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Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Spencer Bailey

Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Design Matters Media

Arts, Design

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2026

⏱️ 86 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Spencer Bailey is a writer, editor, and cultural journalist whose work explores the intersections of design, architecture, memory, and human experience. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Slowdown, host of Time Sensitive, and former editor-in-chief of Surface. He reflects on surviving a plane crash, growing up without his mother, the role storytelling has played in understanding his own life, and why slowing down may be essential in a culture obsessed with speed.



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Transcript

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0:00.0

We're now all on like a McDonald's fast food diet when it comes to our media consumption.

0:08.8

I see a future where people are going to want to return to what I would call slow food for media.

0:19.9

From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

0:27.4

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on.

0:36.5

On this episode, a conversation with Spencer

0:39.1

Bailey about why and how to slow down in the age of social media and personal optimization.

0:46.0

I want people to feel like they can make space for inefficiency.

1:05.2

Spencer Bailey is a writer, editor, and cultural journalist whose work lives at the intersection of design, memory, architecture, and human experience.

1:11.2

As the founder and editor-in-chief of The Slowdown and host of the podcast Time Sensitive,

1:16.7

he has become known for conversations and storytelling that explore not just creativity,

1:23.6

but the deeper questions beneath it, time, meaning, loss, attention, and how we live.

1:30.0

Before founding the Slowdown, Bailey served as editor-in-chief of Surface magazine, where he helped transform the publication into one of the most influential voices in contemporary design and culture.

1:37.1

He is also editor-at-large of the book publisher Faden and his book Explore, the third in a series of

1:43.6

books for Monticelli, will be published this month.

1:47.1

Spencer Bailey, welcome to Design Matters.

1:49.9

Thanks for having me, Debbie. It's a pleasure to be here.

1:52.8

Spencer, I understand your wife refers to you as a fine schmecker.

1:57.5

Can you share what that is?

1:59.8

I have no idea how you found this. Yes. So I actually don't know the

2:06.0

etymology of the word. I believe it's German. Maybe there's some Yiddish in there as well.

2:11.1

But it basically refers to somebody who has an appreciation for the finer things, starting with food. So it's rooted in food,

2:20.3

but then it applies to taste kind of writ large. I do like nice things. I have a sort of

...

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