Design Your Life with Vince Frost Vince Frost

There’s an art to bringing history into modern creativity as more than a reference. 

Sibella Court is adept at it. The creative director, author and interior and product designer has made a career out of creating with her love of history at the forefront. When you learn she grew up with two incredibly creative parents — a builder father skilled in transforming spaces and a mother who specialised in Central Asian textiles — her multifaceted creative career comes as no surprise. 

After studying history at university in Sydney, and getting a start at Australian Vogue, she spent a decade shooting editorial in New York. Since returning to Australia in 2006, she’s written and published six books, hosted a TV series, and designed the interiors for some of Sydney’s best-known restaurants and bars, including Mr Wong's and Palmer & Co. 

Listen in as Vince and Sibella Court discuss her lifelong love of history, working at Australian Vogue in the early 90s and the seismic impact the death of a parent can have. 

https://thesocietyinc.com.au/  
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a small country with a small population, the Danes are incredibly well-known on the global stage as highly skilled when it comes to design. In Viggo Haremst’s case, he knew he wanted to be an architect, like his father, very early in life. But he credits his Swedish mother for his commitment to process and detail.

As a Design Director and Partner at the prominent Danish architecture firm Henning Larsen he steered the winning proposal for the Canberra Theatre Centre and is leading the city-shaping Lighthouse at Darling Park in Sydney. The practice believes good design begins with curiosity, and is leading the world when it comes to evidence-based building design with a focus on investigating and prototyping innovation in sustainability.

Viggo is a sought-after keynote speaker who delivers insights into Henning Larsen’s design method and projects, and the future of workspaces. 

Listen in as Vince and Viggo discuss learning about limits from Zaha Hadid, how to create a longer life cycle for a building and why Danes are so good at design. 

https://henninglarsen.com/en 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How much do the environments we inhabit impact our health and wellbeing? And does our emotional state impact our physical health?

Dr. Esther Sternberg is internationally recognised for her discoveries in the science of the mind-body interaction in illness and healing, and the role of place in wellbeing. She is a pioneer and major force in collaborative initiatives on mind-body-stress-wellness and environment interrelationships. 

Her inspirational and popular books — there are three, the latest ‘WELL at WORK: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace’ has just been released — are backed by science and are changing the way we design public and private places for people.

Dr. Sternberg’s list of achievements is extensive. She’s advised the World Health Organization and the Vatican, and briefed high level U.S. Federal Government officials. She’s also moderated a panel with the Dalai Lama and been recognized by the National Library of Medicine as one of the women who ‘Changed the Face of Medicine’. She has authored over 240 scholarly articles and edited 10 technical books on the topic of brain-immune connections and design and health. 

Her two decades-long research with the U.S. General Services Administration, using wearable devices to track health and wellbeing in the built office environment, is informing healthy design standards for workplaces in the public and private sectors around the world. 

Listen in as Vince and Dr. Sternberg discuss immersive reality nature recharge rooms, being one of only ten girls in a class of 110 at medical school and the best prescription for a healthy building. 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we think of life on earth in the context of the universe, being human can seem absurd. That’s what British artist and illustrator Paul Davis thinks. When he was 17, growing up in Somerset in England, his father died suddenly. But he’d already taught him everything he needed to know about space, time and human existence. 

Davis’ sometimes controversial work has been widely published and exhibited. He’s regularly commissioned by international broadsheets and magazines, has created animated idents for BBC Radio 4, and his handwriting has been used in animated adverts for American Express. 

The artist’s craft is born from a deep curiosity about the idiocy and beauty of being alive. And a compulsion to make art as a form of therapy. He doesn’t just want to make art. He has to. And he’s not shy about being satirical. Despite a long battle with alcoholism (he’s been sober for over six years), his work has made him a London icon. 

Listen in as Vince and Paul discuss his experience of alcoholism and thoughts on AA, drawing Trump giving himself a blow job, and how to know when you’ve pushed it too far. 

https://www.instagram.com/paulcopyrightdavis/ 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The craft of graphic design has changed dramatically since the 80s. Computers. The popularisation of branding. Over the past four plus decades John Rushworth, the design behemoth Pentagram’s longest serving partner, has seen it all. Despite these seismic shifts, he believes the thinking and innate human ability it takes to do truly impactful work hasn’t changed. 

Rushworth has had a huge impact on the world of design. He’s delivered graphic solutions to clients across almost every industry from Polaroid to Great Western Railway with his in-dept approach to design. Working closely with his clients, he works to draw out what it is that truly makes them who they are. Then turns them into strategically focused and visually compelling brands. He’s also had a huge impact on Vince Frost – he was his boss at Pentagram and the person who has influenced his career and design philosophy more than any other creative. 

Growing up in working class Yorkshire, he’d never heard the word design. It was a student teacher at his, “if I’m honest, pretty bad school,” who’d studied the craft that set a task to design an album cover that his eyes were opened. At age 14, he was good. At his Preston College of Art graduation show he was picked up by Conran Design Group. A year later he moved to Pentagram, just in time for their 10th birthday party. In 1987 he became the studio’s first associate and two years later was the first employee to be invited to become a partner. 

The creative has been member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 1994 and a Director of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund since 2012. His work has been exhibited worldwide and has received many international awards including a gold medal at the Lahti Poster Biennale and multiple D&AD silver pencils.  

Listen in as Vince and John discuss the business of design, the impact of computers and AI on the design process, and what Vince learned working under him at Pentagram in the 90s.   

https://www.pentagram.com/ 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the past decade, the debate about the role of books in our increasingly digital world has been a hot one. This devotee of the printed form is unequivocal. She believes content online has simply pushed publishers to make better books.  

Emilia Terragni is Associate Publisher at Phaidon Press, the world’s leading publisher of books on art, design and culture. Phaidon turns 100 this year. Terragni has been there for 22, specialising in books on architecture, design, food, fashion and art, and is considered one of the most influential editors working in the field today. 

Born and raised in Como, Italy, by a creative family where books were incredibly important, she ran away aged 19 to study in Venice. A PHD in fine art set her on the path to a career as a curator or art critic. But it was during her time in the archives of the Vitra Design Museum cataloguing the work of architect Mexican architect and engineer Luis Barragán that she met with Phaidon, and the rest is history. 

Listen in as Vince and Emilia discuss working together on Nan Goldin’s iconic photography book The Devil’s Playground in 2003, the privilege of working with the prolific British graphic designer Alan Fletcher to his dying day, and being named The Queen of Cookbooks by the Wall Street Journal. 

https://www.phaidon.com/ 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.