Design consultant Virginia Santy set out to create an office space built specifically for women, flipping the script on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways that workplaces and cities still fail them. The results were striking:…
When monarch butterflies migrate, they produce one of the most iconic wildlife spectacles in the world — and provide us with an important indicator of ecological health, says photographer Jaime Rojo. Telling a story about…
In this TED Talk gone wrong, comedian Mike Albo receives an unexpected call from his bank. The result: a hilariously uncomfortable tour of his purchase history, and a reminder that in the digital age, our…
In a world where design trends are quietly converging — same color palettes, same typography, same illustration styles — how do you make work that actually looks different? Designer and TED Fellow Lope Gutierrez-Ruiz distills…
Covering global war stories can be hard and thankless — but it’s critical work if the rest of us are to understand what’s really going on in the world. For nearly two decades, journalist Jane…
For the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, Debbie Millman revisits conversations with renowned poets Eileen Myles, Elizabeth Alexander, Sarah Kay, and Amber Tamblyn. These excerpts reflect on language, identity, memory, and the lived experience that…
To calm the storm inside your mind, you must first understand it. Singer and actress Rhonda Ross shares her theory of “emotional sovereignty” — the idea that your feelings aren’t shaped just by your circumstances,…
Author David Larbi recites a poem about the journey toward joy, reminding us of all the ways it can be found: having a conversation with a stranger, tasting the perfect bite of food or enjoying…
What are you wearing, and why? This is the question that writer and TED Fellow Mitchell S. Jackson asks as he unpacks the six eras of NBA style. Tracing an arc from Bill Russell to…
What can happy rats teach us about human joy? Behavioral neuroscientist Kelly Lambert describes how her team trained rats to drive tiny cars to earn treats — and noticed something surprising about how effort and…
