Clever

Furniture and product designer Brad Ascalon calls himself a rational designer and even though he initially wanted to work in the music industry, a heart to heart with his artistic father during a career setback started him on a path toward industrial design and he’s never looked back. He confesses that while he loves design work, the regular rejection that comes with the territory has sometimes felt like being dumped. He’s currently embroiled in a love/hate relationship with New York City, and his new hobbies include playing bluegrass music and whittling corn cob pipes. Images and more from our guest! Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilk If you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you! Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor: Parachute - Makers of the best bedding and bath home essentials on the market. Their home esse

Filmmaker, photographer and perpetual entrepreneur Gary Hustwit connects the dots of his DIY-driven path through independent music, independent publishing, and independent films, to his current preoccupation with non-fiction VR. Along the way he deconstructs the methods to his madness and expounds on the popularity of his trilogy of design documentaries: Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. Plus he teases a bit about his forthcoming doc about Dieter Rams, and confesses that an early disdain for avocados didn’t prevent him from capitalizing on their market-appeal.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors:Musicbed - Enter the promo code CLEVER at checkout to receive 20% off your next non-custom lic

This Old House Master Carpenter Norm Abram charms Jaime and Amy with stories of a youth spent building pinewood derby cars and learning the trade from his father, who lives on in the walls of the house they built together as adults. He got his start in TV by accident, but thanks to an unfailing dedication to patience and safety, that’s about the only major accident he can speak of. These days, he’s on a mission to bring today’s youth into tomorrow’s trade labor force. Plus, he reveals the secrets of his famous wardrobe.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Musicbed - Enter the promo code CLEVER at checkout to receive 20% off your next non-custom license. Visit http://mscbd.fm/clvrpnw 

Brand strategist, OG podcaster and all-around badass, Debbie Millman, traces the genesis of her branding talent back to the Stayfree packaging at her father’s pharmacy, shares the poignant details of how a pair of lime green Levi’s helped her cope with a painful childhood and just generally oozes wisdom and deep thoughts with every word. Plus, she offers a revelatory distinction between courage and confidence and has an enduring fondness for potato chips.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Musicbed - Enter the promo code CLEVER at checkout to receive 20% off your next non-custom license. Visit http://mscbd.fm/clvrpnw to get started.Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Dever

Furniture designer, engineer and manufacturer Derek Chen identifies his childhood in the midwest as the origin of his love for American design, details how he transitioned from his first career as a management consultant to his second career as the CEO and Design Director of Council, a modern American furniture brand, and celebrates the merits of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a model of ingenuity. Plus, he invented a technique for cleaning his room with a 2x4.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you! Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever. &

Interior designer and TV personality Taniya Nayak confesses to Jaime and Amy that she probably did some damage to the ozone layer in her youth, but it’s OK because she won first place in a high hair contest. With endearing candor, she opens up about childhood bullies, her struggles with fertility and how she defines success. Plus, while filming, she accidentally found a sex toy in a teenager’s bedroom, ew.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Parachute Home - To excel, sometimes you've got to venture bravely outside of your comfort-zone, right? That's why it's so important that when you return to your *actual* comfort zone, it's awesome. That's where Parachute Home comes in, with their dreamy bed

Fashion designer Mimi Plange talks to Amy and Jaime about being born in Ghana, growing up in California, and nurturing herself on a steady diet of fantasy movies. She's always known she’d become a fashion designer, but an invitation to the White House by Michelle Obama came as a total surprise. Plus, she's got cred with both Beyoncé and Jay Z.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

World-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind inspires Jaime and Amy with his eternally optimistic world-view and powerfully uplifting story of being born into persecution, immigrating to “the promised land” of the U.S. and participating in the space race. As the architect responsible for the master plan of the World Trade Center site, he composes memory in order to heal the future. Oh and he’s got mad accordion skills. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors:Be Original Americas - Go to www.beoriginalamericas.com to learn more about their fellowship.Parachute - Makers of the best bedding and bath home essentials on the market. Their home essentials are Oeko-Tex certified and made of the fine

Interior designer Ghislaine Viñas talks to Amy and Jaime about what it was like to grow up in apartheid South Africa, how she accidentally landed her first real interior design job, and how she’s too adventurous to work for anyone but herself. Plus, she's not scared of anything.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you! Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chilean-born artist / designer / activist Sebastian Errazuriz captivates Amy and Jaime with tales of his rigorous arts training, examples of his immaculate hustle and a specific method he employs whenever he needs to force an idea up to the surface. He’s as disciplined and driven as an Olympic athlete, and hell-bent on having us all re-think reality. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you! Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seth Grizzle, of architecture and product design studio graypants, tells Amy and Jaime about being the creative kid in a family that didn’t quite “get” him, how an art teacher helped set him on the course to architecture and why living on a boat helps him edit his possessions down to just the ones that make a great story. Also, he reveals the story behind the name graypants. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:RISD: opening your eyes to the beautiful world of design and everything behind it. Learn more about RISD's undergraduate and graduate programs at RISD.edu.Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Ch

New Zealand-based designer/maker David Trubridge, who is known the world over for his beautiful and environmentally responsible lighting and furniture, has wandered to the corners of the earth, soaked up all its glory, and pays homage to it in everything he does. Amy and Jaime are rapt as he details his life of adventures and poetically distills how they inform his work and his experience of humanity. A real salt of the earth, this guy.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Wix unites beauty and advanced technology to create stunning websites. Recently Wix and Conde Nast partnered to launch a photography contest that gave Wix users the opportunity to shoot the cover photo of Brides or Condé Nast Trav

LA-based interior designer Kelly Wearstler recounts to Amy and Jaime the journey from creating and selling crafts in her youth to building her namesake global lifestyle brand. Along the way she's worked waiting tables, battled painful shyness, and become a hockey mom. She also describes her closet in mouth-watering, vivid detail. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:RISD: opening your eyes to the beautiful world of design and everything behind it. Learn more about RISD's undergraduate and graduate programs at RISD.edu.Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Desi

Brooklyn-based architect Kevin Greenberg of Space Exploration delights Jaime and Amy with tales of culture shock while working in Japan, notes that decades of architecture practice has re-wired his brain to notice bad design, and articulates how he would one day love to build a site of sanctuary and contemplation. Plus, he concocts some creative and funny solutions to ridiculous problems in a fun game of Fix It!  Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you! Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acast.com/privacy for p

Product and interior designer Harry Allen shares with Amy and Jaime how his childhood in New Jersey was shaped by frequent field trips to NYC, how he collaborated with chef Daniel Boulud to design his thesis project, and why he decided to cast an actual piglet for his now-famous piggy bank. Also, he's able to cut a really tight circle on a pair of skates, and we suspect he is a total boss in the rink. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Offering full-service public relations, social media, strategic development, and more, for 20 years BDE has worked as an extension of companies large and small where design is in their DNA. BDE can elevate the brand and the bottom line by telling your story with

Textile product designer and entrepreneur Sandy Chilewich regales Amy and Jaime with tales of growing up in Rotterdam, being a child of the ‘60s and finding her way to founding the very successful Hue leg wear company. Now, as the head of Chilewich Sultan, she candidly shares the trials and triumphs that have informed her wisdom - including a panic attack at the public speaking podium. Sadly, no scotch was involved in this interview. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acas

Eco-friendly lifestyle expert Danny Seo talks to Jaime and Amy about how he found his true calling at 12 years old, how being famous in Korea at a young age helped him keep his ego in check, and how he navigates tough situations by trying to understand the underlying intentions. Also, there may be a snake loose in his cabin, and he really hates golf.Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing by Chris Modl.Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/clever.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mexican and American artist/designer/maker/activist Tanya Aguiñiga shares with Jaime and Amy what it was like growing up in Tijuana and crossing the US border every day to attend school in the US, how an accidental haircut during her troubled teenage years got her kicked out of the house, and how a dedicated mentor gave her the encouragement she needed to become an artist. She also recounts a few crazy stories featuring a clown, a bull and an eagle. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors:RISD - Fond out more about RISD's undergraduate and graduate programs at RISD.edu.Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with music from El Ten Eleven and editing b

Lighting, furnishing, and toy designer David Weeks chats up Jaime and Amy about growing up in the South, making it in NYC, and being driven by curiosity, liberation and the importance of tactility in an increasingly virtual world. Along the way he slips in tales of smashing cars, badgering local acid trippers, and utilizing a technique called formal reduction. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:Freshbooks - To test drive FreshBooks’ intuitive design free for 30 days, go to FreshBooks.com/clever and enter Clever Podcast in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” section.Clever is created, hosted and produced by Amy Devers and Jaime Derringer, aka 2VDE Media, with m

UK-based product and interior designer Lee Broom entertains Jaime and Amy with stories of being a child actor in a Shakespeare company, winning a fashion design competition that led to working with Vivienne Westwood, and designing the most expensive lightbulb you’ll ever buy. His flair for theatre makes an appearance in everything he does, from dramatic light fixtures to design week stunts he always puts on a gorgeous show. Images and more from our guest!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers, @designmilkIf you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors:Freshbooks - To test drive FreshBooks’ intuitive design free for 30 days, go to FreshBooks.com/clever and enter Clever Podcast in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” section.Clever is created, hosted an