The official podcast feed of AIGA, the professional association for design. We explore various facets of the design discipline, profession, and industry to help our listeners learn about the past and present and prepare for the future.
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In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello sit down with Sally Chung, a designer, startup founder, professor at Parsons School of Design, and former faculty member at SVA. From her early days as a founding designer at Saks Fifth Avenue to building an SMS AI beauty chatbot in 2016 and leading zero-to-one ventures at BCGX, Sally has continuously navigated the balance between…
In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello welcome Martin LeBlanc, Chief Experience Officer at Magnific (the AI creative platform formerly known as Freepik). A designer and entrepreneur with 25 years of experience across computer science, business, and creativity, Martin founded Iconfinder—which grew into a global design asset marketplace before being acquired by Magnific.…
In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello sit down with Jeff Leitner, the co-founder of UX for Good, architect of Norm Design, and a partner to organizations ranging from the US State Department and NASA to Harvard Medical School. Together, they unpack the core ideas behind his Summer 2026 Stanford Social Innovation Review article, "The Science of Norm Design," exploring why…
In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello sit down with Ian Bogost, a writer, designer, media scholar, contributing writer at The Atlantic , and professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Together, they explore the concept of "dematerialization" and the core ideas behind his latest book, This Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life . Ian shares how his multifaceted…
In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello welcome back Rinat Sherzer—a biotech engineer, transdisciplinary designer, artist, and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design whose work sits at the intersection of science, technology, and social justice. Together, they discuss the deep human construct of hope, unpacking how it differs from mere wishful thinking and exploring how…
What does it actually take for design to matter inside a massive organization? In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Seth Johnson to talk about design at enterprise scale, and what designers get wrong about building influence. Seth Johnson is Design Director at IBM's Chief Data Office, where he leads a team driving AI-first enterprise data transformation. Over a…
Designers today face massive challenges around education, certification, pay, and power. In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Benjie Wilhelm to name the elephant in the room and talk about what it would actually take to fix the structural issues. Benjie is an Assistant Professor of Design at Arizona State University (ASU), Director of Strategic Initiatives at…
What if the designer's real job isn't to design the object at all? In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Todd Bracher -- industrial designer, founder of Bracher and BetterLab, and author of two books -- to dig into a practice built on removing ego from the design process and letting context drive the answer. From a Pratt exam that accidentally changed his career,…
How can design education bridge the gap between global digital collaboration and local physical making? In this episode of the AIGA Design Podcast, we sit down with Bryan Clark, Head of Graphic Design at Falmouth University, to discuss why online learning is a deliberate "feature" for the modern designer, and not just a fallback. In this episode, we explore: - The Global Studio Concept: How…
In this episode, we speak with Lisa Gralnek, Managing Director of iF Design USA and Global Head of Sustainability and Impact at iF Design. We cover the scale and rigor behind the iF Design Award, one of the world's most recognized design competitions since 1953, and how iF has made sustainability a core, embedded criterion in its judging process. We also discuss the launch of the iF Design…
In this episode, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello welcome distinguished professor, author, and creativity expert Robin Landa. Recently honored with the 2025 Stephen Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary, Landa discusses her prolific career as the author of 27 books and her evolving philosophy on design’s role in society. The conversation spans Landa’s origin story: from designing Barbie…
