Designer, maker and jack-of-all-trades Tyler Hays confides he was a weird kid with a sewing machine, a pansy garden and racoon-skinning skills in the small town where he grew up. After a brief stint as a Portland art star, he ventured to New York and earned his keep doing odd contractor jobs. Now, the proprietor of cult favorite furniture brand BDDW, and handmade sundries brand M. Crow is on a mission to make everything he uses while bridging the divide between rural and urban America. Plus, he’s got goats! Listen:

Legendary British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes tells us how her early early textile designs were considered too extreme for the traditional purveyors, so she had to take manufacturing into her own hands. As a fashion designer, she pioneered the use of printed textiles as an intrinsic part of the garment’s composition. Now 50 years into her career, she attributes her extraordinary work ethic to her mother. Oh, and she has been known to frolic in the sea alongside Burt Bacharach.

Founder and CEO of design brand Kikkerland, Jan Van Der Lande, tells us that when he started the business 25 years ago his houseboat was HQ, and delivery happened via his bicycle. Born and raised in the Netherlands, it was a lack of farming opportunities that compelled him to pursue greener pastures in New York City. And even though his lackluster academic performance in youth was no indicator of his future success and entrepreneurial prowess, you still can’t convince him that 1 + 1 = 2.

Architect and designer Daniel Germani took a circuitous route to get to his full-time practice. Along the way he’s worked in tech, media and got an MBA. He talks to us about his childhood in Buenos Aires, grappling with his Catholic upbringing, and his passion for designing spaces that support clients living life to the fullest. Plus, he is fiercely (and hilariously) anti-tchotchke!

Graphic designer and entrepreneurial super-hero, Tina Roth Eisenberg aka swissmiss, has always been full of ideas. Luckily, she channels her powers for good: like the lecture series CreativeMornings, Tattly temporary tattoos, to-do app TeuxDeux and the popular design blog swissmiss. She shares with Jaime and Amy the magic of finding and building community through non-transactional giving, the positive side of divorce and the benefits of keeping a desk drawer stocked with confetti. 

Graphic designer and Senior Creative Director of Facebook’s Building 8 team, Josh Higgins, spent his SoCal youth surfing, enduring a painful homelife, and harboring rebellious angst. He found therapeutic release and success in playing punk rock music, and also accidentally found the pathway to his calling. Now, he’s a champion of social causes and connecting the world through empathy. Oh and remember when Obama ran for re-election in 2012? Guess who design-directed that victorious campaign? Go Josh!

Architect Craig Steely grew up tinkering in a family whose motto was ‘custom anything’ so it’s not all that surprising that he’s scaled that idea up to the design of buildings. It’s refreshing to hear him talk about how that mentality has informed not only his work, but the very nature of his architecture practice; a small, personal, agile practice that focuses on meaning, relationships, and… hot lava!

Architect, digital designer, and design thinker extraordinaire, Leslie Witt, moved around a lot as a youth, which made her very adaptable, but sometimes resulted in fashion mishaps as a teenager. She grew up excelling at almost everything and therefore some of her toughest struggles didn’t arrive until adulthood. She breaks down those challenges with wit and wisdom and charms us with her optimism, humility and problem-solving prowess. Also, she explains techy stuff to us in a way that we can understand.

Furniture and product designer Brad Ascalon calls himself a rational designer and even though he initially wanted to work in the music industry, a heart to heart with his artistic father during a career setback started him on a path toward industrial design and he’s never looked back. He confesses that while he loves design work, the regular rejection that comes with the territory has sometimes felt like being dumped. He’s currently embroiled in a love/hate relationship with New York City, and his new hobbies include playing bluegrass music and whittling corn cob pipes. 

Filmmaker, photographer and perpetual entrepreneur Gary Hustwit connects the dots of his DIY-driven path through independent music, independent publishing, and independent films, to his current preoccupation with non-fiction VR. Along the way he deconstructs the methods to his madness and expounds on the popularity of his trilogy of design documentaries: Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. Plus he teases a bit about his forthcoming doc about Dieter Rams, and confesses that an early disdain for avocados didn’t prevent him from capitalizing on their market-appeal.