RDInsights

This is an RDInsights Archive recording from 2013 with Sarah Wigglesworth RDI MBE, the British award-winning architect who was a Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield until 2016 and has long been an outspoken advocate of the role of women in architecture. In 1995, she initiated Desiring Practices: Architecture, Gender and the Interdisciplinary, an exhibition, symposium, catalogue, and book that explored gender differences in architectural practice. Mike Dempsey RDI caught up with Sarah recently to record an update to find out why she decided to close her practice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This RDInsights archive recording from 2009 features product designer Terence Woodgate RDI. In 2023, he left the UK to set up a new home and studio close to Roca-Corba Mountain, just outside of Girona in Catalonia, Spain. We look forward to seeing new work emerge from his new permanent base in these sunnier climes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Dempsey RDI selects a memorable Archive recording from 2010 with the great Oscar and BAFTA-winning film production designer Sir Kenneth Adam RDI. Stephen Spielberg described his design for the war room in Stanly Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove' as "the greatest set in cinema history." Hear about this, his work on 'Barry Lyndon', the iconic James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s, and his fascinating early life and beginnings in cinema. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike meets with the celebrated children's author and illustrator Lauren Child RDI, who burst onto the publishing scene in 1999 with Clarice Bean - That's Me, followed in 2000 by Charlie & Lola - I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato. They quickly became firm favourites to millions of children worldwide. Over the years, Lauren garnered many awards and honours, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, an MBE, CBE and Royal Designer for Industry. She was also the 2017 Children's Laureate. But Lauren’s creative path to success was long, winding, and, at times, bumpy, as you will hear in this revealing interview about Lauren's life and work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In conversation with Mike Dempsey RDI Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an RDInsights archive recording from 2008 with Kyle Cooper Hon RDI. His original title sequence for David Fincher's crime drama feature film 'Se7en' had a significant impact and enduring influence on the creative discipline of title design, that is still evident on feature films and TV dramas around the world. In this interview, Kyle talks about his troubled Massachusetts working-class early life. With little interest in school but an insatiable appetite and love for drawing, he was ultimately saved from travelling the wrong path, but instead going to the holy grail of Yale University, where he was taught by Paul Rand Hon RDI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest edition of RDInsights, Mike is in conversation with Lucinda Chambers RDI, the British fashion director, designer, and stylist who worked at Vogue magazine for 36 years and is also in demand as a consultant to many major fashion brands. Her creative path in that seemingly glamorous world was a combination of mishaps, luck, hard work, dedication, creative imagination and passion for her subject, which she continues in her new fashion enterprise, Collagerie, curating the best of fashion, interiors, beauty and lifestyle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this new episode of RDInsights, Mike is in conversation with Kate Hopkins RDI, the three-time BAFTA-awarded documentary sound designer. Her meticulous and imaginative work spanning over three decades in landmark productions like Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet has enabled audiences worldwide to experience a heightened reality through her extraordinary creative sound work. In 2014, Kate was awarded The Technicolor Creative Technology Award for Women in Film and Television. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charlie Paton is a design engineer with a passion for growing things. He owns and manages an ancient woodland and designs greenhouses that are cooled with seawater for applications in some of the most unlikely places, such as the hottest and most arid deserts. Here he discusses his early success with motorised lighting for theatre, and reflects on the importance of creative thinking for every part of the design process. This RDInsights interview, with Mike Dempsey RDI, is from our archive and recorded in 2022. Charlie Paton RDI will become Master of the Royal Designers for Industry in November 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This RDInsights Archive recording featuring Michael Wolff RDI, made with Mike Dempsey RDI in 2012, and this podcast issue coincides with Michael’s 90th birthday today, 12 November, along with news that a major book about his life and work is to be published in the spring of 2024. Michael discusses his relationships with companies and their leaders and a more profound connection with brands beyond logos. And the role of the designer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Dempsey RDI interviews graphic designer Fernando Gutiérrez RDI. Gutiérrez's career began in 1986 at CDT Design in London. In 1992, he relocated to Spain and joined Sumer in Barcelona. After briefly returning to London, he formed Studio Graphica in Barcelona with fellow designer Pablo Martin. In 2000, Gutiérrez moved back to the UK as a Pentagram Partner, where he worked for six years. In 2006, he established Studio Fernando Gutiérrez. Born in London in the 1960s to Spanish parents, Gutiérrez displayed artistic talent from a young age, often drawing and painting on the walls of his room. Despite being initially directed towards a trade job with the London Electricity Board, his art teacher recognized his potential and steered him towards a different path. Gutiérrez’s unique upbringing contributes to his identity as a genuinely European designer, with a unique way of choosing projects and the clients he works with. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This archive recording was the very first RDInsights interview. It was made in April 2006 with the brilliant designer Thomas Heatherwick RDI, who was beginning to make waves. We all know how big those waves became, with many significant projects now completed worldwide. The essence of Thomas’s thinking and his approach to creativity is very evident in this 17-year-old conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We return to one of the earliest RDInsight recordings, with the illustrator and writer Sara Fanelli Hon RDI, recorded in 2006. Mike Dempsey RDI caught up with Sara recently. She has devoted a great deal of her time to homeschooling her daughter Flora but has also ventured into the world of architecture with commissions from Thomas Heatherwick, for whom she created illustrations of science, art, and literature embossed into the concrete walls of the new Learning Hub at the Nanyang Technological University. For Ab Rogers, she produced illustrations of butterflies to stencil into terracotta along with hand-painted designs decorating the windows of The Royal Marsden Maggie's Centre. And after a decade, she is planning a new book, her first since 'The Onion's Great Escape'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This recording from the RDI Sound Archive with Royal Designer David Gentleman was made in 2010 during his 80th year. Since then, he has had three new books published, three exhibitions of his work and in 2022, Royal Mail issued a set of six stamps commemorating his work. Now, at 93, you will still find him around London or in Suffolk with pen and watercolours capturing the world around him. Speaking recently, interviewer Mike Dempsey RDI, learned that David was hunkered down working on a new book with a looming deadline to meet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2020 Margaret Howell RDI celebrated her five decades in the world of fashion design. Throughout those years, Margaret has kept to her abiding principles of creating elegant, classic and understated fashion through her love of tweeds, corduroys, linen, wool and cotton, all carefully selected to develop her sense of Englishness with her passion for muted natural colours and patterns. Mike Dempsey RDI recorded this conversation in 2007 in a rather busy and, at times, a little noisy space. Today Margaret has 94 stores across Japan, where her work is much loved. And her enduring championing of mid-20th-century industrial design has seen her collaborate with products from Ercol furniture and Anglepoise with her special editions of the classic Type 75 range of lamps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2018 Mike Dempsey, RDI, interviewed one of the titans of British graphic design and typography, Derek Birdsall RDI. A few years before that conversation, Derek walked into his Islington studio at the back of his house, where he was about to start work on a new book commissioned by a regular client. Looking down for some time at the manuscript and the accompanying pile of photographs on his Desk, Derek suddenly decided he’d had enough of solving other people's problems, something he'd been doing for six decades. And without a party or farewell wishes, he sold his house and studio and moved to the Kent coast within sight and sound of the sea, where he has remained happily ever since. But Derek's influence on graphics and typography still spreads far and wide. And his story is a fascinating one. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this interview with the landscape architect Andrew Grant RDI, Mike Dempsey RDI covers Andrew’s idyllic farming childhood, the long path to discovering his creative potential, his teenage passion for the illustrator Roger Dean’s otherworldly landscapes, and the reality of his own interpretation of such a setting in Singapore that would change his life and firmly establish him on the global creative map. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nine years after this 2008 interview with The Times, political cartoonist Peter Brookes RDI was awarded a CBE in the 2017 New Year's Honours List. Gone is his original tiny triangular Times office with the smallest window imaginable and its view of a red brick wall, to a desk boasting a magnificent view of London's skyline with the Shard centre stage. From this vantage point, Peter will produce his daily creation with acerbic wit, making the paper's readers laugh out loud or be infuriated in equal measure. As Mike Dempsey RDI discovered, the RAF's loss of Brookes was the creative world's gain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this 50th anniversary year of ‘The Rocky Horror Show', what better time to pull out from our sound archive an interview with Sue Blane MBE RDI, responsible for the outrageous costume design for that crazy, trailblazing and legendary cult stage show and film, seen by 30 million people and is still pulling them in. In Sue’s delightfully honest and personal conversation with Mike Dempsey RDI in 2009, she talks about her life, work and a never-ending passion for theatre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian-born Alison Brooks RDI is one of Britain's most highly acclaimed architects. She moved to London in 1988 and founded her practice in 1996. She has produced a range of seminal works, from urban design and housing to major arts and higher education buildings; to temporary pavilions and private houses. She is the only architect to have won all three of the UK's most prestigious architectural awards: the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Manser (twice) Medal and the Stephen Lawrence Prize. In 2021 she won the RIBA House of the Year. This interview with Mike Dempsey RDI, recorded in 2017, is from the RDI Sound Archive. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.