Podcast
Design Matters
Hosted by Design Matters · EN
Design Matters by Debbie Millman features interviews with designers, artists and cultural leaders, including Lawrence Weiner, Barbara Kruger, Malcolm Gladwell, Eric Kandel, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Michael Arad, Milton Glaser, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, Steven Heller, Jonah Lehrer, among others.
In 2011, Design Matters received the People’s Design Award from the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards.
Subscribe to Design Matters for free on iTunes, where new episodes are uploaded weekly: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695
30episodes
Episodes
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C. Thi Nguyen
Feb 2301:18:22Tap to summarizeC. Thi Nguyen—philosopher, professor, and author of Games: Agency as Art—joins to discuss his new book, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game, and how metrics, from grades to likes, quietly reshape what we value and who we become. Together, they explore games as “libraries of agency,” the allure of scoring systems, and the vital question: Is this the game you really want to be playing?
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Quiara Alegría Hudes
Feb 1601:10:03Tap to summarizeQuiara Alegría Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, composer, and novelist whose work has reshaped contemporary American theater. The co-creator of In the Heights and author of Water by the Spoonful, she has consistently explored identity, family, and belonging across theater, music, memoir, and now fiction in her new book, The White Hot.
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Chris Duffy
Feb 901:28:32Tap to summarizeChris Duffy—comedian, writer, and host of the TED podcast How to Be a Better Human—joins to discuss how humor shaped his path from teaching and improv to podcasting and television. Together, they explore why laughing more isn’t about being funny, but about attention, vulnerability, and connection, and how humor helps us stay human.
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Ruth Ann Harnisch
Feb 200:53:04Tap to summarizeRuth Ann Harnisch is an investor, philanthropist, social activist, media producer, and founder of Harnisch Foundation, which supports work that breaks down barriers to equality and opportunity. She joins CreativeMornings live to reflect on her path from teen broadcaster to first female anchor, and how finding her voice in inequitable newsrooms shaped everything that followed.
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Brian Chesky
Jan 2601:21:13Tap to summarizeBrian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, a company that began with airbeds and grew into a worldwide community built on trust and belonging. He joins to discuss how imagination and design shaped his path from art school to entrepreneurship, and what it means to design the world you want to live in.
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20th Anniversary celebration with the most memorable guests: Jason Reynolds, Marina Abramović, Chris Ware, Richard Saul Wurman, Rick Rubin, and Roxane Gay
Jan 1900:54:22Tap to summarizeFor the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, Debbie Millman revisits excerpts from her most memorable interviews. Featuring Jason Reynolds, Marina Abramović, Chris Ware, Richard Saul Wurman, Rick Rubin, and Roxane Gay, this episode gathers voices that challenged, surprised, and have continued to evolve in meaning over time.
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20th Anniversary celebration with renowned poets Eileen Myles, Elizabeth Alexander, Sarah Kay, and Amber Tamblyn
Jan 1201:03:44Tap to summarizeFor the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, Debbie Millman revisits conversations with renowned poets Eileen Myles, Elizabeth Alexander, Sarah Kay, and Amber Tamblyn. These excerpts reflect on language, identity, memory, and the lived experience that fuels their work. Together, they reveal poetry as an intimate practice that resonates beyond the page.
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Tim Ferriss
Aug 4, 2025Tap to summarizeTim Ferriss is a five-time New York Times bestselling author, a legendary podcaster with over a billion downloads, a prolific angel investor, and a relentless experimenter. During his fourth visit to Design Matters, he shares the story behind Coyote, a new card game he’s quietly been crafting—and the mindset that brought it to life.
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Kara Swisher
Oct 16, 2023Tap to summarizeTech journalist, opinion leader, and disruptor—Kara Swisher has hosted hundreds of newsmaking interviews tracking tech and media's changing power dynamics, often going head-to-head with the most prominent figures in the technology industry. She joins a live studio audience to talk about her inimitable career covering the ever-evolving world of technology.
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Ping Zhu
Jun 21, 2021Tap to summarizePing Zhu’s parents were afraid her interest in illustration might just be a phase … and then she landed her first assignment ever at The New York Times. Here, she discusses her career trajectory.
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