Design Observer

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11-11-2025

S12E10: The Past, Present and Future of Design with Lee Moreau

Lee Moreau is the host of the Design Observer podcasts Design As and The Futures Archive. He is also a Professor of the Practice of Design at Northeastern University and the founder and director of Other Tomorrows, a design and strategy consultancy based in Boston. Lee is also the perfect guest to cap off the 12th season of DB|BD- a season that grappled with designing for the unknown. Lee faces the challenge of uncertainty head-on in his teaching, on his podcasts and in his consultancy practice. In this unexpectedly emotional conversation with DB|BD host Ellen McGirt, Lee gets real about the state of design. He explains why design is a practice of reckoning with the past as much as it is of designing for the future. He also reflects on his conversations with other designers about balancing the threats and possibilities of AI. And he shares why he is cautiously optimistic that there will always be a place in our world for designers and design. And stay tuned after the interview for Ellen’s season 12 recap! Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript. Listen to all three seasons of Design As on our website. Institute of Design’s Shapeshift Summit

11-11-2025

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49 min
18-11-2021

S1E6: The Toilet

How private are private spaces, and what makes you feel comfortable in public private places? On this episode of The Futures Archive host Lee Moreau and this episode’s guest host, Devorah Klein, discuss the toilet, privacy, and connections. With additional insights this week from Francis de los Reyes, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley, Adam Reineck, Ruth Barcan, Joel Sanders, and Chelsea Wald.

18-11-2021

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32 min
17-04-2024

S11E1: How to Throw a Party to Change the World with Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems is a multidisciplinary artist. Her body of work stretches over four decades and across many mediums, but with a singular focus— depicting the reality of Black life. Weems talks about her work, her role in public life, the intersecting crises in the world, and the power of convening people through art to confront big truths. On this season of DB|BD, co-hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt are observing equity by highlighting the “redesigners” — people who are addressing urgent problems by challenging big assumptions about how the world can and should work — and who it should work for. This season of DB|BD is powered by Deloitte. Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript. To learn more about Carrie Mae Weems’ work, visit her website. A write up of Carrie’s Cyclorama in the New York Times. Varying Shades of Brown was a project featuring major installations and programs by Carrie Mae Weems across Brown University. If you enjoyed this conversation with Carrie, check out Jessica and Ellen’s conversation with Avery Willis Hoffman, the artistic director of the Brown Arts Institute. Follow The Design of Business | The Business of Design on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Episodes are produced by Design Observer’s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.

17-04-2024

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57 min
01-07-2025

S12E8: Candace Parker & Michael C. Bush on Purpose, Leadership and Meeting the Moment

In this episode of DB|BD, you’re in for a two for one– or in this case, a double double. First up, host Ellen McGirt sits down with Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work. Every year, Great Place to Work sends out a survey to 23 million people across 170 countries to ask them how valued and respected they feel at work. Companies that score well on the survey are bestowed with the honor of being- you guessed it- a certified Great Place to Work. Michael talks with Ellen about why Great Place to Work companies are also some of the most profitable, how expectations for workplace culture vary around the world and why consistency is an essential leadership trait. He also shares his thoughts on whether leadership is based in nature or nurture and if DEI was even fully baked to begin with. Later in the episode, Ellen chats with WNBA legend Candace Parker. Candace is a three time WNBA champion and two time Olympic Gold medalist. She is still the only W player to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. She’s also the author of the new book The Can-Do Mindset: How to Cultivate Resilience, Follow Your Heart, and Fight for Your Passions. On top of all that, she is a broadcaster, mom, wife and advocate. In this live conversation, recorded on stage at Great Place to Work’s For All Summit, Candace talks about how she got the nickname “can-do”, finding her footing in the W while also nursing her daughter, embracing negativity and why her leadership advice includes signing up for a team sport. On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms. More on the Great Place to Work Trust Index Candace Parker’s The Can-Do Mindset: How to Cultivate Resilience, Follow Your Heart, and Fight for Your Passion Dr. Richard Cook’s lecture “How Complex Systems Fail” James Baldwin & William F. Buckley’s 1965 debate

01-07-2025

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48 min
07-03-2017

S2E2: Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman leads the Mediated Matter research group at the MIT Media Lab.

07-03-2017

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24 min
07-08-2024

S11E8: Poetry is Anti Capitalist with Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer prize winning poet, professor and librettist who served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2017-2019. She’s published five poetry collections, two librettos and one memoir-manifesto. She is also a Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard. Her most recent Libretto for the opera The Righteous is currently running at the Santa Fe Opera house through August 13th. Pulsing through Tracy’s long list of accomplishments is her belief that language, and specifically poetry, is a pathway to the fullest versions of ourselves- selves that today’s world often doesn’t allow us to be. In this episode of DB|BD, hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt sit down with Tracy to talk through the writing process of two of her most recent works: the libretto for The Righteous and her 2024 memoir-manifesto To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul. Tracy also candidly engages in conversation about how she finds faith when you otherwise feel empty, how she uses history to inform her analysis of the current moment and how her employer and alma mater, Harvard, can emerge from this period of institutional struggle. And stick around to the end of the episode to hear Tracy read one of her poems live on air! On this season of DB|BD, co-hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt are observing equity by highlighting the “redesigners” — people who are addressing urgent problems by challenging big assumptions about how the world can and should work — and who it should work for. This season of DB|BD is powered by Deloitte. Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript. Tracy K. Smith’s website. Full text of “An Old Story”. More on Nada Hafez Fencing While Pregnant Allyson Felix on Setting Up the First Olympic Nursery Ilona Maher on TikTok Follow The Design of Business | The Business of Design on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Episodes are produced by Design Observer’s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.

07-08-2024

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57 min
04-03-2025

S12E1: The Future of Cities is Climate Adaptive with Michael Eliason

Welcome to the 12th season of DB|BD. This season we are Designing for the Unknown. Michael Eliason of Larch Lab is an architect, researcher, writer and urbanist based in Seattle He’s a self-described activist for dense, livable, affordable, and sustainable cities and the author of Building for People: Designing Livable, Affordable, Low-Carbon Communities. In the aftermath of the fires in Southern California, Michael helps host Ellen McGirt understand how we can build or rebuild communities to anticipate the significant climate changes imperiling our world and make us healthier, happier, more connected people. On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms. Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript. Michael’s book Building for People: Designing Livable, Affordable, Low-Carbon Communities Larch Lab Jane Jacobs: Neighborhoods in Action Henry Graber on Tokyo’s approach to fire resistance

04-03-2025

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31 min
25-05-2023

Feed Drop: Design Observer x Mastercard

While The Futures Archive is between seasons, we wanted to share with you a recent conversation between TFA host Lee Moreau, Design Observer founder Jessica Helfand, Cindy Chastain leader of customer experience and design at Mastercard, and Ellen McGirt from Fortune. For three days in March, Design Observer and Mastercard leaders gathered with some sixty people—designers and scholars, social entrepreneurs and independent consultants, creative leaders and senior practitioners from across a range of industries—to discuss the current state of everything from collaboration and craft to cultural transformation, technological innovation, and the social and systemic changes impacting the ways we live and work. The Futures Archive will be back soon with season three! In the meantime check out our back catalogue here, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or however you listen, and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

25-05-2023

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27 min
01-04-2025

S12E3: The New Era of Design Leadership with Tony Bynum

Tony Bynum is bilingual. He can speak the language of both business and design, a skill that makes him a unique leader in our industry. Tony is the director of the Institute for Design’s new ID Academy, where he is also a professor of practice. Previously, he founded the Northwestern Mutual Design Thinking Center of Excellence in Milwaukee, WI where he was Principal Senior Director of Experience Design. In this episode, Tony shares lessons from his unorthodox career path that are still applicable in today’s tumultuous job market. He also shares advice for leaders and new hires on how to use design thinking as a tool for resistance. And Tony and Ellen attempt to give a name to the current era of design- hint: it’s all about designing WITH rather than designing FOR. On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms. Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript. Tony’s interview in The Reel Black List. Design As Humanity episode featuring Susan Fabry Follow The Design of Business | The Business of Design on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

01-04-2025

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42 min
10-06-2025

S12E7: Compassionate Design, Career Advice and Leaving 18F with Designer Ethan Marcotte

Ethan Marcotte is a web designer who may be best known for coining the term “responsive design” in 2010 – which turned out to be a prescient manifesto for the quest to design beautiful, accessible, and effective digital experiences everywhere. Ethan’s also a compassionate web designer and a prolific writer. His most recent book is “You Deserve A Tech Union,” a treatise on the rise of the labor movement in tech. Ethan also recently spent nearly a year working for 18F, a governmental digital consulting office that helped federal agencies use technology to better serve the public. Ethan resigned in February, just one month before the office was shut down. In this episode, Ethan describes the difficult choice to leave 18F – a story that includes practical career advice on what do to do when a job contradicts your personal values. He also discusses the role of compassionate design in this moment, and what its future might be. And Ethan reflects on the state of “responsive design” 15 years later, why redesigning big systems requires patience and how AI is changing the value of our labor. On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms. Ethan’s website. Ethan’s essays “Moving on from 18F” and “Hallucinating” Sylvia Harris: AIGA 2014 Medalist Jessica Helfand’s beautiful tribute to Sylvia.

10-06-2025

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41 min

Unfiltered Access. Unbiased Curiosity. Design Observer: Hosting Critical Conversations since 2003.

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Design Observer

Topprogramma’s

S12E10: The Past, Present and Future of Design with Lee Moreau

S1E6: The Toilet

S11E1: How to Throw a Party to Change the World with Carrie Mae Weems

S12E8: Candace Parker & Michael C. Bush on Purpose, Leadership and Meeting the Moment

S2E2: Neri Oxman

S11E8: Poetry is Anti Capitalist with Tracy K. Smith

S12E1: The Future of Cities is Climate Adaptive with Michael Eliason

Feed Drop: Design Observer x Mastercard

S12E3: The New Era of Design Leadership with Tony Bynum

S12E7: Compassionate Design, Career Advice and Leaving 18F with Designer Ethan Marcotte

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