Best DesignThinkers Podcasts (2025)

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Cecilia Brenner: Moving beyond design theater to measurable impact 22:53

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4h ago22:53

22:53

We’ve talked to many design leaders who have burned out after a decade or more of corporate work. But after 17 years at Philips designing health innovations, Cecilia Brenner wasn’t burnt out…she loved it. And she wanted to find a way to scale her sense of purpose, so she joined Design for Good as Managing Director, and found a way to work with hund…

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096. An Agile Approach to Quality Legal Writing with Brendan Kenny & Neven Selimovic 42:14

3h ago42:14

42:14

When high-stakes motions are due, most firms face bottlenecks, inconsistent quality, and last-minute chaos. In this episode, Hellmuth & Johnson attorneys Brendan Kenny and Neven Selimovic share how they've rebuilt their legal writing process using Kanban visibility, Agile principles, and smart AI support to deliver consistent, high-quality work. Th…

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Video Rewind: Jordan Mechner: Pioneering game designer on creating Prince of Persia, Karateka, and a new graphic novel memoir 24:57

4d ago24:57

24:57

This is a preview of a premium episode. You can find a video version of the full episode on our YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dvoGPZEY1g⁠ We’ve been on the road this week, recording some in-person episodes in Portland Oregon, with Ryan Coulter—co-founder of The James Brand, and the wonderfully hilarious graphic designer Aaron D…

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The Story of Tod Nilson - Community building and the Woolly Mammoth - 1:40:43

12h ago1:40:43

1:40:43

The Real Work of Building Community Talking with Todd Nilson reminded us how misunderstood community building still is. We often treat it like marketing: launch a platform, create some content, hope people show up. But the way Todd talks about community is much closer to psychology, art, and human behavior than to funnels or metrics. What stood out…

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095. Beyond Marketing: How Client Communication Builds Engagement and Improves Practice Flow with Strawberry Nevill 45:56

8d ago45:56

45:56

Legal professionals often think of communication strategy as part of their marketing toolkit - a way to attract and convert clients to their law practice. But quality communication strategy extends far beyond getting clients to sign your engagement letter. It becomes a tool for continuously re-recruiting the client to their own cause and ensuring t…

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Ben Swire: Author of "Safe Danger" on the hidden reason team building efforts fail 50:20

13d ago50:20

50:20

As educators, we’ve grown wary of the term “safe spaces,” especially when what many students really need is a space to engage with “dangerous” ideas. But true dialogue doesn’t begin with risk—it starts with trust. Our guest today, Ben Swire, wrote the book Safe Danger, which offers a thoughtful, practical approach to building the psychological safe…

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094. Alternative Intelligence for Lawyers: Empower Your Team Before Turning to AI 21:37

15d ago21:37

21:37

Everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence, but before you invest in new tools and software, it’s worth looking at the alternative intelligence already inside your firm. Drawing on insights from W. Edwards Deming, this episode looks at why empowering your team’s creativity and problem-solving ability often drives greater improvement than AI e…

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Jeremy Faludi: Sustainability professor on why most sustainable design fails before it starts 21:48

21d ago21:48

21:48

Design is a problem solving discipline. We research user needs, explore solutions, make things, and ship them. But one important stakeholder is often missing from the conversation: the world we live in. What toll do the products we design impose upon the environment? Sustainability is an essential part of the discipline of design, but not understoo…

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093. Legal Document Automation: Building Productized Legal Services with Laura Patton 44:12

22d ago44:12

44:12

Life can change in an instant. For attorney Laura Patton, that moment came when her college-age son landed in the emergency room, and she discovered that without proper legal documents, she couldn't even speak to his doctor about his condition. By combining her decades of estate planning experience with open-source document automation tools, Laura …

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The Story of Dara Douglas - Stories, Humanity, and the Courage to Learn 1:25:22

18d ago1:25:22

1:25:22

In this episode of Creative Leaders Unplugged, Morgan Duta and Arne van Oosterom speak with Dara Douglas, who leads the Co-Design Lab at PwC in the UK. Dara describes her work as a kind of corporate therapy, helping senior leaders align, make decisions, and connect beyond their roles. Listening to her, it's clear this comes from somewhere deeper: g…

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Alison Rand: Leading with radical humanity instead of radical candor 46:37

28d ago46:37

46:37

We’ve worked alongside people for years, only to realize that we know nothing about their personal life. And it probably affected our working relationship. Knowing your colleagues as humans reframes inevitable challenges at work. Had we known our colleagues better, would we have worked through disagreements better or found new ways to collaborate? …

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092. Essential Skills to Build a Successful and Profitable Law Practice 21:24

29d ago21:24

21:24

Building a new law practice requires confronting the reality of what actually works, not just what should work in theory. The natural tendency for lawyers starting something new is to perfect every system and procedure before launching, but this perfectionist approach often becomes the very thing that prevents real progress. This week, I'm breaking…

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The Brief: How our recent past should prepare us for the age of AI 14:47

29d ago14:47

14:47

In this issue of The Brief, we’re reflecting on what we learned about the past and future of design from our conversation with Paola Antonelli (The Museum of Modern Art), Mark Wilson (Fast Company), Kate Aronowitz (GV), Mike Davidson (Microsoft), and Meaghan Choi (Anthropic). Looking back at 30 years of design by Eli Woolery Roughly thirty years ag…

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Fitz and the Tantrums: Finding your creative voice in your 40's and why success feels different than you think 29:20

1M ago29:20

29:20

This is a preview of a premium Design Better episode. Visit our Substack to hear the whole interview, for bonus content, and more: ⁠https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/fitz-and-the-tantrums With the 150th official episode of Design Better, we’ve got something special for you. For many of us, if we haven’t had creative success by our 40’s, we feel lik…

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091. Broken Systems, Not Bad People: How Blame Breaks Your Law Practice 21:17

1M ago21:17

21:17

When someone on your team drops the ball or a client misses a deadline, it's tempting to write them off as disorganized or unmotivated. This snap judgment feels natural - after all, if they cared enough, they'd follow through, right? In today's episode, I'm unpacking the fundamental attribution error - a cognitive bias that makes us blame people's …

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Bonus Episode: 30 years of design with Wert&Co, live in NYC featuring Paola Antonelli, Mark Wilson,Kate Aronowitz, Mike Davidson, and Meaghan Choi 1:12:14

1M ago1:12:14

1:12:14

Visit our Substack for bonus content and more:https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/bonus-episode-30-years-of-design Today we celebrate 30 years of Wert&Co.—the quiet champions of design who have shaped our field by placing the brightest designers in roles of influence at brands that impact culture, commerce, and community. Design Better is brought to …

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090. Stop Writing Policies and Start Creating Working Agreements with Tim Lennon 45:24

1M ago45:24

45:24

Most organizations default to command-and-control when creating policies - one person decides what needs to happen, writes it down, and expects everyone else to follow along. The problem is that this approach creates policies that exist on paper but fail in practice, because the people doing the actual work never bought into them in the first place…

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Rewind: Paola Antonelli: How design shapes culture 59:17

1M ago59:17

59:17

Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/rewind-paola-antonelli Design Better has been on the road recently, recording a live episode in Manhattan for design search firm Wert & Co’s 30th anniversary. Guests for the episode included Paola Antonelli (senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design a…

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089. The Four Ds of Productivity: Removing Bottlenecks & Managing Capacity 28:20

2M ago28:20

28:20

The Four Ds of productivity (do it, delegate it, defer it, or drop it) show up everywhere in productivity advice. Yet most of us default to the same two options over and over, creating bottlenecks and stress rather than solving our capacity problems. In this episode, I break down why only two of the Four Ds are reliably good options for managing yo…

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Keith Sawyer: Become more creative by learning to see 28:14

1M ago28:14

28:14

This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. To listen to the whole episode, head to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/keith-sawyer The key to creativity isn’t about having brilliant ideas in isolation, but about cultivating our ability to observe the world around us, and make the intuitive leaps that connect disparate ide…

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Pali Palavathanan on Design as Activism 44:09

2M ago44:09

44:09

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Pali Palavathanan, co-founder and creative director of Templo. Based in London, Templo is a purpose-led design studio known for bringing creativity and activism together—working with clients like the UN, Amnesty International, and GF Smith, alongside grassroots organizations fighting for justic…

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Jae Park: Designing a new generation of vehicles at Ford, and why friction matters in the creative process 47:11

2M ago47:11

47:11

Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jae-park As designers and creatives, many of us spent years of our career looking at blank canvases and attempting to find the best place to start solving the problems in front of us. Now that AI can churn out designs and imagery, not to mention writing, video, and eve…

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088. Why This Firm Stopped Chasing Clients- and Got More Done 32:04

2M ago32:04

32:04

Managing a law firm’s workflow can be tricky, especially when you’re juggling a long list of active matters and chasing unresponsive clients. In this episode, I’ll share how one firm, after years of using Kanban, finally broke through the delivery bottleneck with a simple but powerful shift in their approach. You'll hear the key changes they made t…

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Pablo Martin on Building an Agency Culture In-House 46:44

2M ago46:44

46:44

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Pablo Martin, Creative Director at MUBI. A legend in editorial design, Pablo has spent four decades shaping the visual language of publications and brands across Spain, the UK, and beyond. His journey has taken him from a work placement with Massimo Vignelli to co-founding the Barcelona-based s…

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087. Change Management for Law Firms: How to Engage Your Team from Day One 20:05

2M ago20:05

20:05

When you introduce new processes in your law firm, you're asking your team to rethink how they get things done, and that’s a bigger challenge than most realize. In this episode, I explore why the usual approach to change management often misses the mark in law firms. I also discuss why involving your team from the start is critical to getting real …

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Leadership & Strategy + Fighter Pilots + Design Education with Jason "TOGA" Trew — DT101 E145 53:31

2M ago53:31

53:31

When I first connected with Jason Trew (callsign: TOGA), I knew this conversation would challenge some assumptions about where design thinking belongs. Jason is an Air Force fighter pilot and strategy leader turned professor. What emerged from our conversation wasn't just another story about design thinking adoption, but a deeper exploration of wha…

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Astro Teller & Ivo Stivoric: Why moonshots require unlearning everything you know 27:27

2M ago27:27

27:27

This is a preview of a premium episode. To hear the full episode, head to our Substack: ⁠https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/astro-teller-and-ivo-stivoric-why⁠ When a company talks about taking a “moonshot,” it often ends up being something trivial: a new emoji keyboard, or delivering a pizza in less than 30 minutes. But at X, the Moonshot Factory, w…

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Debra Bishop on Making Magazines 41:33

2M ago41:33

41:33

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Debra Bishop—an award-winning creative director and one of editorial design’s most influential voices. Over the past four decades, Debra has shaped the look and feel of some of publishing’s most iconic titles—from her early days at Rolling Stone, to launching magazines at Martha Stewart, to ser…

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086. From Chaos to Consistency: Lessons from a Decade of Agile Lawyering with Jeff De Francisco 41:55

2M ago41:55

41:55

When Jeff De Francisco noticed his less tech-savvy colleagues billing more hours for the same estate planning work, he uncovered an injustice that would reshape his entire practice. The disparity wasn't about knowledge or skill. It was about efficiency, and the billable hour was punishing him for being good at his job. In this episode, I sit down w…

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Henry Modisett: Perplexity’s VP of Design on embracing ambiguity and leading with curiosity 47:27

3M ago47:27

47:27

Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/henry-modisett AI isn’t just another layer in our digital toolkit—it’s reshaping the tools themselves, and in the process, transforming how we work, think, and solve problems. Henry Modisett, VP of Design at Perplexity, is in a unique position to challenge many of the no…

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Nadia Tzuo on Storytelling Through Title Design 49:14

2M ago49:14

49:14

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Nadia Tzuo—an Emmy Award–winning motion designer and director whose title sequences have become cultural touchstones. Nadia’s work spans television, film, and streaming, with credits on The Last of Us, Shogun, American Horror Story, Pachinko, Star Trek Beyond, and Captain Marvel. Her sequences …

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085. Make Work Visible: Using Kanban Boards To Manage Your Law Firm’s Capacity 27:32

3M ago27:32

27:32

Knowledge work hides in ways that physical work never could. That invisibility creates a dangerous pattern: you say yes to one more matter and before you know it, your entire team operates beyond capacity. In this episode, I use real examples from law firms using Kanban boards to demonstrate how making your work visible can fundamentally change how…

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Stephen Gates on Speaking the Language of Business 56:37

3M ago56:37

56:37

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Stephen Gates—global design leader, keynote speaker, and host of The Crazy One podcast. Stephen’s career has spanned more than 20 years leading creative teams at companies like Apple, Citi, InVision, and McCann, where he’s built award-winning work across branding, product design, and customer e…

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Elizabeth Lin: Rethinking design education in the age of AI 20:11

3M ago20:11

20:11

This is a preview of a premium episode on Design Better. Head to our Substack to get access to the full episode: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/elizabeth-lin Have you played around with Cursor? If not, it’s time. Designers with no coding skills are passing Cursor Figma files and getting working apps out the other side. And if you have no design,…

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084. Technical Debt in Law Firms: How Small Shortcuts Create Big Problems 17:24

3M ago17:24

17:24

In this episode, I’m diving into a concept that may be quietly hindering your practice: technical debt. In short, technical debt occurs when you take shortcuts to save time, but they end up costing you more in the long run. I’ll walk you through how technical debt shows up in your firm and why tackling this issue head-on is crucial to prevent burno…

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Nick Foster: Could, Should, Might, Don't—a new way to think about designing for the future 59:26

3M ago59:26

59:26

Most designers are comfortable in the world of known problems—we talk to users, gather insights, iterate based on feedback. But what happens when you're designing for a future that doesn't exist yet? When you're creating products for people who haven't been born, or technologies that might not emerge for years? Today's guest has spent decades desig…