WHY DESIGN?

What if the most important thing a designer can do has nothing to do with making?
In this episode of Why Design, Shaun Fynn shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that observation, not making, is the true foundation of design. That culture defines meaning. That before you build anything, you have to understand who will receive it including, eventually, who will receive it when it is done being useful.
Rather than staying in the design of products, Fynn chose to follow the question of why. That decision led to a research practice serving Steelcase, Coca-Cola, HNI and KI, to documentaries filmed on e-waste landfill sites in Delhi, to photography books published by Princeton Architectural Press, and to a new venture called Apertura, which places branded storytelling inside architectural space.
This conversation is not about making better products. It is about what design looks like when it starts with observation and follows the question all the way to the end.
Don't just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community at teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
🌍 Why living across four countries does not just broaden your perspective - it permanently rewires how you read meaning in objects and spaces.
🔎 How to make the intangible tangible: the phrase a Steelcase design director used to describe Studio Fynn, and what it means in practice.
📽️ Why visual storytelling does what a strategy deck cannot, and how Fynn has used documentary and photography to shift actual business decisions.
🏙️ What Le Corbusier's lead architect told a young researcher when asked what the master said to him: "Everything is there. If you deserve it, you will see it."
🗑️ Why the world of the receiver the people who inherit discarded products at the end of their useful life is the design problem the industry has consistently refused to look at.
🏛️ How Apertura is using architectural space as a medium for branded cultural stories, and why Fynn believes it is the next frontier for getting art out of the gallery and into public life.

Memorable Quotes
"Culture defines meaning. What we were designing for maybe one market or one culture was not relevant to the other."
"A presentation can often just be seen as a document of what you've done. Visual storytelling, I think, understands the media you're using and the audience you speak to."
"We don't spend much time on looking at who receives things once they are done - once they've finished their active life."
"He said nothing. He said, everything is there. If you deserve it, you will see it."
"When I was younger, I believed design had more power than it really does. I always thought singularly that design can change something."
Resources and Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon -> whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesign on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes -> YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte -> linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Studio Fynn -> studiofynn.com
🔗 Explore Apertura -> apertura-art.com
Connect with Shaun: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-fynn-8b317a3/
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership - bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more -> teamkodu.com

What does twenty years of serious product work actually look like from the inside?
In this episode of Why Design, Marco and Mark, co-founders of Pensa, share the belief that sits at the heart of their work: that the best products come from designers and engineers working through the same problems at the same time, not handing work over fences and telling each other what can't be done.
Rather than building a conventional consultancy where disciplines operate in sequence, Marco and Mark built Pensa around a model they call finishing, not fixing. That decision led to a 20-year-old studio in Brooklyn that has worked on everything from razors to wire bending machines to medical implants, much of it still under NDA.
This conversation isn't about design trends or career highlights.
It's about what it takes to build something that lasts.
It's about what happens when you build a founding team of people who don't do the same thing.
It's about the ego problem in hiring, and why the people who want the job the most often show it the least.
Don't just listen. Go beyond the podcast. Join the Why Design community: teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
Why involving engineers and designers together from day one produces better outcomes than the standard design-then-engineering handoff
How Pensa solved a decade-long invisible portfolio problem by building their own products under the Pensa Labs name
Why the most dangerous hire in a creative studio is the person who presents brilliantly but can't move a project
How a wire bending tool built for internal use became a bootstrapped product business serving aerospace, orthodontics, and medical implants
What "finishing not fixing" looks like in practice, including the OneBlade razor story where dozens of prototypes led to a pivot that became the foundation of all subsequent work
Why storytelling is the most underrated skill for designers and engineers, and why the ability to bring a client along on a three-year development process matters more than most schools teach

Memorable Quotes
"It's not giving up to admit that we need to pivot to a direction that's simpler. And simpler is usually better."
"We got to see foldable phones ten years before they came out because we were working on it."
"People who have big egos often present very well. And the people who are humble but very talented often are a little too humble in the hiring process."
"You're not going to AI your way out of that discussion."
"The last thing you want is partners that do the same thing that you do."
Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesign on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes → YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Pensa → pensa.co
🔗 Connect with Marco & Mark → Marco / Mark
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more → teamkodu.com

Are you designing for the middle of the bell curve, or for the people who need it most?
In this episode of Why Design, Stephan Clambaneva shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that industrial design's greatest contribution is at the front end of product development, where 80% of environmental impact is determined, where material choices get locked in, and where the decisions that actually matter are still open.
Rather than taking the conventional path of pure industrial design consultancy, Stephan built a career across mechanical engineering, CAD work, sustainability research, design leadership education, and two decades of community-building inside IDSA. That refusal to specialise led to a perspective that very few practitioners have.
This conversation isn't about making good-looking products. It's about the responsibility that comes with sitting at the tip of the spear.
This conversation isn't about AI replacing designers. It's about what happens when the average becomes the default.
Don't just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign

What You'll Learn
🧠 Why AI is architecturally designed to find the average, and why that is the opposite of what good design does
🔩 How 80% of environmental impact is locked in by the first 20% of the product development process
🏛 Why Stephan pushed IDSA into NYC Design Week a decade ago and what it took to make it happen
👥 How the Park Academy surfaces gaps that successful design managers did not know they had
♻️ Why people, planet, prosperity is a more useful frame than people, planet, profit
🎨 Why sketching is still the skill young industrial designers most undervalue

Memorable Quotes
“If you’re using a large language model, no matter how good it is, it’s gonna find the average. It’s gonna find the safe thing.”
“80% of the costs, 80% of the impact on the environment is determined in the initial 20% of the product development process. That’s where design lives. That’s where innovation lives.”
“We need to move away from people, planet, profit to people, planet, prosperity. It’s not about profit. You have to be profitable, otherwise you’ll go out of business. But you don’t have to make 100 million percent profit. If you can be prosperous, it might even be a better metric.”
“If you can find someone that can do something 80% as well as you, that’s golden.”
“If you’re taking on a new role, the easiest thing to do is to make a bunch of changes. What I would say is just wait a little bit, take a pause, get to know the organization.”

Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes → YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore Park → https://park.bz/
🔗 Connect with Stephan Clambaneva → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanclambaneva/

About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build — but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.

About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership — bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more → teamkodu.com

What if the science works, the market is ready, and your company still dies?
In this episode of Why Design, Bill Liao shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that the stories we co-believe in are our civilisation, and that the words you choose, the values you name, and the futures you speak aloud determine not just what you build, but whether it survives.
Rather than following a conventional path from engineer to executive, Bill built a career at the intersection of technology, persuasion, and purpose. From co-founding WeForest to investing in molecular medicine and microbiome hardware at SOSV, that decision led to a body of work shaped by one question: what actually kills companies?
This conversation is not about funding rounds or product-market fit. It is about the gap between doubt and conviction, why self-actualisation is a lie, and what happens when the air goes out of a room.
Don’t just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
🧠 Why values alignment is worth more than skill when building the first team, and how to test for it in an interview
🔍 How oxidised cholesterol causes four in ten human deaths, and why Cyclarity’s molecule may change that
💬 Why replacing the word “but” with “and” changes how people receive disagreement
🧘 What intersubjective actualisation means, why it makes people happier than self-actualisation, and why AI makes it harder
🌿 How to use Food Marble to identify which foods are disrupting your microbiome at home
⏰ Why the half-life of an insight is twenty-four hours, and the only way to extend it

Memorable Quotes
“The future that you set is the now that you get.”
“The only difference between persuasion and manipulation is intent.”
“One person on that narcissistic spectrum in a startup can destroy the work of any other ten people at once.”
“It’s not the persistent hallucination that gets under my skin. It’s the unbelievably sycophantic yet confident way in which it tells you the lies.”
“The half-life of an insight is 24 hours. And the only way to extend its half-life is to take action on it.”
6e. Resources and Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes → YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Connect with Bill Liao → LinkedIn
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry. Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups. We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership — bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling. 🔗 Learn more → teamkodu.com

What does it take to build brand presence for one of the world's most rigorous design institutions in a market that barely knows it exists?
In this episode of Why Design, Lisa Gralnek shares the belief that sits at the heart of her work: that design is not just products and packaging, but platforms, places, and policies and that if designers cannot speak the language of business, they will always be treated as a cost centre.
Rather than staying in a thriving solo consultancy, Lisa chose to take the first role she had ever been offered that she had not in some way anticipated. That decision led to becoming iF Design's first ever US Managing Director, Head of Global Sustainability and Impact, and the person responsible for introducing one of the world's oldest and most rigorous design institutions to a market that had never needed to think about it before.
This conversation is not about design awards. It is about what happens when you spend 30 years building things that do not exist yet - and what that costs, and what it gives you.
Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
🧭 Why iF Design had 74 years of global authority and almost no US brand presence outside product design, and what it actually takes to change that.
🔄 How change agents get beaten by organisations, not by their own ideas - and what to check before taking on an internal transformation role.
💬 Why designers who cannot speak the language of business will always be positioned as a cost centre, and how the iF Design Academy is trying to fix it.
🤖 What confident AI decision-making looks like for design leaders who are not engineers and cannot predict where the field is going.
🌱 Why 20% of every iF Design Award score now goes to sustainability across all 93 categories - and what the gold winners tell you about what excellence really means.
🏗️ How to think about design leadership in hardware when talent pipelines are shrinking and everything is changing faster than your planning cycle.

Memorable Quotes
"I've only ever in that almost 30 year career had roles that don't exist before I take them."
"There are 10,000 things that can go wrong in change management... 9,998 of them have nothing to do with the change agent."
"The hybrid between the business and the creative side. That is my superpower."
"I graduated into financial collapse of 08 with over $200,000 of capitalized debt for that short degree program."
"You design products, you design packaging, you design platforms, you design places, you design policies. Like it is all design."
Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon -> whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes -> YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte -> linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Connect with - iF Design
🔗 Connect with Lisa Gralnek -> LinkedIn
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.