During the Architecture and the City Festival, AIA|SF launched a weekly program on KALW, the local public radio station. "99% Invisible" is a four and a half minute show that examines topics in design and architecture. With over 100,000 listeners in the Bay area and a #47 ranking among all available iTunes podcasts, the program is acquiring a devoted following.
AAO spoke with both the show's producer, Roman Mars, and AIA|SF Executive Director Margie O'Driscoll on their collaboration.
Click here to listen to 99% Invisible, which is also available on iTunes.
Katherine Stalker: Can you tell our readers how “99% Invisible” came to be?
Margie O’Driscoll: AIA|SF had worked off and on with our local public radio station, KALW, to broadcast info about our Architecture and the City Festival. A random question from the manager stumped me at first. His question was, “if you could do more with public radio, what would you do?” And I said “I’d love to see us do a regular program on architecture and design. “ And he said “Let me think about it.” And he came back 6 months later and said, “We definitely want to do that. What would that look like?” So he and I brainstormed about the topics and he found a terrific producer in Roman Mars, who has done a lot of work for the radio program All Things Considered.
It took us a while to figure out a plan and help KALW to find the underwriting for the project. We were delighted that KALW was patient enough to work with us to try to figure out how it would all come together. They were willing to jump into the swimming pool with us blindfolded and hope that the swimming pool is deep enough. The design firm, LUNAR, stepped up to provide financial support.
In the end, though, Roman knows and understands what makes great radio. He actually doesn’t know that much about design, which frankly, makes him the ideal person to produce a show like this because he asks all the basic questions that we within the world of design for get to ask ourselves.
Roman Mars: I think Margie’s right about how my ignorance works in the show's favor most of the time. I'm not caught up in any way of thinking or prejudiced toward any position. Although, hanging out with these architects and designers is certainly making me more judgmental! I also have absolutely no interest in fetishizing objects. I want to explore all the thought that goes into things that most people don't think of as having any thought put into them at all. It's the story that matters to me, not the object.
My "expertise" is making radio. I haven't listened to all the design podcasts or radio shows out there, but my sense is they usually have good expertise and can be interesting, but ironically, they aren't designed well as audio pieces. I think if you can read a transcript and get most of the feeling and content of the piece, you aren't actually making something that needs to be radio. You're making print that's spoken. 99% Invisible is radiophonic radio (or at least tries to be).
Margie: From the very beginning, KALW said that they thought that people talking just about architecture would be too limiting, they actually wanted to open it up to many design disciplines. They ended up asking us to convene a group of experts to brainstorm about what the series would be, and so we brought together architects, landscape architects, graphic artists, urban planners, designers, product designer. The whole group came up with lots of terrific ideas, some of which Roman has decided to create programs about. Throughout, the designers kept talking about how much time it takes to do good design, and how at the end of the day, all that work is really invisible to the consumer, because the consumer says “wow this is a great product” or “this is a great building.” All the steps that lead up to the creation of great design are 99% invisible. And that’s where Roman’s idea for the name came from.
Roman: Margie's passion for this project really pushed it forward. She convened a group of architects and designers at AIA|SF that I still bounce ideas off of regularly. She helped get the funding through Lunar. She always has suggestions, but is completely hands off and hears the pieces for the first time on the radio just like everyone else. In many ways, she's the audience member I'm hoping to impress the most. You couldn't ask for a better partner.
Lunar provides the funding and they are also a dream to work with. They just want to promote the importance of design. No strings attached. I have never experienced that kind of funding support before. I'm really gratified that they seem to like it as well.
Katherine: Congratulations on “99% Invisible” becoming so successful! What do you think has contributed to its popularity?
Roman: The show came out the gate pretty fast with the support of a few key radio hosts and podcast producers (most notably, Jesse Thorn of "Put This On" and "The Sound of Young America"), who already knew my work and were excited to get the word out once they heard the series. Once it started ranking high in the iTunes Design section, the crowd really into that sort of thing found the show, and my hope is, they found it nicely produced and engaging. The goal was to make a show about design that was actually beautifully designed and story driven. I'm not sure I achieve that every time, but that's what I'm reaching for. The positive response has been exceptionally gratifying (both on the radio and online), but I think the audience may be responding to the effort as much as the actual result. I also think that design is in the air right now. It's a great catch-all subject that appeals to the interdisciplinary thinker and narrative journalism addict.
Katherine: So Roman basically produces the show on his own, now that you’ve given him some basic ideas, Margie?
Margie: Right. We serve as a resource to him but he is the producer of the show. So we suggest ideas to him and what he likes he keeps and what he doesn’t he tosses. And that’s totally fine by us, because he knows how to make great radio and we know who people are that can provide great content. So we worked really well together.
Katherine: Has it been challenging to take architecture and design, which is so rooted in the visual, and represent it in an audio format? How would you describe the potential of radio to communicate the power of design?
Margie: Architects are usually able to sketch or draw their ideas. They’re not typically able to articulate them, especially to a radio audience, most of them who are on their second cup of coffee, or fighting traffic to get to work when they hear the program. So that has been something of a challenge, but we have, like every organization, some really articulate architects. It’s a different way of talking about the medium, and a gratifying process to talk with Roman and then hear the architects talk about design.
Roman: From my perspective, I say, "don't communicate the value of design." At least, not directly. Express wonder, but don't linger too long on the beauty and elegance of things. That gets tiresome and feels icky and overly consumerist. Tell a tight story that can be remembered and repeated. Inspire people to see stories in all the things around them that they've probably always ignored. That way, they will come to the importance of design on their own.
Katherine: When I opened up my iTunes, 99% Invisible popped up on the top as a “new and noteworthy” item. Have you considered revamping from a local focus to an international one after seeing the iTunes audience grow rapidly?
Roman: I'm here, KALW is here, and I think there's an international interest in San Francisco, so I don't feel much pressure to expand the focus. As long as I make the episodes reflect something bigger, it doesn't really matter where the examples come from. I feel free to explore the rest of the world, but the sense of place is a strength of the show, and I don't ever want to abandon that completely.
I have some advisers that Margie from AIA|SF assembled for me that gave me my first set of ideas. I've been working through several of those that I found interesting and pursuing others that come up. I go after people who come recommended as good talkers and storytellers. That's how I found Henrik Bull and the TransAmerica building story.
Margie: Roman has his own ideas and his own network of people. For example, the program he did last Friday: How do cities develop their own flags? Chicago designed a terrific flag that is very well used and noticeable, whereas a city like San Francisco, which has a flag that hardly anyone knows what it looks like. He actually interviewed the man who is the head of the international flag design society (I didn’t know there was one!) Pretty much everything in the San Francisco flag is what you shouldn’t do to have a memorable flag.
Katherine: Do you feel that it is leading people back to the AIA or the Center for Architecture and Design?
Margie: Yes. In the beginning, there were real tie-ins between the 99% Invisible content and the Architecture and the City Festival, which is sponsored by AIASF and the Center for Architecture and Design. The show was launched during the first week of the festival. We did see a direct correlation between people hearing about it on the radio and then coming to the festival. I think by in large people are enjoying listening to it. From our perspective, developing a general public who is more literate about the value of good design just helps overall in all of our efforts. So we were very enthusiastic when KALW decided the program would not focus just on architecture but on all aspects of design because people here in SF are very cross-disciplinary. It’s not unusual to see an architecture firm that might do branding and graphic design as well as interiors.
In general, though, we thought that a public radio audience that has heard about design would be a terrific audience for us to talk to about the value of good design and what goes into good design. We see this as an opportunity to capitalize on what KALW does best, which is great radio, and what we do best, as a center for architecture and design, which is talk about design. We want to capitalize on their strengths, as people who really know and understand what makes good radio and hopefully use the resources of our local community to talk about why design matters.
Katherine: Most of our readers are interested in communication about architecture. Do you think this has been a worthwhile use of time and resources, in so far as the number of people it has reached compared to other tools?
Margie: I can’t speak for other public radio audiences around the country, but in San Francisco we have about 100,000 people who listen to Morning Edition public radio and listen to this broadcast every Friday and Saturday morning. Virtually everybody has a public radio or community access radio or television station in their community that is looking for good content. The more we all begin talking about the value of great design in our communities, the stronger we will all become as a community.
To be perfectly frank, we’ve been in the middle of doing our Architecture + The City Festival, and KALW has been in the middle of its fall pledge drive, so we’ve done no marketing for this. Really, truly, none. It’s just a viral episode in iTunes history. People are loving it and talking about it and tuning in which is really exciting for public radio, and it’s also really exciting for people who need and want to learn more about design. All this attention has really been a response from the broader community, so we’re pleased as punch about that.