The best TED talks about design

Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read

Micheal Bierut is one of the most famous and influential designers of this time and has worked for some of the biggest brands. He is known for the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign logo and has created the new MasterCard branding and Saks Fifth Avenue logo. In this talk, Michael Bierut goes into the process of designing a logo for a library and the way this logo would affect the library goers. He goes into the psychology of a logo and how even a logo could help people go to the library more often. It is definitely a must watch if you want to know more about the effects good logos have on people and want to hear how one of the world’s best designers designs a logo.

Paula Scher: Great design is serious, not solemn

Paula Scher is an incredible designer and painter and has worked for some of the biggest brands in the world. She designed the Citibank logo, the Windows 8 logo and also designed the new brand identity for MoMA. In this TED talk, Paula Scher talks about how she creates new designs and how she became a designer.

Margaret Gould Stewart: How giant websites design for you (and a billion others too)

Margaret Gould Stewart is the director of product design at Facebook. In this TED talk, she explains what it is like designing elements that will be seen by billions of people every day. How the tiniest of changes in a design like a like-button can cause outrage or change the lives of so many people and how you, as a designer deal with that fact.

Milton Glaser: Using design to make ideas new

Known for his incredible designs like that of the “I ❤ NY”-logo, Milton Glasner is widely known and respected in the design world. In this older TED talk, he goes into the process of creating a painting inspired by Piero Della Francesca. He talks about the connection between design and nature and the process of designing something inspired by a painter like Piero Della Francesca.

Tim Brown: Designers – Think big!

Famous designer and CEO of design firm IDEO, Tim Brown, talks about the history and the present importance of design. How design thinking used to be used to solve world problems and created some of the greatest innovations in history and are now mostly working on smaller objects. Tim Brown believes that there will be a reemergence of the bigger “design thinking” and using it to solve bigger projects. He also states some project and designers that are great examples of these bigger, problem-solving designs.

David Pogue: Simplicity sells

David Pogue talks about some of the worst designs that are used in interfaces and also about some of the best designs. He also discusses some of the funniest stories he experienced working with design.

John Hodgeman: Design, Explained

In this humorous talk about the design of everyday object, John Hodgeman goes behind the reasons for interesting designs that we come by every day. It’s a relatively short talk and he definitely doesn’t go deep into the psychology of design but it’s refreshing to hear about the effects of design from someone outside of the design world.