Design Podcasts

Finish one detail. That is the advice Dineshwar S, the architect behind the Bangalore School of Design and Technology, gives students on The Gyaan Project. A student working on a house interior should resolve a single kitchen shutter: "just finish one don't worry about the marks." Get one shutter right, he argues, and you understand how the next one will work.

Design Details is the sound of two colleagues thinking out loud. In 446: Grab Bag, Vol. 3, Brian Lovin reads a listener's question about naming Figma layers and admits he doubted it was a topic. The hosts are debating capital letters as "anchor points" for a scanning eye. The same episode turns into a close reading of a dialog: a harsh, tiny drop shadow, a 1x icon scaled to 2x so it blurs, and two inputs of different widths. The pleasure is hearing taste become this specific. The trade-offs are loose chatter, Patreon pitches for a bonus "sidebar," and an archive whose latest listed episode dates from November 2023.

Lovin turns up again as a guest on Dive Club 🤿, Ridd's interview series, in Brian Lovin - How to level up with AI as a designer. Now at Notion, he says "I haven't nudged pixels in Figma in a long time," and that AI remains weak at last-mile fit and finish. Josh Puckett - Crafting interfaces with uncommon care looks closely at a single product. Puckett walks through an onboarding flow built around a library card you drag into a machine, with a success sound as it disappears. Ridd describes the conversation as heavy on screen sharing.

The World of UX with Darren Hood works as an argument rather than a chat. In UX Maturity and the Fear of AI, Hood says the answer to whether designers should fear AI is "a resounding no." He calls companies that cut UX staff for AI short-sighted, and he describes boot camps as "an offense to the institution of education." Episode 299: UX Maturity & The Challenge of Collaboration builds its case from workplace stories. In one, a developer presents designs made in Microsoft Paint just as the team is about to deploy. Listeners who want firm correction will get it. Those who want opposing views tested will hear one confident voice in these episodes.

Craft only pays when someone sells it, and several shows live in that territory. The Honest Designers Show brings together Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee and Lisa Glanz. In Episode 194: How to Charge 10 Time More Your Current Rate? the panel works through pricing by comparing a fancy burger joint with McDonald's, and by recalling fire logs made from mill sawdust mixed with wax. Episode 201 hands the floor to Mike Janda. He describes leaving two long-time staff to run his agency, firing one, and losing the other while on vacation in Hawaii. The listed episodes stop in 2021, so treat the show as a library.

Cheers & Tiers: Design Leadership Tales Retold, hosted by Rachel Elnor and Eric Cargill, gathers AIGA chapter leaders to swap retreat stories. In 016: Leadership Lessons from Season 1 with Erik & Rachel, one host recalls assuming that leaders needed great portfolios, then learning otherwise. Confessions of an Interior Designer, hosted by Caroline Turner, pairs guest interviews with confessions. In I Confess... Scammed By My Contractor, a contractor goes straight to the client for money ahead of the contract's draw schedule. A Nashville songwriter's retreat ends up cancelled.

Interiors shows offer the most immediately practical listening in the field. On Uploft Interior Design, Betsy Helmuth gives numbers you can take shopping. In TBT: Shopping Online for Rugs | Uploft Interior Design, she defines a low-pile rug as anything under 0.25 inches, with medium running from 0.25 to 0.5. Expect promotions for her design academy and a recent feed heavy with "TBT" episodes.

Designing in 5D is about process and money. Designing in 5D: The Designer–Builder Process That Prevents Budget Chaos explains why an engineer now joins the first walkthrough when walls may come out: a wall they assumed was load-bearing wasn't. In Designing in 5D: Setting Expectations That Save Time, Money & Sanity, a designer explains her 30% markup on trade prices. She also warns clients not to plan a party within six months to a year of the projected finish. How to Decorate, from the Ballard Designs team, mixes guest interviews with the hosts' own homes. In Trials and Triumphs, a gurgling toilet leads to a digging crew that hits a concrete box, apparently a septic tank. For the built side, the Architecture page goes further.

99% Invisible, from Roman Mars, uses design as a way into almost any story. RoboUmp Hits the Big Leagues replays a 2023 episode on robot umpires. In one scene, an Isotopes batter turns as if to yell at a called third strike, then stops himself and walks back to the dugout. A Man, a Plan, a Canal—Mars! explains how serious people came to believe in Martian canals, and how theologians folded the idea into their faith. The feed also reaches the Supreme Court and interleaves numbered entries such as 100 Objects #19: Western Electric 500 Series, so check whether an episode stands alone.

Monocle on Design runs like a magazine section. In The rise and rise of Brazilian design with Jig. Plus: touring the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht., the hosts squabble over whether a workshop-made zigzag chair counts as a copy. Then Sheena Rossiter reports on the house itself.

Some shows want the whole person. On Time Sensitive, Spencer Bailey gives Jay Osgerby room in Jay Osgerby on Imbuing Objects With Meaning to trace a family of makers, from hansom cabs to old tools in the shed. Osgerby also calls technology "optional." Clever with Amy Devers runs an encore with Osgerby too. Its Ep. 237: Curator Alyssa Velazquez on Craft-itarianism: Community Action Through Craft describes a bright pink felted folding chair, and ceramic milagros arranged on a decal of a migrant shelter's facade.

The Gyaan Project's Kedar Nimkar warms up Ep. 325 - The secret to designing for India's plurality with Amit Das with rapid-fire questions ("Dials. 100% dials."). Das then explains why extra chrome reads as premium on cheaper cars for some Indian consumers. The Creative Process and Visual Arts pages follow these threads. Makers can try shows such as New to Knitting and Quilting Stories podcast, plus the Crafts page, while Fashion & Beauty and the Arts guide widen the view.