Thought Starters

​Two young women at the top of their game talk about junior-level staff – and how the creative industries don’t always encourage them to their full potential. ​Dior Bediako is the founder of Pepper Your Talk, a platform for young fashion creatives. Her new project The Junior Network has created a community of fashion professionals at the beginning of their careers, with events and resources to propel them forwards. ​Mercedes Benson is an independent social media marketing socialist, who has worked for Google, Adidas and Puma. Her community-based platform SocialFixt encourages entry-level black, Asian and minority talent into the creative industries. ​Also on the agenda: tokenism, the experience of recent graduates and why we should all be learning from our junior colleagues.

​It's a universal truth that hospitals can be depressing places. They certainly don't have to be, at least in their design. ​That's exactly what we talk about in this episode of Thought Starters. ​Dr. Nick Rhodes is a psychiatrist by trade, but runs a charity called The Nightingale Project that helps improve health services through art and music. He recently commissioned Camille Walala to paint a mural at the Park Royal Mental Health Centre. If you're dealing with depressed people, he asks, why treat them in depressing places? ​Similarly, Clara Gaggero Westaway looks at the emotional side of the devices used in health care. She talks about one recent project where her practice, Special Projects, rethought the experience of monitoring blood pressure. The resulting device was designed to be less stressful to use, and in turn, more accurate in its results.

​The mismatched lifespan of hardware versus software, why startups need better product marketing and how science fiction drives innovation: all in this episode of Thought Starters. ​In the Pod at White City Place, we meet Matt Webb, who runs accelerator programs for esteemed digital agency R/GA, and Jon Marshall, design director at MAP, an industrial design consultancy he co-founded with Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby.​

​Two women at the helm of two creative businesses talk about just that: running a business, and running a business while being female. Joining in us The Pod at White City Place: Danielle Pender and Sabine Zetteler. ​In 2013, Danielle founded Riposte, self-described as a “smart magazine for women”. And, it is. Now on its 8th issue, Riposte has featured an impressively diverse range of women including: Thought Starters alumna Nelly Ben Hayoun, writer and activist Gloria Steinem and Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi. ​Sabine Zetteler is the founder and co-director of Zetteler Creative publicity, which she started in 2012. Her clients range from young, rising talent, to established industry stalwarts – all, however, share her humanist, optimistic worldview. Some current and past clients include illustrator and artist Camille Walala, paper merchants extraordinaire G . F Smith, and Design and Architecture Norway.

​ In this episode, we learn that making champagne and making a magazine isn’t all that different. We also learn what happens when you bring a legendary east London drag queen to rural France. ​ Our guests: The Gourmand founder David Lane and Adam Saletti, co-owner of Selavy Champagne. ​ If you flip through issues of bi-annual food and culture magazine The Gourmand, you can find an interview with the Cookie Monster or a photo feature of hot dogs posing with actual dogs. David is also creative director of Lane & Associates creative agency and, since last October, an art director with Frieze, the art fair and its associated publications. ​ Adam is the former publisher of magazines like The Gentlewoman and Luncheon. In June 2016, he helped create Selavy, described as “a hand-crafted queer champagne made from organically grown grapes on the mountain of Bonneil, France.” ​ One the agenda: why food is such a common topic for a magazine, building Champagne’s outside the box branding, and whether The Gourmand and

​On this episode of Thought Starters, we talk about archives. Joining us, Tory Turk, the head archivist at the Hyman Archive, the world’s largest magazine archive, and Carl Williams of Carl Williams Rare Books. ​They discuss the importance of digitising our archived history and why it’s sometimes okay to buy fakes.

​Two architecture writers: one looking at inner city marvels, the other at the Green Belt. Together in the Pod, they look at the similarities and differences in their work - and what it means to be creative in London today. ​Tom Dyckhoff is a historian, journalist and broadcaster. He wrote and presented the primetime documentary TV series The Secret Life of Buildings, and recently published The Age of Spectacle: Adventures in Architecture and the 21st-Century City – the story of how architecture became obsessed with the flashy, the monumental and the ostentatious. ​John Grindrod has also just published a book called Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt. It explores the tensions between conservationists and developers, town and country, politicians and people, NIMBYs and the forces of progress. His previous book, Concretopia, is on the architecture of post-war British reconstruction.

​ In this episode of Thought Starters: a tech founder and a Google exec talk about diversity. ​ In 2014, Pip Jamieson moved to London from her native Australia to found The Dots, a social network that has in many ways liberated the creative industry from the more corporate LinkedIn. The visually-driven platform connects creatives with careers at some of the world’s leading companies. ​Nishma Robb is the head of ads marketing for Google and YouTube in the UK and Ireland, and she’s the chair of Women@Google UK – an organisation that champions women who are working with technology around the world.

​What is the role of print in our increasingly digital world? While quantity may be declining, production quality is only going up. In this episode, we follow the paper trail to meet John Haslam and Leo Turner, respective directors of G.F Smith and specialist luxury printer Downey & Co. On the agenda: paper. Why we still love it, and how even the subtlest print techniques pack the biggest punch.

​When Vicky Richardson met Nelly Ben Hayoun, Nelly was wearing a space suit. Nelly is an award-winning director and experience designer, who has worked with artists, musicians, scientist and engineers devising boundary-breaking events and experiences.​ Vicky is the former Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council. In 2016, she was Commissioner for the British Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale. They met in the pod to talk about post-Brexit creativity and breaking free from the institution.

​As the old adage goes, sex sells. Joining us in conversation: Matthew Holroyd, creative director and founder of Baron and Baroness magazines, and the boundary-pushing Reba Maybury, founder of Wet Satin Press. The conversation comes hot off the heels of an event they’ve just hosted in London, exploring sex in fashion, art and publishing. We’re bringing that conversation into the pod to talk about the construct of sexiness in fashion, and how it plays out in the media — and who gets the big jobs in the industry

​In this episode we hear from two stars of the design world working at two global design firms: Marina Willer, partner at Pentagram and Nadine Chahine, a type designer and legibility researcher at Monotype. Pentagram is behind some of the most pervasive logos in the world: the Serpentine, Hillary Clinton and Windows. Monotype is a type design firm who, with Chanine at the helm at the helm of the project, recently reworked Johnston, the typeface used across Transport for London. Their fascinating conversation starts by exploring the restoration of London’s most important typeface. They discuss that now more than ever designers need to stick together for social causes, and what technological advances will prove to be a type designer’s biggest challenge yet.

​The movies: the value of the "cinema", a paradigm shift in distribution, and why it's still all about Cannes. In conversation: Efe Cakarel is the founder of Mubi, an online viewing platform offering 30 curated, ever-changing art house titles. It’s the “staff picks” section of video store experience for the Netflix age. Little White Lies is a magazine that blends artful, original illustrations with thoughtful film criticism. Its editor David Jenkins joins us in the Pod. To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, click here or find us on Twitter and Instagram.​

​The landscape of fashion is changing. So what is the role for catwalk shows and events in the age of livestreaming and social media? Martin Cohen is the Europe Director of 6up Productions, an events and production company that has created fashion week runway events for brands like Paul Smith and Jean Paul Gaulthier. Jonathan Chippindale is the founder of Holition, a company that helps luxury brands utilise technology - from wearables to holographic fashion shows. They met in the Pod to discuss how to navigate the changing world of their clients. ​To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, click here or find us on Twitter and Instagram.​

On the agenda: what makes for good domestic architecture, building a case for small town living, and a list of favourite homes around the world. The Modern House is an estate agency offering dwellings of only the highest architectural calibre. Looking at its listings feels more like looking at a design magazine, which is fitting because Albert Goldhill was design editor of Wallpaper* before co-founding The Modern House. Sophie Goldhill is the co-founder of the lauded architectural practice Liddicoat & Goldhill. Sitting down with Albert in the Pod, the two begin by talking about Albert’s one professional regret. To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, click here or find us on Twitter and Instagram.

​Hermès, Nike and Christopher Kane are just some of the brands set and spatial designer Robert Storey has worked with, creating inspired retail spaces, window displays and fashion shows. Holly Hay works with with brands like Apple, Alexander McQueen and Burberry as a photo editor at Dazed Media Studio and AnOther Magazine. So what happens when a photo editor and a set designer walk into a Pod? They discuss making online-only businesses physical, balancing experimentation and brand consistency, and the reeducation of heritage superbrands.​ To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, click here or find us on twitter and instagram.​

From behemoth trade events, such as Milan's Salone del Mobile furniture fair, to creative copycats (and how the design press treats them), or the value of social media for your designers – we put lighting designer Michael Anastassiades and design writer and curator Emily King in conversation in The Pod, here at White City Place, to talk about just that. To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, visit whitecityplace.com or find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Presenting No Such Thing as a Fish, a special pre-launch episode recorded at the launch of MediaWorks, here at White City Place. If you don’t know it already, No Such Thing as a Fish is a podcast by the writers of BBC’s QI that is as informative as it is hilarious. Watch this space for the first episodes of Thought Starters, coming to you later this month. To find out how you can record your podcast from White City Place, visit whitecityplace.com or find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Introducing Thought Starters, a brand new podcast produced out of White City Place in London. We'll explore the business of creativity, with a fantastic group of guests going head-to-head in conversation. Don't miss the first episodes, launching March 2017. Hit subscribe now. And for more information about how you can record your podcast out of White City Place, visit whitecityplace.com or find us on Twitter and Instagram.