing the Masters of Arts in Design Research, Writing & Criticism program. Together with Steven Heller, she’s co-edited The Education of a Design Writer to showcase exemplary design writing and share practical advi...
Duration: 00:48:55Clever Confidential Ep. 4: Olivetti and the Race to Create the First Personal Computer [encore]
Oct 28, 2025Clever 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: Before Silicon Valley, there was Olivetti—an Italian design powerhouse on the brink of changing the world. But just as their revolutionary computer neared completion, tragedy struck.
Visionary leader Adriano Olivetti and brilliant engineer Mario Tchou both died suddenly, their deaths cloaked in secrecy and Cold War paranoia. What really happened to them—and who stood to gain?
Host Amy Devers and writ...
Duration: 00:38:05Ep. 229: Costume Designer Virginia B. Johnson Deploys Deep Craft and Rigorous Cultural Authenticity for Powerful Storytelling
Oct 21, 2025Emmy-nominated costume designer Virginia B. Johnson grew up with a “dragon mother,” which shaped her structured habits and her ability to work smoothly amid chaos. Her childhood was filled with intergenerational connection and crafting - learning sewing, embroidery, knitting and crocheting from a “flock of Filipina aunties,” which fostered not only a sense of community, but a foundational skill for her eventual career. Although she was a pre-med major in college, a serendipitous side gig in a college theater costume shop sparked a passionate pivot to a career that now includes critically-acclaimed and award-winning projects like Hillbilly Elegy and American...
Duration: 00:58:56Ep. 228: Lo-TEK’s Julia Watson on Applying Indigenous Knowledge to Climate-Adaptive Design
Oct 07, 2025Julia Watson, a landscape architect, author, and educator, developed a passion for global cultures and knowledge as a child in Australia, inspired by her parents' National Geographic collection. She has since dedicated her career to exploring traditional knowledge systems and their application to contemporary design challenges like extreme weather, waste management, and population growth.
At the heart of Watson's work is a profound respect for indigenous knowledge systems and a commitment to applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to climate-adaptive design. Through her work with Lo-TEK, including the recently launched Lo-TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism, and her...
Duration: 01:00:56Ep. 74: Aaron Draplin [encore]
Sep 30, 2025Graphic designer Aaron Draplin was born in Michigan and raised on LEGO bricks, pizza nights, punk rock & snowboarding. He spent early adulthood rolling with the “crusty undercurrent of f*ckheads” that lives to snowboard before he ventured to Minneapolis to study design amongst the ghosts of his musical heroes. He’s seen some high-falutin’ stuff at the museum, but the steelyard is where it’s at. He’s all about working hard, making a sh*t whack of money, taking care of his people, and having some fun along the way. Thanks to Adobe Max for hosting us in the Airstrea...
Duration: 00:43:14Ep. 227: Designer Cas Holman is Giving Us All Permission to Play
Sep 23, 2025Cas Holman grew up playing make-believe in the woods and helping her mechanic step-dad fix cars and dune buggies. Always knowing that she didn’t check the stereotypical gender boxes, she never gave any of the other arbitrary “boxes” much credit either, instead preferring to focus on the outside-the-box possibilities that could be accessed through play, curiosity, and exploration. While getting her MFA, she began working on Geemo, a building toy, which kicked-off her life’s mission of designing for play. Since then, she’s established herself as a champion of open-ended play, designing notable play systems like Rigamajig. She’s work...
Duration: 00:57:44Ep. 226: Neuroaesthetics Pioneer Suchi Reddy on How Form Follows Feeling
Sep 09, 2025Architect, artist, and designer, Suchi Reddy, grew up in India where her home played a critical role in her appreciation of how environments shape our experiences. Now, at the helm of her architecture firm + design studio, Reddymade, she’s built a body of work spanning residential, large-scale commercial environments, and immersive interactive public art installations. As a leader in the practice of neuroaesthetics, a neuroscientific study of the impact of art and aesthetics on brain and body, all her work follows her guiding philosophy: “form follows feeling.”
Integrating neuroaesthetics into her architecture and design work is an ongoing...
Duration: 01:00:01Ep. 225: Norman Teague on Cultural Storytelling Through Design
Aug 26, 2025Designer, craftsman, artist and educator, Norman Teague, grew up in Chicago absorbing the sounds, colors, textures and vibes of his “hood,” fancy cars, and Auntie Aretha’s painting. A highschool Drafting elective was his first real step into the design field, which he then traversed with aplomb through an MFA at SAIC, to the Venice Architecture Biennale, to MoMA, to the design team of the Obama Presidential Center. At the helm of his namesake design studio, he’s built a storied, critically acclaimed career, and a powerful legacy of challenging the design canon, cultural storytelling, and educating generations of future d...
Duration: 00:58:28Ep. 158: Bringing Data to Life with Information Designer Giorgia Lupi [encore]
Aug 19, 2025Information designer and advocate for data humanism, Giorgia Lupi, spent her childhood in Italy organizing buttons in her grandmother’s tailor shop, a data collector already in the making. The teenage years had her expressing herself through the punk rock and heavy metal scene in her town. After receiving her master’s degree in Architecture, she began her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano while founding Accurat, an internationally acclaimed data-driven design firm. Now a partner at Pentagram, and author of personal projects such as Dear Data, she continues to push for a humanistic approach to data as a pa...
Duration: 00:45:58Ep. 76: Todd Oldham [encore]
Aug 12, 2025Everyone’s most beloved DIY hero, fashion designer, and creative maverick Todd Oldham grew up experimenting at the family craft table and stabbing his sister (volunteer fit model) with pins. A self-described little weirdo, he learned early on to eschew the arbitrary boundaries that society uses to stratify and separate. He values process over outcome and honors his curiosity while staying committed to excellence. This has earned him brand permission and a ton of wisdom for living a full, creative life.
Images and more from our guest!
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Duration: 00:53:43Ep. 183: Determined by Design’s Kia Weatherspoon is a Champion of Design Equity [encore]
Aug 05, 2025Interior Designer Kia Weatherspoon spent her youth making frequent trips to visit her brother in prison - a deeply dehumanizing experience that left a big impression. In the military, she was deployed shortly after 9/11 and awakened her innate designer in the need to create privacy and comfort. Now, Kia is delivering on a quest to ensure that interior design is accessible for all, especially those in economically challenged communities.
Images, links and more from Kia at cleverpodcast.com
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Duration: 01:01:56Ep. 207: Creative Pep Talk’s Andy J. Pizza on ADHD, the heroine’s journey, & Invisible Things [encore]
Jul 29, 2025Illustrator, graphic designer, speaker and picture book-maker Andy J. Pizza grew up in the Indiana suburbs, the child of two diametrically opposite parents - dad in corporate finance and mom an artist. Often feeling out of place, he learned to cope by drawing and smoking cigarettes, before finding indie music, and from there gig posters and graphic design. Now, he’s a wildly successful illustrator and beloved podcaster who remains exceptionally honest, open, and real about the inner workings of being a neurodivergent creative.
For a transcript and images from Andy head to cleverpodcast.com.
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Duration: 00:57:10Ep. 189: Clodagh on the Twist & Turns of Her Extraordinary Life & Career [encore]
Jul 22, 2025Interior designer, Clodagh, grew up in the Irish countryside running barefoot through the woods, riding horses, and rebelling. A near death experience lit a fire in her to pursue fashion and she opened her first shop at age 17. After a career pivot and 50+ years of designing spaces that make people feel good, she’s considered a true pioneer in biophilic and sustainable design, and a living legend.
Images, links and more from Clodagh on cleverpodcast.com!
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Duration: 00:50:07Ep. 140: Creative Reaction Lab CEO Antionette Carroll [encore]
Jul 15, 2025Designer Antionette Carroll, born, raised, and based in St. Louis, Missouri, is a natural born leader who has been on a mission since day one. She’s the founder of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit educating and deploying youth to challenge racial and health inequities impacting Black and Latinx populations. Antionette co-pioneered an award-winning form of creative problem solving called Equity-Centered Community Design and in doing so has received several recognitions and awards including being named an ADL and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow, TED Fellow, SXSW Community Service Honoree, and Essence Magazine Woke 100, among many others. She’s also...
Duration: 00:52:24Ep. 157: Designing for Dramatic Effect with Yasmine Ghoniem [encore]
Jul 08, 2025Interior designer and self-described “cocktail,” Yasmine Ghoniem has lived a whirlwind life across continents, cultures, and careers. Born in Kuwait to Australian and Egyptian parents, she lived throughout the Middle East before moving to the United States to attend Savannah College of Art and Design. She always had a deep love for music, feeling destined to be a performer, she formed indie rock bands with family and friends throughout the years. Yasmine eventually put down roots in Sydney, Australia where she founded and leads YSG Studio, an interior design studio focusing on residential and hospitality. She brings her eclectic infl...
Duration: 00:54:12Ep. 188: Afrotectopia’s Ari Melenciano on Synthesizing, Art, Tech, Epigenetics, and more [encore]
Jul 01, 2025Artist 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!
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Duration: 00:47:55Ep. 191: Rodolfo Agrella Uses Laughter as a Powerful Design Tool [encore]
Jun 24, 2025Multidisciplinary 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!
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Duration: 00:59:11Ep. 211: The Soulful Renovations of House of Rolison [encore]
Jun 17, 2025Co-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 and deep reverence for their crafts and trades crew, ensures that each new project has room for magic and a whole lot of so...
Duration: 00:47:16Ep. 160: Peeking into the Creative World of Pop-Polymath Willo Perron [encore]
Jun 10, 2025Live 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’s biggest stars, including Kanye, Drake, Lady Gaga, and St. Vincent. With partner Brian Roettinger, he’s built a multidisciplinary design...
Duration: 00:59:45Ep. 97: Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr. Sahar Yousef [encore]
Jun 03, 2025Cognitive 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 draining your brain.
Images and more from our guest!
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Duration: 00:27:35Ep. 218: The Exquisite Love, Magic and Maximalism of Londubh Studio [encore]
May 27, 2025Custom 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 the duo, often considered the design world’s secret weapon, are translating their wildness, love, magic, and the sacred, through exquisite artistry and pristine cr...
Duration: 01:01:45Ep. 224: Charlotte McCurdy is Charting the Path to a Very Desirable Bio-Based Future
May 13, 2025Charlotte 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 a bright and desirable world that is not about personal sacrifices or backward motion. We discuss regenerative materials, shifting manufacturing paradigms, and the exponential hopefu...
Duration: 00:56:53Ep. 223: Dan Heath's "Unnatural" Curiosity Provides a Feast of Revelatory Insights
Apr 29, 2025Dan 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 up some surprising universal themes on relationships, purpose, and the meaning of wor...
Duration: 00:58:36Ep. 122: Design Advocate Jessie McGuire [encore]
Apr 22, 2025Branding & 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 constitution, nbd.
Images, links and more from Jessie McGuire!
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Duration: 01:10:05Ep. 215: Kinfolk’s Idris Brewster Uses AR to Empower Collective Memory Building [encore]
Apr 15, 2025Artist, 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 and Executive Director of Kinfolk Foundation, he’s harnessing augmented reality, location-based technology, and community to engage in placing digital monuments in...
Duration: 00:57:09Ep. 222: Stop Disrupting, Start Caring with ustwo’s CEO Nicki Sprinz
Apr 01, 2025CEO 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 ustwo a decade ago, Nicki has risen through the ranks to become CEO, all while closing the gender pay gap...
Duration: 00:59:41Ep. 221: Blu Dot’s John Christakos on Combining Artistic Vision and Business Acumen
Mar 18, 2025John 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 into an overwhelming success with a dynamic retail presence (online and IRL), prestigious design awards, a devoted following, an...
Duration: 00:56:31Ep 45: Fashion Designer Mary Ping [encore]
Mar 11, 2025Fashion 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 people out.
Transcript, Images and more from Mary Ping!
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Duration: 00:46:03Ep. 220: Designing Belonging: Alma Jimenez Lopez on Art, Heritage, and Home
Feb 25, 2025Alma 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 fashion, Alma’s journey is one of vision, healing, and unstoppable drive. This conversation is bold, heartfelt, and full of light.
Head to cleve...
Duration: 01:00:48Clever Confidential Ep. 6: The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Florence Broadhurst
Feb 11, 2025Clever 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 neighborhood to the dark corners of a crime scene that defies easy explanation.
W...
Duration: 00:25:22Clever Confidential Ep. 2: The Supernatural Beginnings of The Bradbury Building [encore]
Feb 04, 2025In 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 supernatural?
Clever Confidential is Clever’s offshoot series, where we dig into th...
Duration: 01:00:21Clever Confidential Ep. 5: Eileen Gray and the Aura of E-1027 [encore]
Jan 28, 2025Clever 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 darkest and most beautiful moments. Hosts Amy Devers and Andrew Wagner uncover the secr...
Duration: 00:37:17Clever Confidential Ep. 4: Olivetti and the Race to Create the First Personal Computer [encore]
Jan 21, 2025Clever 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.
Before Silicon Valley, there was Olivetti—an Italian design powerhouse on the brink of changing the world. But just as their revolutionary computer neared completion, tragedy struck.
Visionary leader Adriano Olivetti and brilliant engineer Mario Tchou both died suddenly, their deaths cloaked in secrecy and Cold War paranoia. What really happened to them—and who stood to gain?
Host Amy Devers and writer...
Duration: 00:38:05Clever Confidential Ep. 3: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Murders at Taliesin [encore]
Jan 14, 2025Clever 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 mystery to this day. But there are so many other questions. Why do...
Duration: 00:29:16Clever Confidential Ep. 1: The Strange Disappearance of Norman Jaffe [encore]
Jan 07, 2025On 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 hiding under a glossy topcoat of respectable legacy.
Images and more about...
Duration: 01:01:48Ep. 212: HODINKEE’s Ben Clymer on Agency, Permanence, and the Talismans of Life [rebroadcast]
Dec 17, 2024Ben 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 get a Master’s in Journalism. Since then, HODINKEE has led to creative collaborations with the...
Duration: 00:56:23Clever Confidential Ep. 5: Eileen Gray and the Aura of E-1027
Nov 26, 2024Clever 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 darkest and most beautiful moments. Hosts Amy Devers and Andrew Wagner uncover the secr...
Duration: 00:37:16Ep. 219: Federico Negro on Making Tools to Empower and Scale Sustainable Design
Nov 12, 2024Founder 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 Wework during the company’s rapid expansion, and witnessed first-hand the pain points and environmental challenges that c...
Duration: 01:03:47Clever Confidential Ep. 4: Olivetti and the Race to Create the First Personal Computer
Oct 29, 2024Clever 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.
Before Silicon Valley, there was Olivetti—an Italian design powerhouse on the brink of changing the world. But just as their revolutionary computer neared completion, tragedy struck.
Visionary leader Adriano Olivetti and brilliant engineer Mario Tchou both died suddenly, their deaths cloaked in secrecy and Cold War paranoia. What really happened to them—and who stood to gain?
Host Amy Devers and writer Andrew...
Duration: 00:38:05Ep. 218: The Exquisite Love, Magic and Maximalism of Londubh Studio
Oct 16, 2024Custom 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 the duo, oft considered the design world’s secret weapon, are translating their wildness, love, magic, and the sacred, through exquisite artistry and pristine cr...
Duration: 01:01:45Ep. 170: Deem Journal’s Nu Goteh on Facilitating All Things Awesome [rebroadcast]
Oct 01, 2024Co-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 comfortable in his talent for adding value and creating d...
Duration: 01:30:33Ep. 217: Design Researcher Amanda Schneider on the Art of Contextualizing the Data
Sep 17, 2024Founder 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 while also bridging the communication gap between creatives and the business sector. A keynote speaker (catch her recent TEDx talk) and the host of the...
Duration: 00:40:32Ep. 204: Cey Adams on Designing and Defining Hip-Hop Visual Culture [Rebroadcast]
Sep 10, 2024Legendary 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 good friends the Beastie Boys, and asked Method Man for parenting advice - all in a day...
Duration: 01:01:27Ep. 213: The Quiet Rebellion of Biodesigner Natsai Audrey Chieza [Rebroadcast]
Sep 03, 2024Natsai 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 pursued a postgraduate program in Material Futures that set her on a path of designing with bacteria. Now, she’s founded Fa...
Duration: 01:05:23Ep. 199: Twenty Thousand Hertz’s Dallas Taylor on Sound, Silence, and Stories [Rebroadcast]
Aug 27, 2024Sound 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 recognizable and interesting sounds.
Images and more from Dallas Taylor on c...
Duration: 01:01:22Ep. 205: Ana Arriola-Kanada’s Heroic Path to Ethical AI & Platform Whispering [Rebroadcast]
Aug 20, 2024Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Product Specialist, Ana Arriola-Kanada, grew up in ‘the valley’ just north of LA, watching Robotech and working in the family shop. She moved to Japan just after HS to work in Anime. An autodidact driven by a powerful work ethic and growth mindset, she propelled through all facets of tech & design playing key roles in the development of web design, emoji (Adobe), mobile computing and the original iPhone (Apple), UI/UX, PlayStation (Sony)…etc. It was Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos who tripped her ethical alarm wire, which, as traumatic as that was, has led Ana to the...
Duration: 01:04:10Ep. 208: ICRAVE’s Lionel Ohayon on Designing the Las Vegas Sphere and Other Brave Ideas [Rebroadcast]
Aug 13, 2024Lionel Ohayon was born in Canada to a family spanning Morocco, Israel, and Spain. This multi-cultural upbringing armed him with the ability to synthesize different inputs and understand complex topics from an early age, and an innate appreciation of hospitality. He founded ICRAVE as a design-build startup in 2002, and several ground-breaking projects later, is now leading the charge in reinventing hospitality experiences like the immersive and otherworldly Las Vegas Sphere, and the anxiety-reducing David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Head to cleverpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode, images, a...
Duration: 01:08:22Ep. 206: Love by Design’s Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh on the 6 Ingredients of Emergent Love [Rebroadcast]
Aug 06, 2024Here’s my Valentine to you, Clever listeners. This episode is all about love and how to intentionally design and build the long-lasting, mutually fulfilling, loving relationships you desire. Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, author of Love By Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love unpacks her paradigm-shifting model of Emergent Love, and helps us with exercises and epiphany-inducing re-defines of attraction, respect, trust, compassion, shared vision, and loving behaviors. Along the way we learn to spot and avoid the common misfires and disconnects, and how this new way of thinking and behaving serves to benefit ALL of your relationships. Wh...
Duration: 00:55:57Ep. 202: COOL HUNTING’s Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten on Exploring Uncharted Territory [Rebroadcast]
Jul 30, 2024Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten fell in love at first sight when they met in the office of Razorfish in the 90’s. But before then, Josh grew up straddling Miami and Vermont, where he gained experience navigating different worlds and perspectives. While Evan, growing up in Minneapolis, was bursting with curiosity, learning languages, and pushing to travel as often as possible. Their chemistry and compatibility ultimately led to the founding of COOL HUNTING. Now after 20 years, they are still exploring the edges of art, design, cars, craft, tech and travel, while also leading the charge (custom project with Ferrari bl...
Duration: 00:57:48Ep. 200: A Peek Inside Patricia Urquiola’s Curious and Magical Mind [rebroadcast]
Jul 23, 2024For our very special 200th episode, we’re joined by world-renowned architect and designer Patricia Urquiola. While she’s now known internationally, growing up in Spain as the middle child she was often forgotten. She found a certain joy in this freedom of being “in between”. Declaring she’d be an architect at age 13, she went on to study with the pioneers of the time, growing her roots in systemic thinking and Magic Rationalism. Now, Studio Urquiola is a powerhouse of international design. Having already made an indelible mark on the built world, Patricia continues to be a trailblazer of the “in...
Duration: 01:02:52Ep. 209: Holly Howard on Business Growth for Creative Entrepreneurs [rebroadcast]
Jul 16, 2024Polymath Holly Howard has lived many lives. A former professional ballet dancer, bassoonist, medical researcher and board-certified music therapist, she’s pulled from science, art, and design to create a one-of-a-kind path for herself. Now, she runs the successful culture-first business consultancy, Ask Holly How, to help creative entrepreneurs grow personally and professionally, and better understand that business and creativity are more powerful when wielded together.
Head to cleverpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode, images, and more!
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Duration: 00:57:21Ep. 181: Furniture Designer Jomo Tariku is Changing the Canon [rebroadcast]
Jul 11, 2024Furniture designer Jomo Tariku grew up in Ethiopia in a home full of eclectic objects collected via his dad’s travels. In the U.S. with an Industrial Design degree, he embarked on a mission to change the western canon by designing modern furniture through an African lens. After initial heartbreak and years as a data scientist, Jomo Furniture is now in museums and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever!
Images, links and more from Jomo!
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Duration: 00:55:41Clever Presents - Cal Newport on Doing Less, from Say More
Jun 25, 2024Sharing a preview of the Say More podcast, where, in a special series, Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung is opening up the conversation about stress and burnout to help listeners feel less alone and inspired to get help. In this episode, computer scientist and bestselling author Cal Newport says we’ve been thinking about productivity all wrong. Shirley talks to Cal about the ways the modern office worker is primed for professional burnout, how hybrid work makes it worse, and what we can do about it. He’s not a luddite by any stretch, but he says we should quit...
Duration: 00:26:31Ep. 216: Clever Extra - Interior Designer Kerrie Kelly on Uniting Beauty and Function
Jun 18, 2024Interior designer and lifestyle expert Kerrie Kelly is known for her distinctive California-inspired design philosophy. She got her start at Ralph Lauren Home and then moved to Del Webb Corporation where she was a boots-on-the-ground high-volume designer of homes, before founding her multi-faceted design studio, Kerrie Kelly Design Lab, in 1995. A graduate of both design and business school, she blends both of these skill sets in her work as an interior designer, trendspotter, and brand partner. She’s driven by a commitment to bringing thoughtful design into everyday life, which for Kerrie means blending beauty with functionality and translating th...
Duration: 00:40:02Ep. 215: Kinfolk’s Idris Brewster Uses AR to Empower Collective Memory Building
Jun 11, 2024Artist, 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 and Executive Director of Kinfolk Foundation, he’s harnessing augmented reality, location-based technology, and community to engage in placing digital monuments in...
Duration: 00:57:09Ep. 214: Architect & Designer Marc Thorpe on Relationships, Responsibility, and Uncertainty
May 28, 2024Architect & designer Marc Thorpe spent his youth, just outside of Washington DC, drawing and learning to navigate a destabilizing home environment. The son of two academics, he learned discipline, rigor, and resilience from his mom, while his dad, a critical thinker, taught him to challenge and interrogate everything. Always knowing he’d be an artist, he studied Industrial Design and Architecture, and instinctively flexed his ability to seize every opportunity, as well as create them from scratch. Now, as the founder & principal of Marc Thorpe Design, a multidisciplinary studio, and (along with Claire Pijoulat) Edifice Upstate, a design & build ar...
Duration: 00:59:23Ep. 213: The Quiet Rebellion of Biodesigner Natsai Audrey Chieza
May 14, 2024Natsai 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 pursued a postgraduate program in Material Futures that set her on a path of designing with bacteria. Now, she’s founded Fa...
Duration: 01:05:23Clever Presents - Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith
May 07, 2024Sharing a preview of Tools and Weapons, the podcast hosted by Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. Brad speaks with leaders who are at the intersection of the promise and the peril of the digital age, exploring the role technology plays in helping to solve some of society’s biggest challenges. This episode features Yves Ubelmann, a technologist, artist, and architect who is on a mission to digitally preserve the world’s cultural and natural heritage. He is the founder and CEO of Iconem, a company that creates stunning 3D models of endangered sites and environments. In this e...
Duration: 00:19:37Ep. 212: HODINKEE’s Ben Clymer on Agency, Permanence, and the Talismans of Life
Apr 30, 2024Ben 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 get a Master’s in Journalism. Since then, HODINKEE has led to creative collaborations with the...
Duration: 00:56:23Ep. 211: The Soulful Renovations of House of Rolison
Apr 16, 2024Co-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 and deep reverence for their crafts and trades crew, ensures that each new project has room for magic and a whole lot of so...
Duration: 00:47:16Ep. 210: Marva Griffin Wilshire on 25 years of Salone Satellite and Showcasing Creativity
Apr 02, 2024Frequently referred to as the godmother of Italian design, Marva Griffin Wilshire, grew up in a large family in Venezuela, reading House & Garden and rearranging the furniture. Drawn to Italy in the 1970’s, she landed a job as a secretary for Piero Busnelli, founder of B&B Italia, which opened up her entire world. She was introduced to architects and designers, getting a first-hand look at the inner workings of Italian design. Since then, she’s committed herself to giving young designers a chance to showcase their creativity – most notably by founding the wildly successful SaloneSatellite which welcomes emerging design...
Duration: 00:38:53Ep 209: Holly Howard on Business Growth for Creative Entrepreneurs
Mar 19, 2024Polymath Holly Howard has lived many lives. A former professional ballet dancer, bassoonist, medical researcher and board-certified music therapist, she’s pulled from science, art, and design to create a one-of-a-kind path for herself. Now, she runs the successful culture-first business consultancy, Ask Holly How, to help creative entrepreneurs grow personally and professionally, and better understand that business and creativity are more powerful when wielded together.
Head to cleverpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode, images, resources, and more!
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Duration: 00:57:21Ep. 208: ICRAVE’s Lionel Ohayon on Designing the Las Vegas Sphere and Other Brave Ideas
Mar 05, 2024Lionel Ohayon was born in Canada to a family spanning Morocco, Israel, and Spain. This multi-cultural upbringing armed him with the ability to synthesize different inputs and understand complex topics from an early age, and an innate appreciation of hospitality. He founded ICRAVE as a design-build startup in 2002, and several ground-breaking projects later, is now leading the charge in reinventing hospitality experiences like the immersive and otherworldly Las Vegas Sphere, and the anxiety-reducing David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Head to cleverpodcast.com for a transcript of this episode, images...
Duration: 01:08:22Ep. 207: Creative Pep Talk’s Andy J. Pizza on ADHD, the Heroine’s Journey, & Invisible Things
Feb 20, 2024Illustrator, graphic designer, speaker and picture book-maker Andy J. Pizza grew up in the Indiana suburbs, the child of two diametrically opposite parents - dad in corporate finance and mom an artist. Often feeling out of place, he learned to cope by drawing and smoking cigarettes, before finding indie music, and from there gig posters and graphic design. Now, he’s a wildly successful illustrator and beloved podcaster who remains exceptionally honest, open, and real about the inner workings of being a neurodivergent creative.
For a transcript and images from Andy head to cleverpodcast.com.
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Duration: 00:57:10Ep. 206: Love by Design’s Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh on the 6 Ingredients of Emergent Love
Feb 06, 2024Here’s my Valentine to you, Clever listeners. This episode is all about love and how to intentionally design and build the long-lasting, mutually fulfilling, loving relationships you desire. Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, author of Love By Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love unpacks her paradigm-shifting model of Emergent Love, and helps us with exercises and epiphany-inducing re-defines of attraction, respect, trust, compassion, shared vision, and loving behaviors. Along the way we learn to spot and avoid the common misfires and disconnects, and how this new way of thinking and behaving serves to benefit ALL of your relationships. Wh...
Duration: 00:55:57Ep. 175: Artist Nancy Baker Cahill on Augmented Reality and Embodied Consciousness [Rebroadcast]
Dec 26, 2023Nancy Baker Cahill spent her youth gaining an appreciation for both civic engagement and dark humor. Her creative passions were ignited with a powerful youth arts program, but then went dormant for a difficult spell in adulthood. Now, fully in her stride as a new media artist known for work that examines power, selfhood, and embodied consciousness, her AR artwork can be found covering Time Square, at international festivals, and floating in unexpected, intangible places, worldwide.
Images, links and more from Nancy!
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Duration: 01:10:29Ep. 141: Hip Hop Architect Michael Ford [Rebroadcast]
Dec 19, 2023Michael Ford is the designer and activist known as The Hip Hop Architect. Born in Highland Park, Michigan the son of a minister, Michael was raised to be inquisitive and question the world around him to find deeper truth. Early on, he found his passion for design and music, expanding it into a practice of architecture and design through the lens of Hip Hop culture. This led to his founding of The Hip Hop Architecture Camp®, a camp that positions Hip Hop Culture as a catalyst to introduce architecture and design to underrepresented youth. He’s also working with som...
Duration: 01:13:20Ep. 205: Ana Arriola-Kanada’s Heroic Path to Ethical AI & Platform Whispering
Dec 12, 2023Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Product Specialist, Ana Arriola-Kanada, grew up in ‘the valley’ just north of LA, watching Robotech and working in the family shop. She moved to Japan just after HS to work in Anime. An autodidact driven by a powerful work ethic and growth mindset, she propelled through all facets of tech & design playing key roles in the development of web design, emoji (Adobe), mobile computing and the original iPhone (Apple), UI/UX, PlayStation (Sony)…etc. It was Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos who tripped her ethical alarm wire, which, as traumatic as that was, has led Ana to the...
Duration: 01:04:10Ep. 132: Artist Malene Barnett [Rebroadcast]
Dec 05, 2023Malene Barnett is an artist, activist, speaker and legacy maker working in one-of-a-kind ceramic sculptures and bespoke textiles. Raised in Norwalk, Connecticut, she’s an authority on the cultural traditions and practices of art in the African diaspora and how it translates into the modern black experience. She founded the Black Artists + Designers Guild, and is on a mission to use art as a tool to expand the conversation around marginalization in the arts and create greater opportunities for inclusion.
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Duration: 01:06:20Ep. 204: Cey Adams on Designing and Defining Hip-Hop Visual Culture
Nov 28, 2023Legendary 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 good friends the Beastie Boys, and asked Method Man for parenting advice - all in a day...
Duration: 01:01:27Ep 119: Lettering Artist Lauren Hom [Rebroadcast]
Nov 21, 2023Lettering artist Lauren Hom was a super shy and studious child. Her crafty mother would make snacks with her initials cut out of cheese slices. In her teenage years, her first love led to slipping grades and the realization that her creativity, not science, would be her path to college. She sold her parents on going to art school with the promise of learning the advertising business. After a brief stint at an ad agency, she started freelancing with her art, and now has made an art out of freelancing.
Images, links and more from Lauren Hom<...
Duration: 01:01:33Ep. 203: Coil + Drift’s John Sorensen-Jolink on Movement as a Medium
Nov 14, 2023Lighting Designer John Sorensen-Jolink grew up in Portland, filling his days with soccer, youth symphony, horseback riding, and taking cabs between schools to train for a future as a pro dancer. After 10 years of performing with the best of the best (think Twyla Tharp et al) he answered an urge to learn how to design and make objects grounded in human connection. Now Coil + Drift is celebrated for its material forward honesty and graceful gesture with light and space. I guess you can take the designer out of dance, but you can’t take the dancer out of the de...
Duration: 01:03:35Clever Presents: Alternative Design - Crafting Culture and Belonging P.1
Nov 07, 2023In this special episode we’re introducing listeners to Alternative Design, an original podcast from Kimball International. Alternative Design explores the power of foresight in design to create future-ready spaces. In each episode, host Kaelynn Reid, an Interior Designer and Certified Futurist, talks to diverse voices to discover the ways our world is changing and uncover insights that will influence the built environment of tomorrow.
In this special two-part episode of the Alternative Design podcast, we're taking a tour of the craft beer world, starting with my local brewery, Ferndale Project. Dayne Bartscht joins us as th...
Duration: 00:28:20Ep. 202: COOL HUNTING’s Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten on Exploring Uncharted Territory
Oct 31, 2023Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten fell in love at first sight when they met in the office of Razorfish in the 90’s. But before then, Josh grew up straddling Miami and Vermont, where he gained experience navigating different worlds and perspectives. While Evan, growing up in Minneapolis, was bursting with curiosity, learning languages, and pushing to travel as often as possible. Their chemistry and compatibility ultimately led to the founding of COOL HUNTING. Now after 20 years, they are still exploring the edges of art, design, cars, craft, tech and travel, while also leading the charge (custom project with Ferrari bl...
Duration: 00:57:48Ep. 201: Clever Extra - Shifting Values, Evolving Leadership
Oct 24, 2023For this extra special episode, we’re taking a practical look at the modern leadership methods and values that support a thriving culture and new vision of prosperity. We’re joined by four exceptional leaders - Natalie Nixon, Creativity Strategist & CEO of Figure 8 Thinking, Jenny Vazquez-Newsum, author of “Untapped Leadership: Harnessing the Power of Underrepresented Leaders” and CEO of Untapped Leaders, Jen Ruckel, Senior VP of Sales at 3form, and Karli Slocum, VP of Product and Marketing at 3form. Together, they unpack what inquiry-based leadership can look like, discuss the importance of contextual agility, define mentorship vs sponsorship, map out conc...
Duration: 01:00:30Ep. 200: A Peek Inside Patricia Urquiola’s Curious and Magical Mind
Oct 17, 2023For our very special 200th episode, we’re joined by world-renowned architect and designer Patricia Urquiola. While she’s now known internationally, growing up in Spain as the middle child she was often forgotten. She found a certain joy in this freedom of being “in between”. Declaring she’d be an architect at age 13, she went on to study with the pioneers of the time, growing her roots in systemic thinking and Magic Rationalism. Now, Studio Urquiola is a powerhouse of international design. Having already made an indelible mark on the built world, Patricia continues to be a trailblazer of the “in...
Duration: 01:02:52Ep. 186: Artist & Humanitarian Julian Lennon on Charting His Own Creative Roadmap [Rebroadcast]
Oct 10, 2023Julian Lennon’s adventurous spirit sprung from a semi-nomadic youth in the English countryside where he spent his days as a farm hand and climbing trees. He navigated the tricky world of being John Lennon’s son by finding peace in nature, which he channels into his many creative endeavors. Through music, photography, film, books, and philanthropy, Julian’s path reflects his dynamic, curious spirit.
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Duration: 01:03:27Ep. 199: Twenty Thousand Hertz’s Dallas Taylor on Sound, Silence, and Stories
Oct 03, 2023Sound 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 recognizable and interesting sounds.
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Duration: 01:01:22Ep. 162: Building a Colorful Second Act with Illustrator Yuko Shimizu [Rebroadcast]
Sep 26, 2023Illustrator Yuko Shimizu was born in Tokyo, Japan and began drawing from an early age. As a preteen, her family moved from Japan to the US, a huge culture shock that included learning an entirely new language and navigating social norms in 7th grade. This experience gave her an even deeper love for drawing - something that transcends any language barrier. After college, Yuko spent 11 years at a prestigious corporate PR firm in Japan before she decided to pursue her lifelong dream. At 34, she enrolled in art school in New York City. Since then, she’s received numerous accolades fo...
Duration: 01:05:06Ep. 198: 2x4’s Co-Founder Georgie Stout on Message Over Medium
Sep 19, 2023Designer and 2x4 co-founder Georgianna Stout lived in Paris before the bumpy transition to the US for elementary school. Unhappy at school, she graduated early and tried on Parsons for fashion design, but it wasn’t the right fit. At RISD, she found her people. The next few years were filled with deep connections, growth, and joy; eventually leading to a fruitful collaboration with her co-founders and the formalization of 2x4. Now 30 years in, 2x4 has grown to a team of 50 and has earned a stellar reputation supporting prestigious brands from Prada to MoMa. Georgie’s unique ability to build...
Duration: 01:21:40Ep. 197: Clever Extra - The Romance of Creative Alchemist Bryan Costello
Sep 12, 2023Designer Bryan Costello grew up in an idyllic small town in North Carolina, obsessed with soccer. A self-described “hopeless romantic” he found school a bore and felt that life really began once he left college and moved to Raleigh. He dabbled in graphic design, worked in restaurants, and enjoyed his freedom. Then, he got the job that changed everything - in an antique shop. Since then, he’s opened a retail concept with epic parties, created a deeply moving and insightful fictional magazine, transformed Heights House Hotel, and… discovered his creative animal.
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Duration: 01:00:37Ep. 196: Bradley L. Bowers on the Magic of Blending Technology and Craft
Sep 05, 2023Bradley L. Bowers spent his youth hanging in the basement with Grandma Dorothy while she upholstered furniture. Always outspoken, in High School he found that only the art teachers embraced his questioning of the status quo. A fruitful spell at SCAD earned him Industrial & Furniture Design degrees + loads of skills, but it’s by tuning his antenna to the ‘little Yodas everywhere’ that he gathers his wisdom.
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Duration: 01:10:30Ep 100: Designer & Queer Eye Star Bobby Berk [Rebroadcast]
Aug 29, 2023Interior designer and star of Netflix’s Queer Eye, Bobby Berk grew up in the rural south, feeling like an outsider. Before coming out as gay, he struggled with anger, depression and tension with his religious family. After running away from home and coming out, he made a break for Denver, and then NYC. Always designing opportunities for himself, he found his way to e-tailing, then retailing and the Bobby Berk Home brand was born. Oh! He used to be the singer of a Christian rock band called His Voice.
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Ep. 190: Germane Barnes Practices Architecture with the Prowess of a Winning Point Guard [Rebroadcast]
Aug 22, 2023Germane Barnes knew he’d be an architect at age 6, before he even knew what that meant.
Growing up playing basketball, he honed skills he now deftly deploys in his creative practice.
After a tumultuous period spurred by devastating loss, he has taken the architecture world by storm. He’s swept the most prestigious prizes and is poised to become one of the most notable architects of our lifetime.
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Duration: 01:07:04Ep. 104: Graphic Designer & Artist Paula Scher [Rebroadcast]
Aug 15, 2023Graphic designer Paula Scher grew up drawing pictures to escape a turbulent home life. Later, rebelling against suburban existence, she ventured to art school and became a hippie, and then art directed album covers in NYC. She’s been a partner at Pentagram since ‘91. In her ~50 years in the business she has blazed trails, upended boys’ clubs, committed “typographical blasphemy,” given form to the zeitgeist, and earned herself a reputation as one of the world’s most influential graphic designers.
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Thanks to Adobe MAX for hosting us in the Airstream pod...
Duration: 00:55:22Ep. 64: Justina Blakeney [Rebroadcast]
Aug 08, 2023Designer, artist, author and influencer Justina Blakeney, spent her youth teaching art to abused/neglected teenage girls at a residential treatment program run by her parents, where she witnessed the healing power of art and kindness. After formative years in Switzerland and Italy, she settled in Los Angeles and harnessed the Internet to build Jungalow, an immensely popular lifestyle brand inspired by her travels and her multicultural background, fueled by a deep belief in the empowering magic of art and kindness.
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Duration: 01:28:24Ep. 195: Clever Extra - Beyond Boomerang: Peeking Beneath the Surface of Era-Defining Patterns
Aug 01, 2023On this Clever Extra, we peek under the surface of the most defining patterns of the last century. Formica is a decorative laminate so ubiquitous its patterns have come to serve as a record of history and visual representation of our collective consciousness through the years. Meghan Howell, Creative Director with Formica, and Art Director and Editor of the book Beyond Boomerang: A Celebration of 110 Years of Formica Patterns by Shawn Patrick Tubb, takes us on the Formica team’s investigative mission into the backstories, and shares the revelations, controversies, and questions contained within our most recognizable surfaces.
...
Duration: 00:36:32Ep. 136: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky [Rebroadcast]
Jul 25, 2023Airbnb Co-Founder & CEO, Brian Chesky, grew up playing hockey and asking Santa for poorly designed toys so he could redesign them. A self-described “peculiar” kid obsessed with art, no one pegged him as a future CEO. He studied industrial design at RISD where he also met his future business partner. After soaring global success, Airbnb, having suffered dramatic losses due to coronavirus, is getting back to its creative values and making meaningful contributions in the modern crisis of connection.
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Ep. 7: Terry Crews [Rebroadcast]
Jul 18, 2023OK, first of all, we know the question you're asking: why are we talking to Terry Crews on a design podcast? We first spotted him on the scene during this year's Milan Design Week and then again in NYC for NYCxDesign... and that got us thinking the same question as you—what's he doing hanging around the design scene? Well... besides being a former NFL linebacker, and an actor, writer, and many other things, Terry Crews is also a talented artist and a design patron. As you can imagine, we were excited and we knew we had to get th...
Duration: 00:59:18Ep. 165: Talking Shop with Podcast Powerhouse Avery Trufelman [Rebroadcast]
Jul 11, 2023Brooklyn-based podcaster Avery Trufelman has radio in her DNA. Her parents met while working at WNYC, so from birth she was nurtured with love and appreciation for radio. As a teenager, Avery took to expressing herself through wild, quirky thrifted fashion ensembles, much to the confusion of her peers. After cutting her audio teeth in college radio, Avery submitted a midnight application to intern at 99% Invisible and moved across the country to work in a closet with Roman Mars in beautiful downtown Oakland. When 99pi and the field of podcasting blew up, Avery was on the rocket ship. She’s...
Duration: 01:12:04Ep. 84: Streetwear Designer Bobby Hundreds [Rebroadcast]
Jul 05, 2023Streetwear designer Bobby Hundreds grew up as a minority of a minority, being both Korean-American and into the socal skate punk scene. He loved to draw, but was not encouraged to pursue the arts so he got a law degree instead. When he started The Hundreds with a classmate, it took off like a rocket and he learned to fight like both an underdog and a champion. With the soul of a storyteller, he uses his voice—zines, blog, film, book—to champion the streetwear ecosystem.
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Duration: 01:08:28Ep. 194: IIDA CEO Cheryl Durst on Communicating the Value of Design
Jun 27, 2023Only child Cheryl Durst grew up with a tribe of imaginary friends at her side. Her scientist mom and professor dad encouraged this, since it helped with her stutter and soothed her loneliness. A deep love of learning and art pulled her to the Smithsonian museums to work as an educator, before joining IIDA over 25 years ago! At the helm of IIDA, she’s moved interior design forward, as a profession and as a value to society.
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Duration: 01:05:20Ep. 193: Raphael Navot on Non-Industrial Design and Mending the Non-Spoken
Jun 13, 2023Multidisciplinary designer, Raphael Navot, grew up in homes built by his dad, inventing creative escapist activities with his siblings. After the success of Silencio, a Paris nightclub collaboration with David Lynch, he did the opposite of what many expected - turned down the flood of offers and took time off to reconnect with himself and his purpose. Many notable projects later, he remains deeply rooted in a practice informed by curiosity, care and intention.
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Duration: 00:59:21Ep. 192: Maria Giudice on Creative Leadership and Cultivating Changemakers
May 30, 2023Creative powerhouse, Maria Giudice, grew up on Staten Island painting portraits of dogs. Teens ushered in the wonderfully weird world of Rocky Horror Picture Show and the flourishing of her wildly independent, creative spirit. In the Bay Area she founded Hot Studio, a pioneering human-centered experience design practice. Now she’s harnessing all her wisdom and experience to cultivate changemakers.
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Duration: 01:09:04Ep. 191: Rodolfo Agrella Uses Laughter as a Powerful Design Tool
May 16, 2023Multidisciplinary 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.
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... Duration: 00:59:11Ep. 190: Germane Barnes Practices Architecture with the Prowess of a Winning Point Guard
May 02, 2023Germane Barnes knew he’d be an architect at age 6, before he even knew what that meant. Growing up playing basketball, he honed skills he now deftly deploys in his creative practice. After a tumultuous period spurred by devastating loss, he has taken the architecture world by storm. He’s swept the most prestigious prizes and is poised to become one of the most notable architects of our lifetime.
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Duration: 01:05:54