The Brief: Stop specializing—live a multidisciplinary creative life
Design Better11 Jun 2025

The Brief: Stop specializing—live a multidisciplinary creative life

by Eli Woolery If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the multitude of people we’ve interviewed for Design Better, it’s that the most innovative creators of our time share an unlikely trait: they refuse to stay in their lane. While conventional wisdom pushes specialization, these polymaths build careers by following curiosity across fields—from nuclear engineering to footwear design, from video games to graphic novels. In my own career, it took me many years to realize this, and in some ways my journey began the day after my son was born. I remember that day as unseasonably hot. September 2015 on the Monterey Peninsula—the kind of clear, warm day that follows long stretches of coastal fog. After leaving the hospital where my wife Courtney was recovering with our newborn, I grabbed a quick (wife-sanctioned) surf. The clear horizon promised a month of record warmth ahead. At home, I checked email before setting up my auto-responder for two weeks of paternity leave. Near the top of my inbox: a message from our startup's CEO. Not what I expected. The gist: "We're sorry, but our co-founders had a fight, the company is splitting up, and we have to lay you off." Panic. Losing my job right after our second child wasn't the plan, especially since we'd just moved to the Monterey Peninsula in an era before remote work was widespread. I delivered the news to Courtney at the hospital along with her Starbucks coffee, and couldn’t find anything comforting to say. She ended up reassuring me—we were going to be OK. And we were. It became a rare chance for me to spend real time with our newborn son, young daughter, and Courtney. Time to reflect on what came next. And I had a secret weapon—something I hadn't always considered a strength. Continue reading this issue of The Brief on Substack at DesignBetter.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episoder(253)

Ian Bogost: Game designer, Atlantic writer, and philosopher of the ordinary, on the small stuff that makes life delightful

Ian Bogost: Game designer, Atlantic writer, and philosopher of the ordinary, on the small stuff that makes life delightful

A few years ago, Ian Bogost wrote what he thought was a throwaway Atlantic piece about how electric vehicles would finally kill the manual transmission. It went off like a bomb — and the reaction told...

15 Jul 47min

Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens: authors of WAIL on the constraints that led to timeless designs for Prestige Records

Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens: authors of WAIL on the constraints that led to timeless designs for Prestige Records

Years ago, two friends in Philadelphia — both designers, both obsessed with jazz — kept noticing the same notation on the back of their favorite records: “recorded by Van Gelder in Hackensack.” So one...

1 Jul 24min

Niyati Gupta: Netflix Product Design Lead on what happens when a designer becomes a product manager, and why your influence might not be in your title

Niyati Gupta: Netflix Product Design Lead on what happens when a designer becomes a product manager, and why your influence might not be in your title

Niyati Gupta describes her career as one long experiment — deliberately putting herself in uncomfortable, ambiguous situations and treating every move as a personal learning loop. That instinct took h...

25 Jun 44min

Mike Schnaidt: Fast Company Creative Director on typography, creative endurance, and designing for the long haul

Mike Schnaidt: Fast Company Creative Director on typography, creative endurance, and designing for the long haul

Typography is often treated as a detail — the thing you finalize after the real design decisions are made. But for our next guest, it’s closer to the foundation everything else rests on. He’s spent tw...

17 Jun 23min

Bonus Episode: Dorrian Porter returns with the Vestaboard Note

Bonus Episode: Dorrian Porter returns with the Vestaboard Note

There’s something magical about the Vestaboard: it’s a physical, split-flap display connected to the internet that displays missives and useful information with a charm that we love. The Vestaboard in...

11 Jun 39min

Tina Roth Eisenberg: Creative Mornings founder on building communities that run on trust

Tina Roth Eisenberg: Creative Mornings founder on building communities that run on trust

When Tina Roth Eisenberg moved to New York in 1999 as a new designer, she kept asking herself the same question: where are my people? Eighteen years ago, she answered it by starting Creative Mornings—...

10 Jun 37min

Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think)

Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think)

Paul Ford likes to call himself a “fun Cassandra” — someone who, like the priestess in Greek mythology, sees trouble coming, but unlike her tries to make the warning as entertaining as possible. He’s ...

3 Jun 26min

Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool

Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are reading it than ever. But pick up almost any comm...

27 Mai 41min

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