Podcasts about the design process
October 6, 2017 11:54 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for podcasts that feature creators talking in detail about how and why they created the things that they did. The field doesn't matter so much, but I love listening to brilliant designers/creators take things apart and talk about what works, what doesn't, and why they built things the way they did. Some examples and snowflakes below the cut.

Not looking for review podcasts that boil down to buyers' guides for the latest new thing (though I am interested in smart critics dissecting the hot new thing and putting it in the context of previous hot new things). It doesn't just have to focus on great works (sometimes dissecting why something is bad can be just as interesting) but it should be focussed on actually understanding root causes, not just pointing and laughing. (For example, despite an interest in medical history, I completely bounced off of the few episodes of Sawbones that I listened to, because it felt like they spent more time saying "LOL people in the past believed stupid things about biology and medicine" and not digging into why those things fit into their world-view.)

Examples of this genre:

Designer Notes by Soren Johnson (video games)
Ludology by Ryan Sturm and Geoff Engelstein (board games)
Writing Excuses by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler,
et al. (writing)
Song Exploder by Hrishikesh Hirway (music)
Imaginary Worlds by Eric Molinsky (sci-fi and fantasy world-building)

And before I get a hundred comments suggesting Roman Mars' 99 Percent Invisible, 99PI is a great design podcast, but it's pretty much the opposite of what I'm looking for. 99PI is generally framed around "here's a cool designed thing and all the impact it had on the world" rather than "here's how and why this cool designed thing was designed in precisely the way it was".
posted by firechicago to Media & Arts (8 answers total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's Worth Doing Right just started a podcast that would probably be up your alley.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:40 PM on October 6, 2017


This isn't exactly what you're describing, but Chef's Table scratches a similar itch for me.
posted by mosst at 12:57 PM on October 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for exactly but I really enjoy How I Built This. It's entrepreneurs rather than design per se although there a lot of design elements.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:04 PM on October 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


You may enjoy Design Matters with Debbie Millman. Deep, thoughtful one-on-one interviews with creative people about their work. The questions are not limited to process but that's often a focus.
posted by prewar lemonade at 1:52 PM on October 6, 2017


California Typewriter, a recently released documentary featuring an artist, a songwriter, and two authors who describe their creative processes. The artist, unlike the others, uses old typewriters as parts for his sculptures. The others just type. But all of them explain their creative processes in some detail. There are others in there as well: people who collect typewriters, those who repair them, etc. It's a nice little movie.
posted by Capri at 2:22 PM on October 6, 2017


You might enjoy Roguelike Radio. It's a bit inconsistent, but many episodes at least are discussions w/ Roguelike designers about the hows and whys of their designs, and roguelike design is a surprisingly wide-ranging subject. The show has talked about all kinds of game design issues, UI, graphics programming, AI, and (of course) the procedural generation of all kinds of stuff, from caves to societies and cultures.
posted by grobstein at 3:41 PM on October 6, 2017


Another vote for Roguelike Radio. Smart and passionate. I think it'd be an interesting listen even if you don't play a lot of roguelikes in particular—there are episodes about specific roguelikes mixed in with episodes about game design issues, as grobstein said.

Canadaland hosts an arts-specific podcast called The Imposter—interviews with little-known Canadian artists in all sorts of fields. These will probably be people you've never heard of, doing types of art you've never heard of, but I love its odd aesthetic, and the interviews are really penetrating and insightful. It's very outside the mainstream, on purpose. The lastest episodes I listened to were about: 1) a Chinese pop music band that composed by email, 2) ten-year-olds who made a movie. They were great.

Mask Magazine recently started a podcast called T.W.I.G.'s Podcast. Interviews with interdisciplinary creators from the margins & weird liminal spaces. It's hard to describe so I'll let the website blurb do it: Twig is "a psychonaut, underground researcher, float tank operator, and a folk technologist. In this podcast, Twig Harper sits down with people he’s met across his multidisciplinary life to talk about their life, work, and psychedelic experiences."

BBC has a new one called In the Studio, in which they interview creators of all sorts. I haven't had time to listen to it yet, but it sounds like it checks your boxes.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 4:42 PM on October 6, 2017


If Song Exploder is this, then surely Dissect is as well. The 2nd season is now well under way and totally fascinating (to me). While not narrated by the original artists, it certainly features interviews that help build a case for how and why they made what they did.
posted by klausman at 10:43 PM on October 7, 2017


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