SPAN x Design Notes, Episodes 16-20
Revisit our special podcast series recorded live at last year’s SPAN Helsinki
What’s it like to be friends with a robot? How does it feel to hold Google in your hand? Why should we value friction in design? These are just a few of the questions that arose onstage during our 2018 SPAN Helsinki conference. Behind the scenes, we invited Longform co-host Aaron Lammer and Google Design’s Amber Bravo to delve deeper by recording interviews with a handful of our world-class speakers: Google hardware designer Isabelle Olsson, artist and writer James Bridle, transdisciplinary artist Stephanie Dinkins, artistic director Marko Ahtisaari, and sibling design duo Tuuli and Kivi Sotamaa.These five episodes of Design Notes offer a number of interrelated provocations and insights. Listen in and learn why you should face the unknown, explore personal identity, and challenge your own preconceptions.Listen to Design NotesGoogle Play, iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Deezer, RSS
Editorial

Newsfeed

More News
08/13/2019
Announcing SPAN Brooklyn: October 10, 2019
This year, our annual design conference returns to New York City with SPAN Brooklyn. We’ll gather at 99 Scott—a rehabilitated warehouse-turned-arts space in Bushwick, Brooklyn—for a day-long event uniting design, technology, and art. We’re planning a full schedule of talks, demos, workshops, art installations, and lots more. Over the next few weeks we’ll be announcing our speaker lineup—stay tuned and follow #SPAN19 for the latest. In the meantime, you can explore our related articles, videos, and guides from past SPAN events. SPAN Brooklyn is invite-only, but there’s another way to get your SPAN fix: Enter our giveaway of SPAN Helsinki readers—Volume 4 is chock-full of interviews, art, and essays on everything from AI to waste-free design, and features contributions from Linda Bergroth, Dan Hill, Lidewij Edelkoort, and James Bridle. Simply fill out this form—the first 100 people will get a copy. Good luck!Visit design.google/span2019 and our FAQ for more information.
07/29/2019
Nominations open for 2019 Material Design Awards!
Today we’re announcing our open call for the 2019 Material Design Awards. If you’re a designer using Material Design to build a useful service, execute an ambitious vision, or simply spark delight in a product, we want to see (and celebrate!) what you’ve created.This year we’ll be accepting nominations in four categories: Theming (products that brilliantly exemplify Material Theming guidelines), Innovation (work that creatively expands on Material), Universality (think inclusive and accessible), and Experience (for superb interaction and navigation). We’re keeping an eye out for meaningful experiences across all categories, and platforms. To see the work we’ve honored in the past, look through our MDA archives from 2018, 2017, and 2016.Nominate someone (or yourself) by filling out this entry form by August 24, 2019. Material Design Award winners will be announced on Google Design this fall.
07/01/2019
Google Design on Medium: Personal Journeys
With summer upon us, it’s time to pass along poolside reading recommendations—and nothing beats a good hero’s journey. We’ve got you covered with a series of Medium stories on how designers get where they’re going, starting with one design director’s tale of how growing up with immigrant parents influenced her role as a leader at Google. From there, follow one UX researcher’s surprising path from architectural theory to machine learning, and a UX director’s decade-long epic of mining the human side of technology. Cap it off with a journey that might ring familiar to any designer: The tale of what it’s like to be an intern.
06/27/2019
Read the latest Google Design Newsletter: Summer 2019
Our seasonal recap of Google Design happenings is here, and this edition is jam-packed with news and inspiration. If you missed out on I/O, we’ll get you up to speed on all the design launches and talks—covering everything from AI to sound design to Material’s new dark theme—from our annual developer conference. For those who just want to read up on the Milan Furniture Fair, design at the Museum of Modern Art, or sustainable leather and plant-based packaging, we’ve got you covered, too. Happy reading—and HAGS.Subscribe to the Google Design newsletter
Want to stay up-to-date with Google Design? 
Sign up for our Newsletter

Featured Collection: UX for the Next Billion Users

View Collection
Google Design

Google Design is a cooperative effort led by a group of designers, writers, and developers at Google. We work across teams to publish original content, produce events, and foster creative and educational partnerships that advance design and technology.

Discover
Connect