Design series: Debbie Millman on how brands impact culture
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2024
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to the final episode in our special four-part series on design. Brands are everywhere and sometimes feel so omnipresent that it’s hard to know what counts as one. So we’ve invited designer, educator and Design Matters podcast host Debbie Millman to help us make sense of brands. At its core, Debbie says, branding is the process of manufacturing meaning to come up with a shared symbol. And it’s something we’ve been doing for thousands of years. Today, Debbie and Lilah discuss the history of branding and its relationship with design, and the relatively recent phenomenon of ‘personal brands’. Debbie also shares insights from nearly two decades hosting Design Matters.
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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @lifeandartpod. You can email the show at [email protected].
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Lilah recommends Debbie’s interview with cartoonist Lynda Barry: https://www.designmattersmedia.com/podcast/2019/lynda-barry
– Here are the latest episodes of Design Matters: https://www.designmattersmedia.com/
– Debbie has written seven books. Here’s Brand Thinking: https://www.debbiemillman.com/brand-thinking
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The FT Weekend Festival is coming back, and will be in Washington, DC, on May 4! To book tickets, go to ft.com/festival-us and use our exclusive discount code: weekendpodcast.
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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Lila at Raptopoulos, and this is the fourth and final episode of our special series on design. |
| 0:12.0 | Design is everywhere, but these days it feels like the word brand is inescapable. |
| 0:18.0 | We chat with brands in the comments sections of TikTok videos. We see celebrities |
| 0:22.4 | launching perfumes and new tequila. We're even being pushed to develop personal brands for ourselves. |
| 0:28.4 | It can be a lot. Someone who has thought deeply about this is my guest today, Debbie Millman. |
| 0:33.9 | Debbie is a legend. She's a designer and a teacher. She's chair of the Masters in Branding |
| 0:39.0 | Program at the School of Visual Arts, and she led a branding consultancy for 20 years. |
| 0:44.5 | Debbie also created the first ever podcast about design 19 years ago. It's called Design Matters, |
| 0:50.5 | and it's now an institution with more than 500 interviews with creative people. |
| 0:55.4 | Debbie's here with me today to talk about how design impacts all aspects of our lives. |
| 0:59.9 | Debbie, hi, it's such a pleasure to have you here. |
| 1:02.2 | Thank you. It's really wonderful to be here. |
| 1:05.6 | Your show has had a real influence on so many people, and it's helped them see the world around them a little clearer. |
| 1:13.5 | It's encouraged a lot of people to even pursue careers in design. |
| 1:17.4 | And I'd love to start just by asking what did that for you? |
| 1:21.4 | Like what kind of pushed you towards branding and design in the first place? |
| 1:26.1 | Desperation. |
| 1:27.8 | I went to college and got a degree in English literature and a minor in Russian literature. |
| 1:34.8 | And so the job prospects coming out of college were not as inviting as you might think. |
| 1:43.4 | I did have a skill, though, and that was doing what is now |
| 1:47.9 | considered to be old school layout and paste up on a drafting table because I worked at my |
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