Make Life Better. By Design

Light, natural and artificial, are essential tools in a designer's armoury. This podcast looks at natural light: how it illuminates buildings and the spaces within, and why orientation and the time of year can radically change it.

A later episode will deal with natural light.

An interview with Rhona Warnock, veterinary surgeon specialising in rehabilitation and sports medicine who is also an accomplished mountaineer and martial arts instructor.

We discuss her take on designing better lives for animals, but also those that look after them

There are lots of really useful sources of information that will tell you how to do something. In this episode I suggest that with the end goal firmly in mind, there may be different ways to achieve that goal.

The resources you need may appear quite unexpectedly. Don't be dogmatic; stay flexible and you may still Make Life Better. By Design.

Most people acknowledge that there is a housing crisis in this country. There is less agreement on why and how it should be tackled.

Kevin Drayton sets out some thoughts on a number of possible causes for this long standing problem.

How can we all be the same but different at once? Every coin has two sides and there are no guarantees in life - except death and taxes. 

This episode looks at the paradoxes involved in trying to make life better and why there's no point worrying about getting things wrong.

What you have is up to you. But do you know where all of it is, and can you put your hand on it quickly when you need to? Everything needs a home, but what and where that home is can greatly help or hinder your day to day life. A quick reminder of the basics of storage.

Hearing loss continues to carry a whiff of stigma. People happy to wear glasses, get their teeth fixed and exercise regularly may still be reluctant to adopt hearing aids.

But design came to the rescue some time ago. The dramatic take up of earbuds means that having something shoved in your lugs no longer shouts 'disabled'. 

Design development has also moved hearing aids into the chic accessories or 'wearables' market; which if it means you can seek help for your hearing loss without feeling awkward, must Make Life Better.

I talk to two audiologists well versed in dealing with this scenario.

Before we can apply ourselves to making our lives better, we need to understand exactly what that means for us. It is likely that we'll need to look behind the simple response of 'more money' or something similar.

Until we can be specific about what a better life will look, sound and taste like, it is unlikely we'll get far in reaching it.

Keen to get a graphic designer's take on if and how design can make life better, I set up an interview with Nathan Clegg, only to find that I must have made a schoolboy error setting up my mike. Unwilling to throw away Nathan's comments, I tried to salvage my part of the interview, with little success. Mea culpa.

Following on from Episode 11, this time taking a quick look at the development of writing, printing and electronic communication: how they relate to signage and how they all affect our quality of life.