AIGA Design Podcast

Margot Bloomstein is one of the most prominent voices in the content strategy industry. She is the  author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap and Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project and the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston. As a speaker and strategic adviser, she has worked with marketing teams in a range of organizations over the past two decades. The creator of BrandSort, she developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy. Margot teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz,  Austria, and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Meg Mothershed is the strategy guru and resident wordsmith for Mothershed Design Co., a boutique branding and web design studio based near Denver, Colorado. Having wanted to own her own business since she was six years old, joining her partner, Josiah, was a no-brainer. Meg combines her passion for entrepreneurship with a love of problem-solving to help small businesses. Meg manages all the nitty-gritty details of the business, as well as handles the copywriting for brands and websites. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Diana Barnes (DB)  is the Chief Brand Officer and Creative Director at Munchkin. Under her leadership, Munchkin’s Brand Design team has won over 80 top international design awards for 360 designs, the highly coveted Red Dot Award among the latest. A passionate advocate for trees, animals, and the environment, she created and leads all Munchkin CSR initiatives such as partnerships with The Whale Sanctuary Project, Trees for the Future and IFAW (The International Fund for Animal Welfare) and Radiant Colors. Before joining Munchkin, she served as the Global Director of Brand Design for Dell, Inc. In this key role, she led global teams in Austin, India, and Asia. Prior to this, her career actually began in music and entertainment, holding executive creative positions at Sony and EMI, as well as several global ad agencies. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Fireside Chat with design leader and 2017 AIGA Medalist Art Chantry and AIGA Executive Director Bennie F. Johnson. They discuss best practices and learnings from their career in representing yourself in your work and approaching graphic design as a language we all speak. This episode was originally livestreamed as part of the third annual AIGA Portfolio Festival in July 2022. 

This episode is a recording of a livestream on 7/12/2022 with Lee-Sean Huang, AIGA's Director of Design Content and Learning and Beat Kaspar Badenbacher, Chief Creative Officer of loyalkaspar and author of the upcoming book, Somewhere Yes: The Search for Belonging in a World Shaped by Branding. Beat is known for designing the brand identities for Peacock, Paramount+, MTV, ESPN, Comedy Central, and many more over the entertainment and media space. The book is about how the tools of branding, which naturally bring people together, have been weaponized by our culture around ideals and causes that have put us on a dystopian trajectory... and they may be the same tools to help us recover from that trajectory. The book also isn’t walls of text either, or a dissertation on branding, it’s a visual exploration, blanketed with illustrations, photography, symbols, and design—inspired by the graphic sensibilities of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Massage) and Paul Arden (It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be).

Dave Garrett, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, drives PMI’s growth strategy by working across the organization to define, test, and deliver solutions that enable individuals and organizations to create impact and propel change. Dave was the co-founder, President and CEO of ProjectManagement.com (formerly Gantthead.com), an online community for project professionals, established in 2000 and acquired by PMI in 2014. Since joining PMI, he has held several leadership roles, including dual role as Director of Digital Presence and CEO of ProjectManagement.com. Dave’s passion for project management led him to serve in multiple volunteer positions for PMI prior to becoming employed by the organization. Earlier in Dave’s career, he also created Project Pain Reliever, a just-in-time handbook for managing projects and has published and bylined dozens of articles related to project management, technology trends, and more. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Ritesh Gupta is the founder of Useful School, the world’s first pay-what-you-can online design school for people of color. He specializes in product design, product management, branding, typography, and growth analytics. Ritesh has collaborated or worked for companies including Wieden+Kennedy, Mother Design, 2 Shark Tank companies, Sagmeister & Walsh, R/GA and Cooper Hewitt. His work has been featured in Adweek, AIGA Eye on Design, It’s Nice That, Wallpaper, Print Mag, Brand New, The Dieline, and more. He is also a volunteer for Where Are The Black Designers?. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Lisa Sasaki is currently the interim director of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. The new museum was established by Congress in late 2020 as part of the Smithsonian. Lisa was appointed interim director in March 2021and before joining the Smithsonian, she was the director of the Audience and Civic Engagement Center at the Oakland Museum of California. Lisa was the director of program development at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles from 2003 until 2012, where she directed major institutional projects. During her tenure at JANM, she supervised the museum’s curatorial, public programs, web, education and collections departments and managed and led the strategic planning for programs, exhibitions, audience development and fundraising. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Regina Bain is the Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM). She is an artist, leader, facilitator and program designer with over 16 years of experience building non-profit capacity for organizational growth. Before joining LAHM, she served as Associate Vice President of the Posse Foundation. Posse is a national leadership and college access program which helps to send teams of students or “Posses” to top colleges and universities. Regina is committed to social justice. She facilitates and trains others to facilitate conversations on social identity, leadership and group dynamics. She is currently the co-chair of Culture @3’s anti-racism subcommittee. She serves on the national advisory council of Urban Bush Women (UBW). UBW is a dance company that galvanizes artists, activists and audiences through performances, artist development and community involvement. She produces The Drama Podcast, leads the Yale Black Alumni Association and serves on the Yale Board of Governors. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Join AIGA's Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with design industry leaders and innovators. These conversations seek to inspire dynamic new conversations in and outside of the design community. This episode's guest is Lynda Decker, Creative Director at Decker Design. Watch the video version of this episode here: https://vimeo.com/707103701  This episode was originally livestreamed during the AIGA Design + Business Conference 2022.