The Design Of Business | The Business of Design

S12E7: Compassionate Design, Career Advice and Leaving 18F with Designer Ethan Marcotte


Listen Later

Ethan Marcotte is a web designer who may be best known for coining the term “responsive design” in 2010 – which turned out to be a prescient manifesto for the quest to design beautiful, accessible, and effective digital experiences everywhere. Ethan’s also a compassionate web designer and a prolific writer. His most recent book is “You Deserve A Tech Union,” a treatise on the rise of the labor movement in tech.

Ethan also recently spent nearly a year working for 18F, a governmental digital consulting office that helped federal agencies use technology to better serve the public. Ethan resigned in February, just one month before the office was shut down.

In this episode, Ethan describes the difficult choice to leave 18F – a story that  includes practical career advice on what do to do when a job contradicts your personal values. He also discusses the role of compassionate design in this moment, and what its future might be. And Ethan reflects on the state of “responsive design” 15 years later, why redesigning big systems requires patience and how AI is changing the value of our labor. 

On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms.

Ethan’s website.

Ethan’s essays “Moving on from 18F” and “Hallucinating”

Sylvia Harris: AIGA 2014 Medalist

Jessica Helfand’s beautiful tribute to Sylvia.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Design Of Business | The Business of DesignBy Design Observer

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

107 ratings


More shows like The Design Of Business | The Business of Design

View all
Design Matters with Debbie Millman by Design Matters Media

Design Matters with Debbie Millman

1,231 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,389 Listeners

Explain It to Me by Vox

Explain It to Me

7,835 Listeners

Channels with Peter Kafka by Vox Media Podcast Network

Channels with Peter Kafka

552 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

111,562 Listeners

The Futur with Chris Do by The Futur

The Futur with Chris Do

849 Listeners

Masters of Scale by WaitWhat

Masters of Scale

3,995 Listeners

Design Better by The Curiosity Department, sponsored by Wix Studio

Design Better

323 Listeners

Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin by Seth Godin

Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin

1,757 Listeners

Today, Explained by Vox

Today, Explained

10,121 Listeners

Worklife with Adam Grant by TED

Worklife with Adam Grant

9,187 Listeners

Short Wave by NPR

Short Wave

6,244 Listeners

The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway by Vox Media Podcast Network

The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway

5,312 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,438 Listeners

ReThinking by TED

ReThinking

611 Listeners

The Futures Archive by Design Observer

The Futures Archive

12 Listeners