Clever with Amy Devers

Industrial designer Catherine Bailey grew up playing with the old school computer punch cards that were the technological accoutrements of nearby Bell Labs. A public school art teacher gave her the p…

These are strange and difficult times. People are feeling anxious, isolated, and frightened. *raises hand* We reached out to friends and familiar voices you know and love from previous Clever episode…

Artist and designer Misha Kahn grew up hustling his lakeshore Minnesotan neighbors with tin foil wrapped baked goods, sewing clothes and hanging with exchange student stragglers. A year of guzzling w…

Furniture and interior designer Claudia Washington grew up in El Salvador during the civil war. It was not safe for her to play outside so she spent her days clipping pictures from architecture magaz…

Artist, illustrator & author Lisa Congdon grew up being praised for hard work but not for creativity. She studied history in college, spent years as a classroom teacher, and didn’t even start dabblin…

This special Clever Extra, taped live at RISD as the keynote presentation of Design Week RI, four creative thought leaders come together for a discussion on the power of creativity. As a social value…

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic grew up in Germany, listening to punk rock and dreaming of building boats. In England, he trained in cabinet making at The John Makepeace School for Craftsman in …

Design impresario Murray Moss grew up in a house his father engineered with a drinking fountain in the dining room. At 5, he redecorated his farmhouse bedroom with a Chinese motif. In college, after …

Graphic designer Paula Scher grew up drawing pictures to escape a turbulent home life. Later, rebelling against suburban existence, she ventured to art school and became a hippie, and then art direct…

Experience designer Kristy Tillman was a very studious child, extremely driven academically. Always on the advanced track, she assumed she would one day be a lawyer like Clair Huxtable. Coding and ar…

Jeansmith and co-founder of Raleigh Denim Workshop, Victor Lytvinenko, was born with tons of energy and curiosity. As he grew it led to playing soccer, building small engines, and digging deep into w…

Google’s Head of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, learned from her industrial designer father how to see the world for how it’s made, and for the possibilities of how it could be remade. Early professional…

Happy holidays + new year! We’re rebroadcasting a favorite episode from the archives. Enjoy!

Streetwear designer Bobby Hundreds grew up as a minority of a minority, being both Korean-American and into…

Happy holidays + new year! We’re rebroadcasting a favorite episode from the archives. Enjoy!

Graphic designer, illustrator and lettering artist, Jessica Hische forged her fierce independence. She knew…

Furniture & interior designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance moved from Paris to the “super boring” French countryside in his youth where he spent all day on his bicycle inventing new worlds in his mind. Af…

Furniture designer Jeff Martin grew up in Vancouver, BC struggling with punctuation and hiding in a dilapidated abandoned boat. He spent his teenage years expressing himself through skateboarding and…

We teamed up with Tarkett for this Clever Extra to unpack the idea that we can consciously impact our wellbeing through design choices. We spoke with Mausi McDaniel of Tarkett about the cultural driv…

Interior designer and star of Netfllix’s Queer Eye, Bobby Berk grew up in the rural south, feeling like an outsider. Before coming out as gay, he struggled with anger, depression and tension with his…

Architect and educator Elena Manferdini grew up in Italy, drawing on any surface she was allowed to, and some she wasn’t. After obtaining a degree in structural engineering, a 9-month stint in Los An…

In this special Clever Presents, we’re sharing an episode of another podcast we produce for Neocon called NeoConversations. What does it take to effectively design brand character into a space? How …