This week’s Thought Starter discusses writing love stories, his first novel, and how everything starts from a blank page. Recorded live from The Pod at White City Place, our special Co-Host Liv Siddall, commissioner at WePresent and former Editor at It’s Nice That, sits down with author Caleb Azumah Nelson, to explore the journey of writing, and hi…

This week’s Thought Starter discusses why exposing children to all types of art is so important, ahead of the launch of The Ultimate Art Museum, an incredible “museum-in-a-book” for young readers published by Phaidon.Recorded live from The Pod at White City Place, our special Co-Host Liv Siddall, commissioner at WePresent and former Editor at It’s …

This week’s Thought Starter discusses writing editorial, and how to approach the blank page. Recorded live from The Pod at White City Place, our special Co-Host Liv Siddall, commissioner at WePresent and former Editor at It’s Nice That, sits down with journalist and Guardian columnist Stuart Heritage, to explore how to stay inspired during the proc…

This week’s Thought Starter discusses consumer psychology and the senses (touch, taste, smell, sight and sound) and how they impact our perception of the world. Recorded live from The Pod at White City Place, our special Co-Host Sam Bompas of Bompas and Parr - the leading Architects of Taste: Feeding Minds and Stomachs, sits down with Betina Piquer…

This week’s Thought Starter asks where does pain come from, what does it mean, and what effect does it have on our daily lives?Recorded live from The Pod at White City Place, our special Co-Host Sam Bompas of Bompas and Parr - the leading Architects of Taste: Feeding Minds and Stomachs, sits down with ​​Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, writer and journali…

This week’s Thought Starter asks what is art in the realm of Science Fiction, the idea of making personable art, the beauty of the unknown and more.

As the whole world grapples with lockdowns, closures and cancelled events – and the milestones of the design industry’s busy calendar of trade shows disappears, we might look to one country for lessons on how to cope: China.

We meet Benedicte Sunde and Jan Christian, two leaders in the Norwegian design community who would have been showing at the Milan Design Week, to speak instead about the role of design as we emerge from Covid-19 lockdowns.

The Museum of the Home, with Sonia Solicari, the museum's Director, and Naila Yousuf, a senior associate at award-winning practice Wright & Wright Architects that leads the team working on the redevelopment of the Museum of the Home.

We take a look at the latest exhibition at London’s Royal Institute of British Architects, an exploration of 500 years of aesthetics in architecture.

In this episode, Adam Nathaniel and Rob Fiehn – one an artist and designer, the other a communications consultant – pick apart the value of digital forums for discussion, and the future of debate in the industry.

How can design make us feel valued as employees, and remind us of the value our work has in the world?

In this episode, perspectives from the old and established and the new and start-up, as we talk about what work each has to do to develop their brands, tell their stories, and rise to become benchmarks in their industries.

As guarded as the country is about itself, and as careful about who and what they let in, there is a certain pride taken in the architecture of North Korea.

A conversation on the future of mobility between Deyan Sudjic, director of Design Museum of London and Philipp Rode, director of the LSE Cities research centre at the London School of Economics.

Sophie Rochester and Miranda West reflect on the conversations they’ve had with investors, the importance of having a genuine social value at the core of a business, and why establishing a positive company culture from Day 1 is crucial.

Today, the design industry often blurs boundaries with the art world, and collectible craft and furniture is becoming increasing popular, gaining market value and a prominence at major fairs.

In the Pod today, a curator and a designer in praise of the prototype.

In this episode, a conversation with architects Alex Gore and Timothy Smith about the impact of the smaller details.

A notoriously fast-moving industry, the world of fashion seems to be changing like never before: a hyper-quick metabolism for images which drives down our attention span, eco-consciousness, and the breaking down of the gender binary. In this episode, a designer whose brand has transitioned effortlessly from menswear to gender neutrality, and a jour…

The do-it-all design work of Sella Concept

Graphic design and art often interplay, with boundaries regularly blurred. One element that often to link the two is type; using individual letters or words in a way that either subverts or elevates linguistic communication. In this episode we meet two artists whose successful careers have layered an expressive approach to typography with tradition…

When you're working in the creative industries, the dream is often to use creativity to fuel a social cause. Aspiring to make a contribution instead of simply fuelling consumerism. Sadly, that seems to very rarely come to fruition. But not so for our conversationalists today, who are co-founders of Glimpse, a creative collective that tries to cut t…

“Craft.” For a long time, the word has had been pushed to the periphery of the design world, disregarded for its perceived quaintness. But, thanks in part to the efforts of crafts organisations, that has very much been changing. “Craft” now has become associated not with homeliness, but with the highest forms of the discipline – creeping its way in…

As snappy as we seem to like our information these days, each year there are innumerable books of non-fiction that explore our world in great depth and thoughtfulness.These works can help us see the world in a new way, by exploring previously murky arenas of culture, or taking focus on themes that rarely get much breathing space.We have two such au…

As much as photography and video have gained in reputation in the world of fine art, they have also been democratised. Thanks to smart phones, 1.2 trillion photos were taken in 2017 alone. ?Image-making is also something often scrutinised. It can reinforce strict and unrealistic standards of beauty or, collectively, define a narrow demographic of w…

These days, we expect brands to reflect a set of values, not simply provide products. No businesses do this better than those whose entire mission is to change the world for the better, even in just a small way – these are social enterprises. Combining commerce with social progress, they often work with vulnerable groups, offering work and a sense …

In design, there’s a certain aesthetic we imagine we hear the word “sophistication” – it’s likely muted, neutral, maybe even sombre. And, we apply it often: to offices, to homes, to restaurants, to hotels. But these spaces aren't often very ‘joyful’. Joyful spaces are playful and bright. And, so, we often think of joyful places as those for childre…

In the field of architecture, communicating ideas has always been a challenge. A combination of scale models, illustrations, plans and renderings help explain how a space, a building, or even an entire city might look and feel. But all of that is beginning to change, with the introduction of cheaper, quicker and more elaborate VR experiences. Now, …

For what seems like forever, we've been told we live in a “consumer society” – we are defined by how we spend, it is our most important expression of ourselves, our aspirations and our politics. And, while still a powerful concept, some have argued that we are sliding into a new era: a citizen society. Instead of simply a choice to purchase or not,…

Today, we delve into the world of digital publishing with two editors at the top of their game, for two of the most notable women-focus publications out there – industry-leading digital magazine Refinery 29 and one of the biggest names in fashion: British Vogue.Womens-focused publications have changed significantly since these Sarah Raphael and Ali…

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! Last stop: Exhibition Road, outside the V&A as part of the Day of Design street party.We met Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Rory Hyde and founder of Digital Identities, Dr. Abhay Adhikari. Together, they reflected on this year's London Design …

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! Last stop: Exhibition Road, outside the V&A as part of the Day of Design street party.We met editor of Icon magazine, Priya Khanchandani, and design curator Max Fraser. Together, they reflected on this year's London Design Festival as the city-wide event came to a close. Tune in for wrap-up for t…

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! First stop: The Brompton Design District. Today we met Johanna Agerman Ross, curator of contemporary design at the V&A and Tetsuo Mukai of the research and design and research consultancy, Workshop for Potential Design.Tune in for an invigorating chat about how we display design in museums, how w…

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! First stop: The Brompton Design District.Today we met architect and furniture designer Kelechi Odu of Oparanze Collective and Sophie Thomas of communications design studio Thomas Matthews. Tune in for an invigorating chat about the reuse of materials in design, enjoyable ways to tackle not-so-enj…

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! First stop: The Brompton Design District.Today we met Sevra Davis of The Design Museum and Seetal Solanki of Ma-tt-er, a research design studio that explores the past, present and future of materials. Tune in for an invigorating chat about strange new materials, and how we can nudge them into mai…

Spiritland founder Paul Noble & Southbank Centre's Bengi Unsal

?????The art world can be uninviting, and the sheer number of galleries can feel overwhelming. One solution: the internet. ?????Counter Editions is a platform selling prints and multiples by leading international artists. Director Robert Diament joins us in the Pod, along with actor and art collector Russell Tovey. ?…

?Some of the most esteemed and enduring brands are those that build in their customers an emotional connection – they give us more than just practical function. A few of those them seemingly manage to create own worlds, and come to represent a lifestyle and system of values, too. ?One such brand is Rapha, the cycling sportswear company founded in 2…

????Does the world need another chair? It’s a question often asked in the design world, mostly by industry journalists who have a hard time getting excited about countless new four-legged additions to furniture showrooms from Milan to Mexico City. ???What is far more intriguing are the experiments in how we make, not necessarily what we make. From …

???It's possible your social media feeds have been completely flooded with dispatches from the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The international architecture exhibition has just launched, and will take over the coastal city with national pavilions, individual architects and curators exploring themes that have ranged from cities and society – or, i…

?For a fashion brand, success takes many forms.Commercial success is an obvious one. But then there’s cultural impact. And now too, it’s about an online following. Often the audience that lends a brand its relevance aren’t always the most active consumers. Today we talk about just that, fashion that is more than just clothing, it’s also a message. …

??Sustainability is a word that gets frequently thrown around, but what, exactly, does it mean? Today on Thought Starters, Caroline Till of FranklinTill and Carole Collet, founder of the Material Futures master’s programme at Central Saint Martins talk about what sustainability means for the rapidly changing world of fashion and design.…

??It's been a decade of protest. And from the Women's march to the Brexit marches, what these large-scale political expressions carry with them is an outpouring of creativity. That's exactly what's explored at Hope to Nope, a new exhibition at the Design Museum in London. We were lucky enough to get the two curators, Margaret Cubbage? and Lucienne …

?Today, we talk about architecture – its great triumphs, its failures, and where the world is headed. In conversation: architect Farshid Moussavi and writer and critic Phineas Harper. ??Iranian-born Farshid Moussavi is an internationally acclaimed architect and educator, who founded her own eponymous practice in London in 2011, after first establis…