Welcome to the third installation of our series on recommended podcasts in 2020. Last time I focused on product management podcasts. This time I want to focus on design.
Does that mean graphic design or user experience or maybe front-end development? Yes?
In 2020, the scope of what a designer is expected to know feels daunting, even for seasoned professionals. These podcasts will help you keep a finger on the pulse of the industry and hopefully feel a bit less overwhelmed.
- Design Matters
- Design Recharge
- Wireframe
- The Drunken UX Podcast
- UI Breakfast
Hosted by Debbie Millman, this show is often called the world’s first podcast about design. This podcast should be near the top of every designer’s list, and honestly, it’s supremely interesting for any intellectually curious person.
Sure there are fantastic, design-focused episodes like this 2009 interview with Milton Glaser, legendary graphic designer and creator of the iconic I♥NY logo. But there are also fascinating conversations with cultural icons, like the interview with Simon Sinek, author of the popular book Start With Why. I recently enjoyed this episode with Gabrielle Hamilton, a chef who also writes breathtaking prose.
Design Recharge is a weekly web show and podcast devoted to inspiring, connecting, and educating designers. What I really value about this show is how much practical advice and insider knowledge you’ll hear.
The episode with Jay Ratner describing his determined journey to work at Disney is quite good. I also recommend this episode with Erik Reagan on scaling a design business.
Wireframe is a relatively new podcast from Adobe and Gimlet, described as “the stories behind user experience design, for UX/UI designers, graphic designers, and the design-curious.”
The first episode is a good introduction to the show. I also enjoyed this episode on healthcare UX.
This show leans more towards the front-end development side of design. They cover things like page performance, using web fonts, static site generators, etc.
This episode on UX Research with Annie Lin is a great discussion on the principles of UX research. I also got a ton of practical wisdom from this episode on image formats.
UI Breakfast has great conversations about UI/UX design, products, and marketing – especially for SaaS companies.
I enjoyed this episode on typography, which is interesting to discuss with no visuals. The episode with Jeff Gothelf is also great, covering so much ground on design methodologies.
I’m not a designer by training, though I love thinking about user experience, and I love listening to real designers discuss topics I barely understand, things like affordance and color theory.
One of the great things about listening to these design podcasts is realizing that because design is such a large space nowadays, everybody has their areas of weakness, everybody has those elements that make them feel like impostors.
It’s easy to feel isolated as a designer, often being a small team in a much larger organization, and these podcasts are a wonderful way to reconnect with the larger design community – and in the process reconnect with all the things that made you fall in love with design originally.
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