Maurice Cherry: Revision Path creator on why attention isn’t impact
Episode 197 of the Design Better Podcast
Why the Creative Class Is About to Take Off
Creativity is a discipline in optimism. Before you can come up with a better idea, you have to believe a better way exists. Start there, and you'll tune in to what you'd actually improve.
Why You Still Haven't Shared That Project
That project you never dared to share? This is your permission to put it out. So much cynicism and judgment keeps your work in the drawer. Over 2,000 creatives have pledged to release a project they'
How One Creative Project Just for Fun Opened Countless Doors | Tina Roth Eisenberg
The side project you start just for fun can take you further than the one that has to pay your rent. Tina Roth Eisenberg explains why calling it an experiment takes the pressure off, how a side projec
The state of design in 2026
Take the survey and get the full design report free in November.
Why Your Side Project Gets You Hired
Starting something just for fun gives luck more ways to find you. When it doesn't have to pay your rent, the lightness shows. People sense that joy, and they love hiring someone who shows initiative.
Tom Foley: How to pair typefaces and why the best brand fonts go unnoticed
Episode 196 of the Design Better Podcast
How CreativeMornings Helps Design Flourish | Tina Roth Eisenberg
Putting your work out there feels riskier than ever, with so much cynicism and judgment online. Tina Roth Eisenberg built CreativeMornings so creatives would have a room full of people cheering them o
Naivete Was My Best Friend | Trenton Doyle Hancock
Not needing much is a superpower early on. Spend an early sale on McDonald's and toys, sleep on the floor, keep the 2007 Corolla. With no idea who's gunning for you, the people saying you can't make
The essential setup for building web apps with AI
A field guide to the elements of modern web apps and how to start building.
Don't Wait for Inspiration. Put Art on a Calendar | Trenton Doyle Hancock
No athlete walks onto the field cold and expects magic. Get the pen out, move your hand. Lay down a base color and see what clicks. Break the work into layers that fit on a calendar: blue today, yell
Start With Ideas, Not the Medium | Trenton Doyle Hancock
Your go-to tool is quietly choosing your ideas. If a painting tells the story better than a sculpture, make the painting. If five paintings beat an animation, paint five. Let the story pick the forma
Trenton Doyle Hancock: From Chaos to Order
Before you tidy your desk, find out which part of the mess is pulling its weight. Trenton Doyle Hancock trains his assistant not to throw anything away, lets found objects seep into the work by osmosi
Kevin Flores: Find Your Inner Rebel
Episode 195 of the Design Better Podcast
Why the Tool You Know Best Is Choosing Your Ideas | Trenton Doyle Hancock
If your work keeps coming out looking like the last thing you made, the tool you know best is choosing your ideas for you. Trenton Doyle Hancock was in the Whitney Biennial at 26 and has spent his ca
The Design Teams Weren't the Difference
Great cultures aren't great because they contain the thing. They're great because they value it. Walk into a company where design works and you can feel it in the people who aren't designers. Your jo
How Milton Glaser set design quality standards
Lessons from a conversation with Randy Hunt, former head of design at Notion and Etsy.
You Can't Convince Them
Nobody was required to join. That's exactly why teams lined up. Make your change something people choose, then cap how many can. Seven teams got in the first year, sixty or seventy by the third, and
Randy Hunt: Notion and Etsy design leader on why the best design teams stay small
Episode 194 of the Design Better Podcast
Introducing the new DesignBetter.com
Everything Design Better publishes, now in one place.
Thou Shalt Change
Nobody owes your change a yes. Mandates make people dig in, so treat the change like a product nobody has to buy. Deliver it so well the team wants it. If they refuse, that's on you, not them.
The Formula for a Design Team That Runs Without You | Phil Gilbert, Former IBM Design Lead
The way you work is probably locked in your own head, which means it stops when you do. Asked for his formula, Phil Gilbert had to turn instinct into something other people could run. In this clip, yo
Matt Owens: Athletics co-founder on keeping your creative fire lit
Episode 193 of the Design Better Podcast
How to Get a Yes From People Who Keep Killing Your Designs | Phil Gilbert, Former IBM Design Lead
When it comes to a design, you can build the case, bring the research, and still watch a good idea stall. Nobody at work owes your idea a yes. Phil Gilbert, former General Manager of Design at IBM, h
1950s Designers Using Type as Art: The Creativity Behind the Jazz Covers of Prestige Records
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Type gets slapped on top of the work now. On these covers, it was the work.
When Designers Collaborate
A designer chalked the album's lineup on the side of a railroad boxcar. He wasn't a photographer yet, so another designer took the shot. Your best work might need a skill you don't have, so bring in
The Limits Are What Make the Project
So much is at your fingertips now. That's the problem. The constraint you're fighting often sets your work apart. Every Prestige Records designer asked the same question: what can you do with the min
Blaine Billingsley: OpenAI designer on the collaboration problem AI hasn't solved yet
Episode 192 of the Design Better Podcast
The Type Was the Art
Your type probably goes on last. One self-taught designer stayed up until two or three in the morning with type foundry catalogs, figuring out how it was done. Choose, color, and place your type as p
7 Principles for better AI collaboration
Principles and a downloadable kit for anyone who wants to work more efficiently with AI collaborators.
How Freelance Designers Off the Street Made Some of the Best Album Covers of All Time
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ The limits you resent on a project are often what make it, and a shelf of 19
Mack Paul: Co-author of Miracle Road on designing places where innovation happens
Episode 191 of the Design Better Podcast
Why some of Google's best designers spent time as PMs
Google let designer Niyati Gupta try being a PM and she became a better designer for it.
Technology Is Rude
Every polite thing you do for a stranger, you do without a word. Your product reads none of those cues, so it interrupts at the worst moment. The fix is not a smarter device. Build one that is polite
Why Humane and Rabbit Didn't Work
Putting an LLM in a box does not put AI in the physical world. Alexa failed the same way. A device that cannot see what you are looking at or which room you are in will never read your intention.
Why You Never Find Out What a New Technology Could Have Done | Leonardo Giusti, Ex-Google ATAP
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Ask what a new technology is for, and who the user is, and you narrow it bef
Federico Casalegno: Samsung EVP on how 20,000 years of creativity shapes design today
Episode 190 of the Design Better Podcast
AI Isn't a Thinking Machine, It's a Thinking-With Machine
Delegation is not a fact about AI. It is a metaphor you inherited. Swap it for augmentation and the work changes shape. AI you think with sharpens your decisions and shows you what you could not reac
Why 'Let AI Do the Work' Is the Trap Every Designer Falls Into | Leonardo Giusti, Ex-Google ATAP
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Silicon Valley already decided what AI is: something you hand work to that g
Every Icon Drawn by Hand
A 16 by 16 grid is the one thing AI still cannot draw. Yoto tried every model. They all make beautiful full resolution images, and none can make good pixel art. Constrain the canvas hard enough and y
How Lack of Experience Helped This Design
Expertise would have talked them into something more complicated. Yoto had never built hardware, so they built the obvious thing instead: children love putting things into things. Your training is wh
Staff product designer on getting used to change
A special sponsored version of The Roundup in partnership with Rosenfeld Media
Don't Call It a Toy
Slapping an animal face on an adult device is the lazy version. Build for children from the ground up, then ask one question: at a dinner party, would the adults hide this, or leave it out?
The Design Decisions That Stop a Child Outgrowing It | Ben Drury, Yoto Co-Creator
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ How do you design one device a child keeps from age two to ten, instead of a
Get design and career support in Design Club
A new feature for paid subscribers.
Jonathan Adler returns: The minimalist inside the maximalist
Episode 189 of the Design Better Podcast
Designing for Children When Screens Are Everywhere | Ben Drury, Co-Creator of Yoto
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Ben Drury and his co-founder set out to build a screen-free audio player for
Designing a better workplace
A design system for organizations.
What a Design VP Looks For That AI Work Never Has
It looks fine until you try to use it. Generic work passes the first glance, then fights you: a room where the floor sits halfway up the wall. Intentionality, decisions that fit this exact problem, i
Making Your Portfolio Relevant Is Costing You the Job | Angel Steger, Head of Design at Wealthfront
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Tailoring your portfolio to the job feels safe, and it wins you work you don
The Redesign That Reduced Revenue by 30%
Nobody suspects the white space. Your pricing page used colors the product never uses, and trust broke. Your white space ran slightly wide, so eyes landed on the gaps instead of the words. Shrinking
Clay Parker Jones: author of Hidden Patterns on why your team isn't really a team
Episode 188 of the Design Better Podcast
Focus on Value Before the Details
You're crafting exact wording for a flow nobody has proven yet. Go lower fidelity when the work gets complex. Figure out if anyone wants the thing before you argue about glitter. Value first, or you
Your Design Work Keeps Coming Out Predictable | Ex-Pinterest Designer Angel Steger
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Your tools can take you straight to polished screens now, so that's where yo
Your Designers Will Never Try AI on a Deadline | Rivian's Jeff Hammoud
Get ad-free Design Better episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Every design lead says they want the team using AI, and then a deadline land
Angel Steger: Wealthfront's VP of Design on what architecture teaches you about software
Episode 187 of the Design Better Podcast
How to build a portfolio that will get you a job
Design Better’s guide to showing your work, drawn from live critiques with people who do the hiring.
Ben Drury: Yoto co-founder on audio, imagination, and screen-free design
Episode 186 of the Design Better Podcast
How Rivian Addresses "Just Give Me a Button"
Customers keep asking for physical buttons. Instead of adding them, Rivian asks why. A labeled button keeps that job for the life of the car.
AI Ends the Drawing Contest
For years the best illustration won, not the best design. AI levels the playing field, so the best idea wins instead of the best drawing.
Designer or Stylist?
Anyone can make something look good with no limits. Working inside aerodynamics, safety, and cost is what separates a designer from a stylist.
Jeff Hammoud: Chief Design Officer of Rivian on constraints, color, and what separates designers from stylists
A bonus episode of the Design Better Podcast
Rivian's Design Chief on Why the Best Designers Work Within Constraints
Get ad-free episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ You'll see a beautiful concept car, then the production version ships and you barely recog
AI Has the Skills. So Hire for Temperament.
Your next interview won't be about your skills. The machine has those. Companies want people who can articulate quality clearly enough to pull the work back when AI drifts. Practice naming what good
A field guide to AI prompting
An excerpt from a new book on using Claude Code
AI Is the Most "I Could Do That" Technology Ever Made
You put rectangles on a screen. How hard could that be? Everyone devalues the next person's craft, and AI just handed the whole world permission. It will tell a stranger exactly how to do brain surge
The AI "Magic Trick" That Closes Deals
Your client thinks you did the work. You didn't. AI gives you months of understanding at the snap of a finger. Disclose what the machine made before someone asks for the idea you never read.
Your AI Work Isn't Fooling Anyone | Aboard's Paul Ford
Get ad-free episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Paul Ford, co-founder of the software agency Aboard, can tell AI wrote a document without
Portfolio Club with Dan Harden
Award winning design firm's founder reviews Design Better community portfolios
AI Makes You Look Like an Expert. That's the Trap. With Paul Ford
Get ad-free episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ AI can turn an idea into a working prototype in an afternoon, and your client's face light
We've Gotten Too Soft on Critique
Direct feedback with fewer filters is how your work gets better. Keep it about the project, never the person. Reward the hours and the passion, then say what isn't working: on complicated problems no
A Digital Twin of Your Ears
Your ears are too complex to design for by guesswork. A simulated version of your ear runs thousands of fit variations before a real one ever wears the product. The data narrows the options; a design
Inside Samsung's AI Design Process
Get ad-free episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ Every month, AI takes over another piece of the design process. Federico Casalegno, who le
AI = EI + HI
The formula that keeps you driving the tools instead of being driven by them. Artificial intelligence equals emotional intelligence plus human imagination. Set the objectives, keep a human in the loo
Eric Ries: Lean Startup author on why good companies go bad, and why good design is critical to success
Episode 185 of the Design Better Podcast
Samsung's Federico Casalegno on What AI Still Can't Do in Design
Get ad-free episodes, weekly newsletters, and $1,000+ in tools and courses: https://designbetterpodcast.com/ When your tools can make almost anything in seconds, it's easy to wonder what's left for a
Join us in Sonoma: A two-day gathering for design leaders
A unique creative leadership event • September 28–29, 2026 • The Stavrand, Sonoma, CA
Portfolio Club: Using Claude Code with Joey Primiani
A recording from Aarron Walter's live video
Ian Bogost: Game designer, Atlantic writer, and philosopher of the ordinary, on the small stuff that makes life delightful
Episode 184 of the Design Better Podcast
Aaron Draplin on building a personal brand
How to find ideas and inspiration where no one else is looking.
Rewind: Aarron Draplin: DDC founder on showing up, staying prolific, and never forgetting the crappy jobs
Hi folks! Aarron and I are taking a short summer break, so we’re rewinding to one of our favorite episodes from the end of last year with Aarron Draplin. Enjoy the episode, and we’ll see you next week
Design history in jazz records
How great music inspired great design.
Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens: authors of WAIL on the constraints that led to timeless designs for Prestige Records
Episode 183 of the Design Better Podcast
Summer reading list
Relaxing reads that will get your wheels turning.
Portfolio Club with Jared Erondu
A recording from Aarron Walter's live video
Niyati Gupta: Netflix Product Design Lead on what happens when a designer becomes a product manager, and why your influence might not be in your title
Episode 182 of the Design Better Podcast
Portfolio Club with Brooke Hopper
A recording from Aarron Walter's live video
Mike Schnaidt: Fast Company Creative Director on typography, creative endurance, and designing for the long haul
Episode 181 of the Design Better Podcast
What the founder of Creative Mornings learned about creativity
Creative Mornings founder Tina Roth Eisenberg on measuring "return on friendship," why side projects increase your surface area for luck, and the case that the future isn't lonely — it's hyper-local.
Bonus Episode: Dorrian Porter returns with the Vestaboard Note
A special sponsored episode of the Design Better Podcast
Portfolio Club
A recording from Aarron Walter's live video
Tina Roth Eisenberg: Creative Mornings founder on building communities that run on trust
Episode 180 of the Design Better Podcast
Designing your own portfolio is hell, but it doesn't have to be
Here's what I learned from this painful process.
A Definitive Guide to Running Effective Design Critiques That Actually Work
A critique culture doesn’t just produce better designs; it produces better designers.
The Art of Noticing.
A guest post from James Buckhouse, Design Better Expert in Residence