Welcome to The Design Board, a podcast created by the team at UpSpring that focuses on design, development and everything in-between. We invite innovators in our industry and explore topics that support your growth in every way. The Design Board is a proud member of SURROUND, a podcast network from SANDOW Design Group, featuring the architecture and design industry's premier shows. Check it out at surroundpodcast.com.
Welcome everyone to The Design Board, a podcast by UpSpring that focuses on design, development and everything in between. I'm your host Tiffany Rafii, and today I'm joined by Amy Devers. Amy is an award-winning podcaster, television personality, designer, fabricator and educator. Currently, she is creator, executive producer and host of Clever, an award-winning podcast that offers a window into the humanity behind the design that shapes our world and culture.
Through candid and revealing conversations with leading creatives across all disciplines, Amy joins us to share her journey as a designer and podcast host, exploring creativity, resilience, and the power of storytelling. Amy, thank you so much for being with me today. So excited to dive in.
I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Of course. Well, let's start at the beginning. Would you take us back to where your love of design first began? And if there are any particular moments or experiences that ignited your passion and really set you on this path?
Oh, wow. Those are a few different questions. I will say that I grew up not really knowing what design was, which is an unfortunate side effect, or I mean, I think a lot of people from my generation, I'm Gen X, didn't really know that design was a profession. And so I had this latent creativity that came out. It kind of squirted out in weird ways, like really architectural slash new wave haircuts, and some bizarre fashion choices. That was in high school. I had a sense that I wanted to study something creative, but I felt alienated from my own creativity. I wasn't creative in the traditional sense. I couldn't draw. I wasn't really taking art classes in high school.
And so this idea of fashion was the thing that stuck out to me. So I went to New York City and studied at Fashion Institute of Technology, FIT, in New York City. And that was an amazing eye-opening experience for me because I was now situated amongst drag queens and rave kids and also fashion designers and toy designers and packaging and ad designers. It was absolutely the right place for me. But I studied fashion buying and merchandising, which is the business end of fashion. I made that concession because I think my parents were hoping I'd go into something a little more secure.
So I will say that fashion buying and merchandising did not ignite my passion. But being there in New York City in that crowd and watching my friends do their design thing was hugely influential on me. I also took a jewelry design class that lit me up in terms of, that was my very first taste of taking an idea from my head and translating it into real materials and precious materials at that, like gold and gemstones and made it into functional objects. That was really tantalizing for me.
I can so relate to this idea that design just was not to remain main stream conversation. Sarah and I started the company 16 years ago now, which is even further along than that, right? Compared to the importance and relevance of design and the acknowledgement of that today, it's just a whole nother world. So I can fully relate to that, but incredible. I'm a New York City girl through and through.
Oh, yes, okay.
I can relate to that feeling of creativity and really where better to see all types of everything, to really inspire you. So that's really amazing.
And late '80s, early '90s, that was a good time to be in New York City. It still had its grit.
Oh, yeah.
Artists could still live there.
Some of that grit's back. Moving along, I'd love to hear if there are any other just pivotal moments maybe in your career that really helped shape that career journey beyond that FIT moment?
Yes, actually. I'd say that FIT was the gateway drug. From there, I knew I wanted to do something creative, but I had to reverse engineer that for my own justification. I still wasn't feeling like I could own my creativity enough to pursue it as a career. But I ended up taking some time with a couple of friends. I worked three jobs one summer and saved up some money, and then the three of us got in a car and drove on this extended road trip until we ran out of money. And we ran out of money in California and moved in with a friend of ours from high school. So there are now four of us living in a one-bedroom apartment. It was crazy. It was bananas.
My loose plan was that I was going to live in California for a year, get residency and go to maybe UCLA and study anthropology. But in the meantime, I started taking some classes at a community college. So two things were happening simultaneously. I took this art class at a community college. I was living with four people in a one-bedroom apartment. All I could think about was how to reorganize this space and if I could just turn the furniture into these storage solutions, if this thing could flip up into the wall or if this could move out of the way. And I started in my head designing furniture that I knew didn't exist, but I didn't know what to do with that.
Until I asked the art teacher if there were any good jewelry design programs nearby. I was still kind of thinking maybe I'd study jewelry design. And he said, "Yes, actually, San Diego State has a great program. They also have a great furniture design program." That was the first time I had ever heard that, and a light bulb went off, and I made a beeline down to San Diego State to study furniture design.
The minute I got into furniture design, I was completely hooked, like completely. Because there is nothing like the material agency of actually working with wood and making it do what you want it to do or learning a structure of how to put things together and have them be well-built and last. And then you start seeing not just how I can build things, but you look at the world and it becomes an exploded diagram. You start to see how the world is built. And then you move through the world with this creative material agency that just explodes the whole world into something that feels really doable.
I can feel your passion just through it, and I'm excited. I mean, I'm the most creative person or like to think I am, but then when it comes to the actual creation, I'm fully, and I can't draw, I can't sketch, I can't paint, but I really want to be able to. It goes without saying that you are wearing a ton of hats and all this inspiration and creativity is coming out in so many incredible ways.
I have to ask the how you do it question. How do you balance your roles as an artist, as a designer, as an educator, and a podcast host? I'll fangirl for a second, I know I said that to you earlier, and do it all so incredibly well at that? But I'd love to hear how do you balance all of that?
Well, you're very kind. Thank you for saying all that. And while I do own all of those roles, I wouldn't say that I do all of them to the same degree at the same time. For instance, I feel like there are chapters of my life where I feel like I'm always an artist, but there are chapters of my life where I'm actually making money from art and chapters of my life where I'm just deploying artistry throughout the other things that I do. So let's just say that right now. After that experience of furniture design, and then I did a stint in manufacturing and fabrication, then I did graduate school in furniture design. And from there I've done a bunch of different things. I would say the art part of that is a mix of that transcendent quality of really understanding the power of art to be your translator of these un-ineffable experiences.
And so throughout my career, I've also worked with other artists and been responsible for translating their vision into the material in terms of fabricating their visions for them. And it makes that ability to understand art and be a translator of it through the material world really key. But that also then attunes you to systems and the flow and order of operations that needs to happen and communication. If you're asking me how I balance it all, I would say that at any moment there are a number of plates in the air, but I'm not always juggling all the plates that I can be. I'm glad that you think I'm doing it well because I don't think I'm doing it well. It could be done a lot better.
That is women in business in a nutshell. But I think that's why we continue to do things better. I have a six-year-old and she wants everything to be perfect, always. So we're working on that.
Yeah, perfectionism is a real, it's a real disease.
It's a super disease in my house. But there's a lot of telling that perfect voice, it doesn't have to be perfect. And I love... I've never really thought of it that way. I love the idea of having the plates, but they don't all need to always be spinning. And I think that's something I, as an entrepreneur, I struggle with myself all the time. But I think that's a really great way to think about it. So you can really give more effort to things. It's not even necessarily that one needs to slow down. One can stop sometimes, and that's okay. So I actually really love that perspective.
Okay. Well, no success or journey like yours Amy, comes without barriers. I am interested to hear if you have encountered any significant barriers in the course of your career? And how did you manage to overcome them or not?
Yeah, that's always a really interesting question. The big chapter of my career after graduate school and before I became a podcaster was in television. I hosted a number of TV shows primarily in the design makeover category. As you might imagine back in early 2000s when home improvement and Trading Spaces were popular, low budget cable TV programming, young females who actually knew their way around power tools and could work on job sites with effectiveness were a little bit of a commodity in the home improvement industry.
And so I found my way into television quite by accident, but fell in love with storytelling and the mechanics of storytelling in the process. But I did not fall in love with the TV industry. The whole TV industry is set up to rob me of my agency, everything from being hired to do jobs where I don't have any control over who my coworkers are, what the creative output is, where even the producers don't quite know what's going to be expected of me.
And so I'm just parachuted into a situation and sort of need to save the day and everybody's relying... Those types of things. But also the very process of, and I was complicit in this. I wanted to be in the TV industry. But even being bought and sold behind closed doors by agents talking to producers and network execs, I had no idea what my worth was. And it's all set up to make me feel worthless because the minute I know my worth, I negotiate for more.
Of course, yeah.
After several years in the TV industry, I started to develop a complex and I didn't feel like I had any agency with regard to my own finances. That's a huge barrier I had to navigate around. But the other barrier that I navigated around, I think much more effectively and with a little bit more self-awareness is that every day the job was different. And every day the job required a steep learning curve. I learned to grow to be really comfortable on that learning curve, to be really confident and have a lot of trust in the fact that I could figure something out. So I could start things without knowing how I was going to finish them, knowing that I'd figure it out along the way.
And that's something that I always try to help my students wrap their heads around is that you can be in the process still figuring out where you're going and what the end goal is, but you can navigate your way on this learning curve with a lot of alacrity.
Yeah, I mean, that's really incredible, the precision with which you were able to identify the discomfort. I don't know that everybody, I would assume there are a lot of people who are in the same situation you are in, in different ways or versions who maybe don't even quite realize that they even feel that way. So I think that's really helpful to anyone listening and to be able to put words to feeling stuck or lacking that agency over not just finances, but really any control over that output or what it might mean or your involvement or your role or really anything that might encompass it.
Even the working conditions.
Yeah, everything.
I had no control over who I worked with, often in situations where you had to share housing, or a car.
It's significant. It's very significant. But I do think that there are probably many people who are in situations, obviously not exactly the same, but similar who maybe feel that way. But I feel that's a hard thing to acknowledge or to come to terms with.
It is. And I had to pull apart because it's also mixed in as soup where there are a lot of good things. And when you are learning so much all the time, you're focused on, it's a little bit survival mode. So the cortisol is running high. I did find myself deep into my career, absolutely not sure of my value or what I was going to do when the TV career wasn't there anymore. And that was a whole design process in and of itself to build something new.
Well, you built a lot of new things.
Yes. I hope I never stop.
And speaking of some of those... I hope you never stop too. And speaking of those new things, although Clever has been around a bit. But we'd love for you to tell us a bit more about Clever and really what inspired you to start a podcast, this crazy time-consuming, all consuming thing that you've decided to do?
Well, actually, the TV career is part of it. It was, TV was getting tired of me and I was getting tired of TV. I will say that as a person who really respects the creative process and really respects TV, I was very disenchanted with a lot of the TV programming that was coming out about design and that I was involved with. You're familiar with these format shows with big reveals and so much of the design process in the process of making the TV show gets flattened and cheapened. It felt to me like the really fascinating, exciting parts of design were being scrubbed out of it. And I just didn't want to contribute to that anymore. I really wanted to be a counterbalance to that as the cultural narrative that was dominant in the U.S. about what design is.
So that was also around 2015, podcasts were right around when serial came out. Podcasts were a new and exciting format. I was driving back and forth to San Francisco all the time, so spending a lot of time in the car listening to this new exciting format, and getting really enamored with the intimacy that you have with an audience when you have this long-form content. I thought it would be really radical if we talked about design in a podcast because so often it's only talked about in a visual format. And then in that visual format, it frequently gets reduced to these snap judgments of aesthetics. Do I like this or don't I like it? But when you remove that and you talk to somebody about not only why they do what they do, but how they do what they do, and it comes through with their own passion and their own fear and their own word choices, you start to sort of live inside their being during the course of that conversation.
It was my belief that if I could create the conditions for these conversations to happen in a way that made them really real and really authentic and really passionate, then the listeners would start to feel a little bit of that hit of connection to the built world around them because through the humanity of the person telling their story. In the same way that I started to see the world in the exploded view, I thought if people could listen to these designers talk about the way that they were developing new ways to work with bacteria to pigment clothing. Or the way they were designing buildings so that the negative space and the light came through could help memorialize fallen soldiers. Or anything like that, that we could connect more deeply to the built world. And that was really the reason why I started it, and that's still the reason why I do it.
You have had the opportunity to bring so many people in to many conversations with creatives and the opportunity to feel that humanity as you put it. Are there any that have left a lasting impression on you?
Oh my God, all of them. The thing is I kind of fall in love every time, and they change me because I allow them to change me. But also because I'm very, very picky about who I talk to. And by picky, I mean I really want to present a mosaic to my listeners of folks that they probably have heard of but want to know more about. But also folks that they didn't even know were out there doing really amazing things.
A recent conversation I can tell you about is this person by the name of Idris Brewster, who is, along with his foundation, Kinfolk Foundation, is building virtual monuments that are reanimating histories, Black and Brown histories that have been systematically erased. To me, that's just so incredibly powerful. If you can't build the real monument because it gets too caught up in permits and legislation and lobbying, but you can still present the actual feeling, the actual monuments and the educational content behind that in a virtual way.
It's incredible.
It's so incredible. It's so innovative. It's so powerful. And it absolutely fleshes out a future that we have a hard time imagining unless somebody paints that for us. So cool.
It is so cool. That's actually really incredible. Well, as you just put it, design touches really every part of our lives.
Oh, everything. That's the thing people don't realize. They don't realize that fork that you ate your lunch with, that was designed.
A hundred percent.
That tread pattern on your tires, somebody made choices around that.
Absolutely.
It's designed and engineered.
I know, absolutely. The material, the use, the longevity, all of it, right?
Yeah.
We would hope, had intention.
Well, that's the problem. It's all designed, some of it unintentionally. And that's what you want to work against, yes.
How do you think the average person can become more aware and engaged and really the design that surrounds them?
I hope through listening to shows like mine and yours that we can do something to open up our cultural definition of what design is and how people understand it is more expansive and more prevalent. I think also part of it has to do with our youth, education, and certain things like, we talk about, what do you want to be when you grow up? And there's doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher. There are all these archetypes, but even artist is kind of an archetype, but designer hasn't really made its way into that yet. When we talk to our children and we point things out like a chest of drawers or a couch, understanding that that's a design object. That's not just made at a factory without any human intervention. That object has been designed.
I also think we have to touch hearts in a way that helps people really grasp that design has the power to work in a way to support human evolution in the direction that we want to go. Design is the framework for decision-making. And if we put our imagination on a future we want to build, then design is the recipe to build it. I think when people wrap their minds around that and their hearts around that, they then feel empowered. So design isn't something that is for only designers, it's for everyone.
I work in the design industry, as you know, and even though I'm exposed to it every day, I was noticing that I was really only appreciating or really taking in design through work hours, through my job. For me, it's been a conscious move to try and move that awareness past the job role, right? And into the actual environment in the day to day.
And that's anything from how my kids' bedroom or the way their books might be situated, or how intentional where I'm creating an environment for them to inspire choice, but also to encourage certain behaviors for them. And I found myself turning it on and off in a weird way, if that makes sense? We're talking about integrating it all day long, and then I wasn't actually integrating it. So that completely resonates with me, and I really tried to take ownership and agency over being mindful of that throughout other parts of my life.
Yeah, I think you hit on something really powerful though, which is that if it's part of your work life, then sometimes it's the exact thing that you want to unplug from in your non-work life. One of the things that I think can be really powerful is how the stuff that we can consume in our downtime, the stuff that we consume for entertainment purposes, or to actually tune out or distract ourselves, can also help shape our perception of what design is.
I've always hoped that Clever would be the kind of show that you'd listen to in your studio while you're working. But then also on the weekends just to get inspired. I don't want to make programming that feels like work. But I think there are some examples of movies, music, podcasts that are done with such skill and artistry that they are design objects in and of themselves, and just appreciating them even in your downtime is a very rich way to incorporate that.
Absolutely. Well, I hate it when people ask me this question, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Oh, great.
Looking back on your journey so far, what advice would you give your younger self just starting out in the design world?
Oh, God. I would tell myself, I think I'm making better work by being a perfectionist and being my own worst critic. But I'm actually just being a goddamn bully to myself, and I'm being really hard on myself and I'm wearing myself out. And that's not any way to treat somebody who's a friend or somebody that you love. And yeah, I got myself into some pretty dark holes because I am self-employed and I work for an asshole.
I totally feel that on every level. An asshole who keeps starting businesses for some reason, but that's a whole nother problem.
Yeah, and who won't let up even when you're not on the clock
A hundred percent. I have a really little one and totally woke me up last week. I was sitting on the couch and giving her a snack, and she looked at me and she goes, "Okay, mommy, you can go work now." It was 7:00 PM, I'm like, "Ella, I was hanging out with you." I was like, "Oh, I'm such an asshole." But what are you going to do?
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think this is a natural part of evolution, and some people get there quicker than others. But I just was really hard on myself, and I can look back now and just see how I just robbed the fun out of certain situations because I just made it too...
Serious.
Too serious, too intense, too perfect. Yeah.
Totally, totally. I hear you. All right. Well, I only have one more question for you. So really, I think a lot of us have been really focused on progress lately, and what does progress mean? I'd love to hear from you in what ways you feel the design industry can better support, uplift its members and its community, but also create an opportunity for progress and in whatever way you feel that might be relevant?
Yes. Well, thank you for asking that. I also, I teach at Rhode Island School of Design. And the thing that gives me the most encouragement, faith, excitement, general joy about the future, even in these scary chaotic times, is the next generation of designers. They're amazing humans. I have a lot of faith in them, and I'm so grateful that I get to contribute to the conditions where they're learning their craft and their rigor and their practice. But I think the best thing we can do in the design industry is uplift and support emerging designers.
That means giving them opportunities. It means actively advocating for them. It means becoming mentors. It means opening doors, celebrating them, giving them feedback that they need, honest feedback, radically honest, compassionate feedback. But also staying with them in a mentorship capacity so that you can help them integrate that feedback. All of those things. And not just while they're in school, especially while they're getting their legs underneath them in the professional world. Those are my heroes. I want to give them as much wind in their capes as possible.
Well, that makes me feel better because if we're looking to what's coming up and the next generations are coming up and there's faith in the fact that they can take the reins and right the ship, then you definitely have me, you have me calm down.
We can't just offload our responsibility onto them, that's for sure.
Okay, fine.
But I do have a lot of faith in where their hearts and minds are leading them and their creativity. I think those of us who have any way to amplify their voices or pave the way or open doors and advocate, especially for those who don't have an obvious channel, an obvious pathway in, that's huge. That's a really huge thing that we can do. It's not that hard. It's a pretty simple thing too.
Yeah. It's providing opportunity. Right?
Yeah.
I love it. All right. Well, Amy, thank you so much for chatting with me today. This was a lot of fun and really inspiring. So thank you again.
It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Of course.
Thank you so much for listening in with us today. We hope you leave inspired by the ideas in today's episode. For more, follow UpSpring on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don't forget to check out the amazing lineup of shows brought to you by the SURROUND Podcast Network at SurroundPodcast.com.
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