In episode one of When Designers Rule the World we sit down with Stefan Sagmeister. To understand some of the inspiration behind the show, we had Mick, who is managing the series, answer a few questions.
ScribeMedia: Why a show on design?
Mick: It’s an industry I have a love-hate relationship with and we thought it’d be interesting to explore it on different levels. We’re experimenting with topics, themes, formats, etc. and talking to lots of people about various aspects of design. I love the potential of what design-thinking can do, the problems it can solve and the emotions in can evoke (to varying degrees obviously) in everything from food to finance, media to medicine, politics to poverty, etc. I hate the industry, because, the great ideas are often not seen through for various reasons, and people end up with mediocre stuff. Eventually with more awareness around the power of the industry and a few more great cultural and commercial successes, it’ll change and getting great ideas through to implementation will hopefully happen with more frequency.
SM: How do you like being a host of a show?
MM: I like the idea… I’m still experimenting with the format and will do something different every time, probably. I, as well as the show, will be in perpetual beta. I get bored rather quickly, so the next show might look very different from this one.
Stefan Sagmeister is the first guest.
SM: What did he talk about?
MM: Honesty. Politics. Tibor (Kalman). Verizon. Bureaucracy. Branding and its Idiots. Marketing. He talked about lots of things. He’s incredibly thoughtful. I wish we could have published the entire
interview but attention spans on the web are still short when it comes to video. Eventually we’ll do longer format interviews that people can download from iTunes on AppleTV. This interview was distilled down to about 15 minutes.
SM: Who’s your target audience for the show?
MM: Executives, designers, the creatively curious — eventually corporate raiders and mere civilians…. Let’s see how it evolves.
SM: Who’s the next interview with?
MM: We did an interview with Josh Abramson, the co-founder of CollegeHumor.com which was bought by Barry Diller’s IAC, and we’ll also interview the designers of the Boeing Dreamliner, as well as Marc Gobe who recently wrote a great book called “Brand Jam.” We have lots of people on the list — We’re also working on a few pilots with different people who will host their own shows, which will release in the coming weeks.
SM: Anything else you’d like to share with us?
MM: Not quite yet.
