Design Your Life with Vince Frost

We know making lifestyle changes can impact the quality and length of our lives, but which are the changes that work? Is vitamin C ageing? How important is portion control? And does muscle tone impact mood?  Dr. Norman Swan is a medically trained journalist, best-selling author and award-winning broadcaster. He hosts ABC Radio National’s The Health Report, reports on 7.30, and is a guest reporter on Four Corners. Like most of us, he wants to live better longer.  Most recently he’s been known in Australia as the straight-talking doctor who led us through the Coronavirus pandemic with his evidence-based reporting on the Coronacast podcast.  Listen in to the first episode in our Fit-ish series, exploring the idea of the least we need to do for good health, as Vince and Norman discuss slowing the clock on ageing, how control in life impacts our health, and why eighty is the new sixty. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A turban that looks and functions like a regular turban, but is as tough as a motorcycle helmet? It exists, and the product is an open-source design available for anyone to download. The Tough Turban is the result of an ingenious idea Vic Bath and the team at Zula Alpha Kilo have brought to life for client Pfaff Harley Davison, who came to the Canadian creative agency with a brief to help them appeal to a more diverse audience. The product has won a raft of awards, including a Wood Pencil and two Graphite Pencils at the D&AD Impact awards this year.  Listen in to episode three of our Designing for Impact series in collaboration with D&AD wherever you get your podcasts as Vince and Vic discuss the power of design to create a better world, the importance of diversity and how this incredible new product works.  https://toughturban.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marijke Spain is part of the creative team at Leo Burnett who conceived the award-winning ‘One House to Save Many’ project for Suncorp Group. It’s a creative solution designed to address the destruction of Australian homes brought on by our changing climate and brings together a group of experts to prototype and test what could be Australia’s most resilient home. Collaborating over many months, Suncorp partnered with CSIRO, James Cook University (JCU) and Room11 Architects to create a truly impactful solution to a real problem for our modern world. The project is a beautiful demonstration of how simple thinking can solve complex problems and the power of creative talent in bringing big ideas to life. It’s no surprise the project won a Wood Pencil at the D&AD Impact awards this year.  Listen in to episode two of our Designing for Impact series in collaboration with D&AD as Vince and Marijke discuss how the project came to life, what to do if you morally object to a brief and how simple thinking can solve complex problems.  https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2022/235897/one-house-to-save-many/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever wondered how D&AD came to be, what the organisation does outside of awards, and why it’s important for not just the design community, but the world? Tim Lindsay is the Chairman of D&AD, the esteemed advertising and design awards and creative education charity famed for its iconic Yellow Pencil, awarded only to outstanding work that achieves true creative excellence. Born in Lincolnshire and brought up in East Africa, Tim spent thirty-four years in advertising before becoming the head of the seminal creative institution that’s been inspiring and celebrating commercial creativity since its beginnings in 1962. This is the first in our Designing for Impact series in collaboration with D&AD where Vince speaks with some of the winners of the recent D&AD Impact Awards, which celebrate creative ideas that are making a real and positive difference in the world. Listen in as Vince and Tim discuss the part design has to play in building a more sustainable future, the formative experience of growing up in East Africa and gender equality in the design world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Working on things you care about, close to the people you love, in a business with ethics and morals aligned with your own seems a straightforward ambition. Until the result is a leadership position in a global $1bn company that’s driving conscientious business around the world.    Dane O’Shanassy is Patagonia’s Country Director, Australia and New Zealand. The decisions he makes for the business today are led by Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard’s earliest choices. The conscientious objectives that drive both incredible revenue for the business and ongoing positive change for planet earth.    “It's very much a simple mission, but one that I've never seen as present and lived in anywhere else I've worked. The mission itself is, ‘We're in business to save our home planet’. I've never been in an organisation that really takes its accountability to the mission as seriously as it does here.”   DListen in as Vince and Dane discuss why Patagonia will repair a competitor’s product, growing up in Torquay in the 80s packing boxes for Rip Curl and how transparency and accountability are key to success today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being in the business of helping people live healthier and happier is quite a goal, but the Alessandri brothers have done it. By elevating the importance of positive workplace culture in building their brand and products, they’ve found global successful.  Pierluigi Alessandri is the Vice President and Co-founder of Technogym, one of the most successful wellness and innovation businesses in the world. Pierluigi emphasises, it’s the people on the team and their passion who make the business what it is today.  When he and his brother and business partner Nerio started the business in 1983, they never could have imagined they’d be the Official Supplier of the Olympic Games for eight consecutive games, since Sydney in 2000. Or that Wellness, a concept introduced to the world by Nerio ten years later, would dominate the zeitgeist for years to come.  Listen in as Vince and Pierluigi discuss designing exercise equipment that is seen as art, starting a brand and $3.2B global business out of their garage, and what it feels like to have more than 50 million people using your products every day.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can government and industry have the most impact when it comes to climate change? Or is it up to the individual to take action?  Craig Leeson is the 2022 Tasmanian Australian of the Year and a self-described storyteller who feels a personal responsibility to have an impact. The one-time foreign correspondent now makes and sells documentaries to broadcasters around the world so his stories addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, single use plastics and environmental issues are seen far and wide.   Leeson’s first feature-length documentary, A Plastic Ocean, released in 2017, has been viewed around the world. It’s ranked as one of the world’s top documentaries to watch about the environment, and is still winning awards today.  In this special edition of our Tide For Change series, listen in as Vince and Craig discuss; being the first media on the ground at the 2015 Nepal earthquake disaster, a transformative evening spent drinking wine with David Attenborough, and the extraordinarily emotional experience of witnessing wildlife literally choke to death on plastic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you put people before profit, will your business be a bigger success? Cliff Ho thinks so. But you need to be profitable and self-sustainable, too. That’s when you can make the biggest impact on communities and the environment.  Ho is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Commons, the wildly successful creative coworking spaces. When they opened their third location in Sydney in 2017, they filled the 3,5000sqm space with 550 members in just ten weeks. They have a waitlist on most of their sites today.  But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Ho. After tanking at an early presenting gig in front of 100,000 people, he got over it and got better. He honed his craft, practicing relentlessly in front of the camera until it felt natural, and went on to interview Kanye West, Miley Cyrus and Usher in his role as a host for Channel [V].   Listen in as Vince and Cliff discuss how to bounce back after a fall from grace, the time Kanye came off stage and asked him, “was that OK?”, and the importance of putting community first.  This episode is part of our ‘Design Your Life: Business for Good’ series focused on B Corps around the world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sasha Titchkosky is on a mission. If everything goes to plan the Co-founder and CEO of Koskela, the furniture and homewares business she founded and with her partner Russel Koskela in 2000, will be 100% emission zero by 2030. That means absolutely no emissions. Zero.   On top of that, the lawyer and accountant is the inaugural chairperson of the B Corp Climate Collective and she spends her spare time supporting her local independent parliamentary candidate. She believes this is the best way to bring about a desperately needed shift in the way the Australian Government works and addresses public issues – the top of her list? Climate action.   Listen in as Vince and Sasha discuss; her ambition to become the Patagonia of the furniture world, her motivation to design a profitable yet conscious business model as a template for others and leaving the world liveable for her children.    https://koskela.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When your work takes you outside the boundaries of our atmosphere, the Earth and her limits come into sharp focus. James Chin Moody is co-founder and CEO of Sendle, a 100% carbon neutral technology company and major disruptor revolutionising parcel delivery around the globe. Born into a family of engineers on his father’s side — he’s named after his great-great-uncle, who built the Sydney Harbour Bridge — and artists on his mother’s, he possesses the unique and powerful combination of a mind that’s both mathematical and creative. As an Engineering and IT graduate he landed the job of Chief Systems Engineer for FedSat, the first Australian satellite to be launched in 30 years, and has held influential positions with the CSIRO and UNESCO. A recognised expert on innovation, sustainability and the circular economy, he is the co-author of The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World, published in 2010. Listen in as Vince and James discuss how his experience as a Satellite Engineer helped form his relationship to space and sustainability, becoming the first tech B Corp in Australia and the importance of purpose for shaping the businesses of the future.  https://www.sendle.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.