Design Better
The Curiosity Department, sponsored by Wix Studio
Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with guests across many creative fields, helping you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration.Whether you’re design curious or a design pro, Design Better is guaranteed to inspire and inform. Vanity Fair calls Design Better, “sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative world.”
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 6, 2026 • 27min
Mason Currey: Mason Currey: Author of Daily Rituals on Making Art and Making a Living
Mason Currey, author of Daily Rituals and Making Art and Making a Living, explores how creatives actually pay for their work. He outlines four funding models: family money, day jobs, patronage, and schemes. Stories span Kafka’s insurance to John Cage’s game-show winnings. The conversation looks at historical and modern patronage, balancing commerce and art, and how artists build lasting practices.
Apr 29, 2026 • 48min
Etinosa Agbonlahor: Behavioral economist on why pricing belongs in the design process
Etinosa Agbonlahor, behavioral economist and founder of Decision Alpha who helps companies decode financial decision-making. She explains how presentation, anchors, tiers and decoys shape price perception. Pricing belongs in research, not after launch. Practical tips include simplifying choices, using anchors, and scripts for talking money.
4 snips
Apr 22, 2026 • 32min
Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio
Paul Dichter, head writer and co-executive producer on Stranger Things, shares behind-the-scenes life in a writers' room. He talks about daily collaboration, using whiteboards and maps to solve visual storytelling, and the discipline of subtle 80s nostalgia. He also explores team roles, creative conflict, and how structure maps onto design-like processes.
26 snips
Apr 16, 2026 • 46min
Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot
Tessa Forshaw, cognitive scientist studying creativity and how people regain it. Rich Braden, design strategist teaching innovation and advising companies. They unpack why innovation does not need to be a moonshot. They explore creative confidence loss, the tiny brain response that causes hesitation, and why small, rapid experiments and roofshot moves can spark real change.
Apr 8, 2026 • 32min
Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you
Luis Mendo, a Spanish-born illustrator in Nagano who left art direction to devote himself to hand-drawn work, discusses craft, presence, and making things that carry your imprint. He talks about life in Japan reshaping his pace and attention to detail. He explains using LLMs as practical tools while choosing slow, analog practices and a shokunin approach to creative life.
18 snips
Apr 1, 2026 • 36min
David Shim and Rachana Rele: Read AI CEO and VP of Product Design for AI-native products at Adobe on amplifying creative work — not replacing it
Rachana Rele, VP of Product Design at Adobe, shaping AI as a creative collaborator. David Shim, CEO of Read AI, building Digital Twins to capture and act on work intelligence. They discuss AI that removes drudgery, stores team knowledge, surfaces past feedback, and automates meeting tasks. They also tackle consent, guardrails, and how AI can change workflows and company memory.
Mar 25, 2026 • 29min
Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot
Leonardo Giusti, co-founder and Chief Design Officer at Archetype AI and former Google ATAP design lead with a Ph.D. in HCI. He discusses foundation models trained on sensor data, Project Soli and Jacquard’s tangible interactions, why chatbots are a limited interface for the physical world, and designing AI as a tool to augment human intelligence rather than replace it.
Mar 18, 2026 • 47min
Brooke Hopper: Adobe's machine intelligence design lead on what AI can't touch
Brooke Hopper, Senior Principal Designer at Adobe who led early Firefly work and the Not Generated partnership with Parsons, talks about AI as a creative collaborator. She discusses designers keeping craft and taste, faster playful prototyping, new autonomy with tooling, and how AI reshapes production while leaving room for human judgment.
14 snips
Mar 12, 2026 • 47min
Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan
Daisy Fancourt, a UCL professor who studies how arts shape health, argues arts belong alongside sleep and exercise. She discusses arts changing gene expression, slowing biological aging, and stabilizing vital signs in the NICU. Topics include why creative work can heal yet also risk burnout, how different art forms target different health goals, and practical daily habits to boost the benefits.
Mar 4, 2026 • 22min
Fiona Crombie: Academy Award-nominated production designer on storytelling without words
Fiona Crombie, an Australian production designer twice Oscar-nominated, shapes film worlds that tell story without words. She discusses defining everything in frame that is not costume. Short scenes cover research, visual mapping, prototyping, and how sets influence performance. The conversation highlights making locations feel lived-in and using motifs like trees and corridors to carry emotion.
