Design Matters

For over sixty years, Gloria Steinem has been at the center of American culture and political life, where she has been instrumental in shaping our ideas about feminism, humanity, and equal rights for all people. She joins to talk about her legendary career as an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, co-founder of one of the most significant magazines of the 21st century, and an activist whose work has impacted the place women and girls now have in the world.

Carrie Brownstein, Megan Rapinoe, Lucy Sante, Kara Swisher, and Kirsten Vangsness reflect on their journeys and careers in this special Pride episode of Design Matters.

Scott Dadich is a designer, magazine editor, and filmmaker. Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of WIRED Magazine, he now runs Godfrey Dadich Partners, a brand strategy and design company, where he is the Co-Founder and CEO. He joins to discuss his illustrious career and the multi-Emmy nominated series he created and produced, Abstract: The Art of Design.

During her often tumultuous, challenging, and sometimes controversial career, Judy Chicago pioneered Feminist art and art education. She joins to talk about her memoir Revelations, a radical retelling of human history in the form of an illuminated manuscript.

Principal Designer at Adobe, speaker, and champion for artists, Brooke Hopper’s passion is designing better experiences for some of the most talented people in the world. She joins live at SXSW to discuss the role of machine intelligence and new technologies in creativity.

Anne Morriss and Frances Frei are best-selling authors and among the world’s most influential thinkers, speakers, and advisors. Their clients range from Fortune 10 companies to tech founders to political leaders working to build national competitiveness. They join to talk about their new book, Move Fast and Fix Things, outlining a practical process leaders can implement to drive change.

Punk singer, artist, and the front-woman of the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, Kathleen Hanna has spent the last three decades as a trailblazer in the punk feminist movement. She joins guest host Roxane Gay to talk about her new memoir and storied career making art and music.

Adam Moss is widely known as one of the great magazine editors of his generation, remaking and reshaping The New York Times and New York magazine into the most significant print and digital publications of our time. He joins to discuss his illustrious career as an author, editor, and artist.

Named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Innovators for the Next New Wave,” Suzan-Lori Parks is the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog. She joins to discuss her long and illustrious career as a playwright, musician, and novelist.

New York Times bestselling, award-winning author and educator Emily Nagoski is one of the most exceptional minds at work today on the science of sexual connection, intimacy, and arousal. She joins to discuss her remarkable career and new book, “Come Together.”

Writer Amy Lin deconstructs grief in her new memoir ‘Here After,’ a beautifully visceral and emotionally intimate depiction of young widowhood. She joins to discuss the science of grief and how she coped in the wake of her inexplicable loss.

Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Irvin Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship and asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. She joins to discuss her legendary career as a distinguished historian, award-winning author, and artist.

Since 1998, David Remnick has been the editor of The New Yorker and has written hundreds of pieces for the magazine, including reporting from Russia, the Middle East, and Europe and Profiles of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Katharine Graham, Mike Tyson, Bruce Springsteen and more. He also hosts the magazine’s national radio program and podcast, “The New Yorker Radio Hour.” He joins live at the On Air Fest to talk about his legendary life and career.

Renowned writer, cultural critic, and scholar of the demimonde Lucy Sante joins to discuss her career and a new memoir, “I Heard Her Call My Name,” reflecting on her transition and self-actualization in her sixties.

From acclaimed pop spectacles to Super Bowl halftime shows to the Closing Ceremony for the London Olympics, artist and stage designer Es Devlin has transformed large-scale performative sculptures and environments transporting audiences. She joins to discuss two decades of design spanning opera, theatre, and stadium extravaganzas.

The Critic's Daughter is an exquisitely rendered portrait of a unique father-daughter relationship and a moving revelation of family and identity. Author Priscilla Gilman joins to talk about her memoir, a candid account of loss and grief, forgiveness, and love.

Celebrated musician, comedian, writer, and director Carrie Brownstein joins to talk about her remarkable career as the co-founder, guitarist, and vocalist of the legendary punk band Sleater-Kinney, her role in the iconic TV series Portlandia, and her new memoir.

New York Times bestselling author and journalist Suleika Jaouad began writing her Emmy Award-winning column, “Life, Interrupted,” from her hospital room, chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer. She joins to discuss her remarkable life, career, and bestselling memoir, Between Two Kingdoms.

Aminatou Sow discusses her extraordinary journey that took her from Africa to Texas, from a job in a toy store to Google to co-host of one of today’s most brilliant podcasts, Call Your Girlfriend.

Across 50 years in the art scene, Futura has undergone a brilliant evolution from graffiti prodigy to design master.

As a child, Thelma Golden dreamt of a life in art museums—and that’s exactly the path she followed, breaking brilliant and historic new ground along the way.

The daughter of folk-music royalty, singer-songwriter Lucy Wainwright Roche joins to talk about her life, family, and multi-decade career in the music industry.

James Clear has been writing about habits, decision making, and continuous improvement for over a decade. Author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits, he joins to talk about his career and how we can stop sabotaging our efforts with insurmountable goals.

Shaped by music and activism, Toshi Reagon reflects on her upbringing and remarkable career writing, playing, singing, and producing music.

Iconic graphic designer, typographer, author, and educator Stefan Sagmeister joins live on the CreativeMornings stage to talk about his multi-decade, ever-evolving career and his newest book, Now is Better, transforming facts about the state of our world into abstract data visualizations.

Working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture, Oliver Jeffers joins to talk about his career making art and telling stories. His new book, Begin Again, explores humankind’s impact on itself and our planet, asking the big question: Where do we go from here?

On this special episode of Design Matters, we take a look back at the collective brilliance of the filmmakers interviewed in 2023. Best of Design Matters 2023 with Siân Heder, Sarah Polley, and Kyra Sedgwick is live!

On this special episode of Design Matters, we take a look back at the collective brilliance of writers interviewed in 2023. Best of Design Matters 2023 with Alexandra Horowitz, Rick Rubin, and Kevin Kelly is live!

Roy Wood Jr. is an Emmy-nominated comedian, writer, producer, actor, radio personality, and podcaster known for his stand-up comedy and work as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. He joins the Design Matters Live Tour to discuss his career, entertaining millions across the stage, television, and radio.

The legendary Audie Cornish—anchor, correspondent, journalist, host, and interviewer—joins live from the Design Matters Tour to talk about her career in journalism, covering national, political, and breaking news for over two decades.

For decades, Rosanne Cash has soared through the ranks of music with her powerhouse poetic skills and wistful reflections on her past. She has released 15 albums, won four Grammys, and authored four books, including a best-selling memoir. She joins to talk about her life and legendary career as a singer, songwriter, and author.

Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts, a coming of age memoir recounting his early years in Boston, an ongoing search for forgiveness, and a more expansive definition of family and self.

One of the most influential art directors, design thinkers, and cultural critics of our time, Steven Heller, and his son Nicolas Heller, an acclaimed commercial director and documentarian, better known to his social media followers as New York Nico, join live at the AIGA Conference to talk about their remarkable careers and shared love for New York City.

Neville Brody is one of the most celebrated graphic designers of his generation—a leading typographer and internationally recognized art director and brand strategist. He joins to discuss his third monograph, which showcases projects from the last thirty years of his illustrious career.

Former Editor-in-Chief and President of New York Magazine’s The Cut and current Styles Editor of The New York Times—Stella Bugbee joins to discuss her remarkable career in the media industry, covering fashion, beauty, and culture as a journalist, editor, and creative director.

Kip Thorne, Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist known for his pioneering work in astrophysics, and Lia Halloran, multi-award-winning artist and photographer, join to talk about their cosmic collaboration—a book of poetry and paintings called “The Warped Side of Our Universe: An Odyssey through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel, and Gravitational Waves.”

Celeste Ng—New York Times bestselling author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts—joins a live audience to talk about her illustrious career exploring complex family dynamics and themes of identity, race, and culture.

Tech 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.

MacArthur Fellow, Peabody Award winner, iconic public radio host and creator of one of the most successful shows, Radiolab—Jad Abumrad joins a studio audience in New York for the Design Matters live tour.

From pop stars to sports legends to rock gods, Mary Ellen Matthews has been crafting iconic images as an entertainment portrait photographer for over two decades. She joins to talk about her career as the chief photographer for Saturday Night Live and how she’s created the distinctive look for the show’s images since 1999.

Design royalty Paula Scher, Emily Oberman and Michael Bierut join this special live episode to celebrate and commemorate the 50th anniversary of the legendary, multi-disciplinary, independently owned design studio, Pentagram with a new, two-volume book, PENTAGRAM AT 50: LIVING BY DESIGN.

Digital visionary, bestselling author, founder of the popular Cool Tools website, and Co-Founder and Senior Maverick of Wired magazine—Kevin Kelly joins to talk about his career, his new book, and his radical optimism about the future of our world and humanity.

For over sixty years, Gloria Steinem has been at the center of American culture and political life, where she has been instrumental in shaping our ideas about feminism, humanity, and equal rights for all people. She joins to talk about her legendary career as an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, co-founder of one of the most significant magazines of the 21st century, and an activist whose work has impacted the place women and girls now have in the world.

Jessica Nordell—science and cultural journalist—explores ways of changing pernicious thought patterns to eliminate unconscious bias for a more just world.

Steven Heller—legendary writer and author—joins to discuss his new book “Growing Up Underground,” an entertaining and humorous coming-of-age story at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and 1970s.

Author of the bestselling book “Queenie”—Candice Carty-Williams joins a very special guest host, Roxane Gay, to talk about her latest novel “People Person” which follows the Pennington family, a cadre of five half-siblings forced together in the wake of a dramatic event.

Rising to the top of tennis stardom, Chris Evert talks about her groundbreaking career as a legendary athlete and recent creative endeavor in jewelry design.

Chip Kidd—award-winning designer, musician, author, and all around rock star—joins for his fifth time to talk about his recent projects and so much more.

Joan Wasser shares her musical journey from a classically trained violinist to a solo singer, songwriter, and rock star known as Joan As Police Woman.

A love for craftsmanship, design, and baseball brings music legend Jack White and design entrepreneur Ben Jenkins together. In 2016, Jack White became an investor in Ben Jenkins's sporting goods brand, Warstic. Today the company does so much more than manufacture artisan baseball bats.