Evergreen Podcasts
138 episodes listed below
PRESS PLAY
Pop culture inspires some serious fun.Join hosts Todd Coats and Elliot Strunk, two creatively curious pals living between the bookends of grand museums and dive bars, the sweet spot where highbrow and lowbrow become drinking buddies. They talk influential work and uncover stories of how the familiar became iconic. Think Behind the Music for the stuff we love.-----Visit https://www.twodesignerswalkintoabar.com/ for images, links, episode extras and more.-----Two Designers Walk Into a Bar is part of the Evergreen Podcasts network.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Elliot and Todd turn familiar pop-culture artifacts into clear, funny lessons in design choices, commercial context, and visual memory.
Elliot and Todd take familiar pop-culture objects seriously enough to trace how they were designed, sold, copied, and remembered, while keeping the conversation loose and joke-heavy.
Gritty meets Boo-Berry at the bar; your mascot curiosity finally has company.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Psychedelia is handled as a lively pop-culture history, with enough banter to keep the discussion moving.
Two Designers Walk Into a Bar treats peak psychedelia as a mainstream-culture story, tracing how design and music were reshaped by experimentation and then filtered through Life Magazine, Look Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, the radio, and even living rooms.
Food advertising mascots become a sharp, design-minded look at branding and consumer intelligence.
This episode uses food advertising mascots as a way into branding, memory, and the strange afterlife some characters get once they outgrow the ads that made them.
A warm reappraisal of Rockwell that treats clarity as a serious artistic skill.
This holiday-season episode uses the Four Freedoms to frame Norman Rockwell as more than a sentimental illustrator. It presents the long-held critical view plainly, then makes a sturdier case for him as a visual storyteller and a visual historian with real empathy.
A warm look at tiki's afterlife as design, nostalgia, and subculture.
Tiki is treated less like a novelty and more like a design language with a long tail: it fades as a suburban craze, then turns up again in the late 90s and early 2000s through lowbrow art, rockabilly, nostalgia, and craft cocktails.
Branding history that makes a peacock, a chime, and a punchline feel like the same problem.
Two Designers Walk Into a Bar makes NBC and Netflix feel like a neat lesson in how branding can survive a shift in technology. It moves cleanly from the network-versus-content-provider setup into NBC's Peacock history, then into the 1980 update that brought six feathers, bold…
A loose, lively look at how punk bent into new wave.
The episode traces punk's push against the establishment and the way new wave carried that rebellion into a cleaner, more synthetic form. It anchors the argument in specifics: 1977 vinyl sales peaking at almost 350 million albums, several bands signing their first record…
Design talk about fake artifacts, tactile form, and the craft behind objects that feel real.
The episode keeps returning to a useful question: how digital design can feel collectible, tactile, and worth holding onto. It spends time on fake artifacts, the appeal of objects that look real, and the pull of journals, sketchbooks, Field Notes-style riffs, Blue Note covers,…
Mascots, cereal lore, and Philly chaos make for a brisk design history listen.
Two Designers Walk Into a Bar treats monster mascot design as a piece of pop culture memory, moving from Gritty in Philly to General Mills' monster cereals.
Two product designers talk Figma workflows, button sizing, and AI design tools weekly.
Stockholm hosts James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom interview UX and accessibility experts.
Four design-business owners, including Design Cuts' Tom Ross, talk pricing, agencies, and creative burnout.
Monocle's design team tours museums, furniture studios, and landmark houses each week.
1977 is the hinge.
First, no, not those identities.
Horror posters get pulled up to the bar.
Cats and posters take the bar stool.
Magic is the recurring bit.
Food mascots pull up a stool.
Matt Stevens is back at the bar.
Pebble ice first.
Rudolph starts as retail strategy with antlers.
Turkey derails the cold open.
Magazines still mattered.
Mid-1960s psychedelia walks into the bar.
Childhood closets get opened first.
October gets monster duty.
Coconut mugs show up first.
Lowbrow, highbrow, or lowenbrow?
A Bahama Mama joke starts the conga line, and the episode follows it right into the weeds.
Cars show up before the topic has its seat.
Imitation gets put on trial, sort of.
Psychedelia had reached Sears.
Hosts discuss iconic fabric patterns like paisley and their cultural significance.
The hosts discuss a film genre that blends action, civil rights, and empowerment, touching on various subgenres like martial arts, westerns, and horror.
Hosts discuss iconic trophies like the Wimbledon Venus Rosewater Dish and the Stanley Cup, exploring their design and cultural significance.
Hosts discuss the histories of iconic posters and characters Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam in a wartime propaganda episode.
Hosts Todd and Elliot discuss the design and history of U.S.
Two designers discuss iconic design and pop culture influences over drinks.
Two hosts humorously discuss and compare iconic pop culture items like the whoopee cushion and rubber chicken.
Two designers discuss iconic design in pop culture, starting with comic books that inspired their creative futures.
Two designers discuss pop culture and iconic design, exploring themes like comic books and mail-order novelties.
Hosts Todd Coats and Elliot Strunk interview Kate Christensen about marketing and nostalgia, discussing toys, food, and childhood memories.