Podcasts by the Design History Society

Design Writing Prize 2025 winner Rosa te Velde in conversation with guest judge Elizabeth Guffey

Listen to 2025 Design Writing Prize winner Rosa te Velde, theory tutor at the MA Industrial Design department at KABK, in conversation with guest judge Elizabeth Guffey, Professor emerita in Art History at the State University of New York.

Rosa’s work – ‘A Firm Nudge’: Politics of ‘Ethical’ Reform through ‘Native Arts and Crafts’ in Dutch-Occupied Indonesia – was written as part of a research project on design and the ethnographic museum commissioned by the Research Center for Material Culture in Leiden, the Netherlands. The article was republished through the Recall/Recalibrate platform, where you can also find other articles on arts and crafts and education in the context of ‘ethical imperialism'.

https://recalibrate.nl/a-firm-nudge

 

DHS Routes to Design History: Sabrina Rahman

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Dr Sabrina Rahman, an art and design historian whose research examines the design of everyday life in Britain, Central and Eastern Europe, and South Asia of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since 2016 she has been a Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter. She is currently working on a book project entitled Diasporic Designs: Modernism, the Vernacular and Interiors of Migration, 1850s-present, which explores how visual and haptic modes of communication have contributed to notions of local diasporic identity and cosmopolitanism across cultural, geographical and temporal boundaries. Sabrina co-convenes the BAN research group Race, Empire and the Pre-Raphaelites with Kate Nichols and Victoria Osborne. The group’s activities build upon her previous curatorial work at institutions in Austria, the United Kingdom and United States, as well as her commitment to anti-racist and decolonial practices in the public realm.

 

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DHS Routes to Design History: Rick Poynor

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Rick Poynor, one of the most influential voices in the study and critique of graphic design and visual culture. A writer, editor, curator, and academic, he has shaped design discourse for more than three decades. He is the founding editor of Eye magazine, co-founder of Design Observer. His books including No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism (2003), Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties (2004), and David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian (2020), have become key references for understanding how design communicates cultural and political values. Until 2023, he served as Professor of Design and Visual Culture at the University of Reading.

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DHS Routes to Design History: Yaw Ofosu-Asare

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Dr Yaw Ofosu-Asare,  a Ghanaian-Australian designer, educator, and researcher whose work bridges decolonial design, critical pedagogy, and African futures. He is the author of Decolonising Design in Africa: Towards New Theories, Methods, and Practices (Routledge, 2024) and African Design Futures: Decolonising Minds, Education, Spaces, and Practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). With a PhD in Education, his research explores the intersections of Indigenous knowledge systems, storytelling, and visual communication as tools for liberation and transformation. He has designed for grassroots organisations, educational institutions, and global social change movements, blending community-based design with speculative thinking. I am currently based in Australia at the RMIT University, where he teaches communication design and contributes to projects on climate justice, disability inclusion, and cultural sustainability. 

 

Music from #Uppbeat
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DHS Routes to Design History: Ana Elena Mallet

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Ana Elena Mallet, an independent curator specialising in modern and contemporary design, and cultural management. She has taught History of Design, Art as well as Contemporary Photography in various institutions and universities throughout Mexico and has overseen the creation and planning of academic programs in different institutions. Since 2018, she is a guest curator at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City, in charge of putting together the first-ever public Mexican Design collection in the country. Her research varies from the famous Mexican intricate woven looms to the core of Mexican design itself.

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe

DHS Routes to Design History: Justine Boussard

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Justine Boussard, curator and creative producer with over a decade’s experience working on design and craft exhibitions, artist-led public engagement and creative programming with clients including the Design Museum, Crafts Council, Jane Withers, North East Museums and UP Projects. As the Amateur Ancestor, she creates experiences that harness the power of material culture and storytelling to expand participants’ sense of time and agency, when faced with the reality of the climate and biodiversity crises. She is a graduate of the V&A/RCA MA in History of Design (2012) and a member of Climate Museum UK. The Amateur Ancestor project has been supported by the Arts Council and Creative UK. After years in London, she has happily relocated to the North East of England where she dips in the North Sea as often as she can.

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe

DHS Routes to Design History: Elizabeth Guffey

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Elizabeth Guffey, Professor emerita in Art History at the State University of New York, Purchase College. Her research lies at the intersection of design, visual culture, museology and disability studies. She is currently working on a book project that describes and critiques the emergence of Post-Universal Design, arguing that paradigms from critical disability studies are reshaping the landscape of design for disability but also providing a new model for responsible, respectful and research-rich design practice in the future. Her most recent books are Making Disability Modern, and Designing Disability. 

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe

DHS Routes to Design History: Derrick Gaiter

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Derrick Gaiter, an Assistant Attorney General in Florida. Through Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (“VLA”), Gaiter also provides pro-bono legal assistance to income-eligible artists, creative entrepreneurs, and arts organizations. Post his MA History of Design & Curatorial Studies degree at Parsons, he went on to pursue a JD. In this conversation, we will trace Derrick's journey of navigating the shift from design history to law, the parallels, and the contrasts. 

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe

DHS Routes to Design History: Ezrena Marwan

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Ezrena Marwan, a graphic designer, educator, and archivist, who specialises in visual advocacy and the politics of archives. Ezrena co-founded Malaysia Design Archive (MDA), a platform tracing Malaysia’s graphic design history, and Sejarah Wanita, a project highlighting women’s contributions to Malaysian history. Currently, she is the Co-Lead of Liberatory Archives and Memory at Whose Knowledge?, where she is dreaming of alternative approaches to archiving to challenge colonial capitalist memory institutions. Through her work, Ezrena challenges dominant narratives in design, history, and social justice.

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe

DHS Routes to Design History: Sarita Sundar

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Sarita Sundar, a designer and design historian who combines her 30+ years of working with brand strategy and design solutions with her academic training in museum studies and heritage interpretation. Research informs the way Sarita works, often taking a critical look at how our culture engages with the visual. She is the founder of Hanno, a consultancy that visualizes and curates diverse narratives with a particular focus on museum, heritage and social communication. She is the author of From Frugal to the Ornate: Stories of the Seat in India, a path-breaking and award-winning book that chronicles how seats have evolved in India. She received a 2022 Fulbright Fellowship to study the intersectional design histories between the United States and India. Her present research studies the Planters chair along with Dr Rachel Lee through a grant from TU Delft.

 

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/tribe