Listen to the best design podcasts by creators, curators and journalists shining a spotlight on different areas of the design practice

Tune into our edit of favourite design podcasts to accompany your commute or countryside walk, or to simply offer insight into some of the most fascinating aspects of the practice. From engaging interviews with the world’s leading creatives to in-depth explorations on specific topics such as wood and sofas, this is our pick of the best design podcasts to listen to now. 

The starting point for each of Grant Gibson’s conversations with designers, makers or entrepreneurs is a material. Gibson created a series of engaging and intensely addictive episodes focusing on everything from paper (with Wallpaper’s long-term collaborator James Cropper), recycled aluminium (with Emeco owner Gregg Buchbinder) and even bacteria (with Natsai Audrey Chieza) and dead animals (with artist Polly Morgan). Each hour-long interview delves into the subject’s personal history while offering an educated, informative and in-depth take on each material. 

What do designers do, why and how they do it is the focus of a series of design podcasts from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. ‘Talking Practice’ is hosted by Grace La, the school’s professor of architecture and chair of Practice Platform, and features ‘in-depth interviews with leading designers on the ways in which architects, landscape architects, designers, and planners articulate design imagination through practice’. Episodes include interviews with OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and designers Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu.

Described as ‘a deep dive into the built environment’, AHEC’s ‘Words on Wood’ podcast (now in its second season) is developed as a series of cross-disciplinary conversations with designers and material experts to explore our relationship with the forest. Hosted by editors Oli Stratford and India Block, each half-hour episode is alternated with a 15-minute ‘tree short’ focusing on a specific species. Guests so far have included designers Sam Hecht and Yves Behar talking about new wood technologies, and Stephen Burks talking with Zanat founder Orhan Niksic in conversation on their approach to traditional woodworking techniques. 

The second season of the popular ‘Nice Try!’ design podcasts focuses on everyday interiors and the objects that populate our homes. Enter the vacuum cleaner, the mattress, the doorbell and the bidet: the history, design and secrets of our most intimate household objects is explored through 40-minute episodes hosted by journalist Avery Trufelmant. A humorous and captivating must listen.

B&B Italia enlisted journalist David Plaisant (who memorably interviewed architect Paolo Portoghesi for Wallpaper*) to curate its first podcast series, talking all things sofas and homes with leading design voices including Michael Anastassiades, Mario Bellini, Ivy Ross, and Philippe Starck. Topics of the 30-minute conversations include ideas on the home of the future, comfort and ergonomics and the impact of the sofa on popular culture, with focus episodes on B&B classics such as ‘Camaleonda’ and ‘Le Bambole’, two iconic Mario Bellini designs.

Now in its fourth season, On Design is hosted by illustrator and media professional Justyna Green through a series of insightful conversations with leading figures of design, from entrepreneurs to curators and designers: ‘If you want to know what inspires them, how they work and how they see the world, this is the podcast for you.’ With early interviews featuring the likes of Michael Anastassiades and Formafantasma, the latest season features an all-female line-up including Priya Khanchandani, head of curatorial and interpretation at the Design Museum, and artist Shantell Martin. 

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Through her work, journalist Katie Tregidden has specialised in craft and sustainability and she shares her expertise in the hour-long episodes of her design podcast, ‘Circular’. In every episode, Tregidden talks to the thinkers, doers, and makers of the circular economy: ‘These are the people who are challenging the linear take, make, waste model of production and consumption, and working towards something better.’ Through this inspiring series, she talks about topics such as repair and waste with Celia Pym, Christopher Raeburn, Daniel Charny and many more. 

This series of design podcasts features informal dialogues between Italian, Stockholm-based designer Luca Nichetto and his creative friends, including Daan Roosegaarde and Giorgia Lupi, who share their views on the world-changing power of design.

Share your email to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world

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