Partnerships
Bring your brand into the conversation 264,000 creative professionals trust.
Design Better is where senior designers, engineers, leaders, and creative directors come to learn about the creative process at the intersection of design and technology. Partner with us to reach the people at the most influential companies in the world.
Reach
- 264KNewsletter subscribers32% average open rate · 288K Substack followers, up 79% year over year
- 10.8MAnnual website visitsUp 68% year over year · 1.26M peak month
- 643KAnnual podcast downloads4.18M lifetime · 265 episodes in the catalogue
- 46%Decision makersExecutives or team leaders with purchase authority
Members and subscribers work at
The show
Co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter find the connections between designers, engineers, scientists, comedians, and creative leaders that most podcasts miss.
Each episode is sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative world.
If you want to flex your boss muscle, subscribe to the Design Better podcast.
Select guests
- John CleeseMonty Python co-founder
- Tony FadellCo-inventor, iPhone and iPod
- Brian CheskyCo-founder and CEO, Airbnb
- Ed CatmullCo-founder, Pixar
- Paula ScherPartner, Pentagram
- David KelleyCo-founder, IDEO and the Stanford d.school
- David SedarisHumorist and author
- Eileen FisherFashion brand founder
- Paola AntonelliSenior curator, MoMA
- Kamasi WashingtonJazz saxophonist and composer
- Greg HoffmanFormer CMO, Nike
- OK GoGrammy-winning band
The audience
Senior, broadly represented at the most influential companies in technology and design, and unusually likely to act on what they hear.
Roles
46% are executives or team leaders with purchasing authority. Source: the 2025 listener survey.
They act on what they hear
- 67%Researched a product they heard about on a podcast
- 56%Visited an advertiser's website
- 25%Purchased a product they heard about on a podcast
Where they listen
Six in ten downloads come from outside the United States, across more than 100 countries. A campaign here is a global campaign.
Students and faculty
Design Better reaches students and faculty at Stanford, MIT, RISD, the Royal College of Art, and dozens of other institutions.
See all 46 institutions
Art & design schools
- California College of the Arts
- CEPT University (India)
- Fashion Institute of Technology
- National Institute of Design (India)
- National Institute of Fashion Technology (India)
- Parsons / The New School
- Pratt Institute
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Rochester Institute of Technology
- Royal College of Art (London)
- Savannah College of Art and Design
- School of Visual Arts
Research universities
- Arizona State University
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Georgetown University
- Georgia Tech
- Harvard University
- MIT
- New York University
- Northwestern University
- Penn State
- Rice University
- Stanford University
- UC Berkeley
- UC San Diego
- UCLA
- University of Cincinnati
- University of Michigan
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Southern California
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- University of Wisconsin–Madison
- Virginia Tech
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Yale University
International
- American University in Cairo
- RMIT University (Australia)
- Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
- Universidad de Monterrey
- Universidad Nacional de Colombia
- Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
- UNSW Sydney
One audience, connected channels
The podcast builds trust through host-read placements where attention is highest. The newsletter and the site turn that trust into clicks. Together they run a funnel. Separately they each do half the job.
- Podcast643K / yrDownloads, with 4.18M lifetime. 100K+ Spotify followers and 55K+ on Apple Podcasts.
- Newsletter264KSubscribers at a 32% average open rate. Episode announcements, The Roundup, and The Brief.
- Web10.8M / yrVisits to designbetterpodcast.com, up 68% year over year. Every episode page stays in the feed.
- LinkedIn27K+Combined followers across Aarron, Eli, and the Design Better page.
- Library265Episodes published. Dynamic ads reach the full back catalogue, not just new ones.
Share your brand story across any of our channels
Every partnership is custom. These are starting points. We tailor channel mix, length, and structure to your goals, then quote based on the scope.
Pricing is shared on request
We keep partnership rates private. Enter the access code from your Design Better contact to view the full rate card, or ask us for it.
Recent partnerships
Bonus episode and an always-on mid-roll campaign
- Goal
- Build brand awareness and trust, and drive sales for premium made-in-America apparel.
- What we made
- A one-hour bonus episode with founder Bayard Winthrop, followed by a host-read mid-roll campaign with a discount code across the whole catalogue.
- Outcome
- Listeners wrote to the hosts directly, and Bayard's story spread across the audience's own social channels.
Multi-channel advertorial series with original photography
- Goal
- Connect Heath's mid-century legacy with the Design Better audience, and drive awareness and sales.
- What we made
- An advertorial series tied to our design history programming, with an in-studio shoot at Heath's San Francisco facility producing photo and audio used across podcast, social, and email.
- Outcome
- Storytelling that lived on Heath's own channels too. Reusable assets rather than a placement.
An Office Hours recruiting segment
- Goal
- Attract design and engineering talent to Automattic teams.
- What we made
- A recurring segment rather than an ad block. Four interviews of three to four minutes with Automattic leaders on the problems they're solving, in their own voice.
- Outcome
- A format that read as content. Automattic landed in front of an audience already predisposed to creative tooling.
Flagship headline sponsorship across podcast, newsletter, and web
A full-year headline partnership. We're writing it up with partner-approved metrics and will publish it here.
Ask us if you'd like to see the partnership data under NDA.
Meet the hosts
For years Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter have facilitated conversations on design, creativity, and leadership at private dinners, retreats, live events, and inside companies. They bring that same warmth and curiosity to every episode of Design Better.
Aarron Walter
Co-host and co-founder
Aarron started the user experience design practice at Mailchimp and helped grow the company from a few thousand customers to tens of millions. He later led design research at InVision and supported public health teams at Resolve to Save Lives during COVID-19. He is the author of Designing for Emotion and has advised design and technology teams at the White House, the US Department of State, and dozens of corporations and startups. Most recently he has been supporting UX executive leadership at Google.
Eli Woolery
Co-host and co-founder
Eli trained in the Product Design program at Stanford, where he now teaches the capstone product design course and curates the Liu Lecture series, whose speakers have included Sagmeister, Oxman, Chouinard, Millman, and Kawasaki. He was formerly Director of Design Education at InVision, with earlier work as a lead design engineer at Light & Motion and a founder in Innovation Endeavors' Runway Program. He has a background in photography, filmmaking, and product design.
Let's build something together.
Tell us about your goals: audience, timing, budget, and what success looks like. We will come back with a tailored proposal within a few business days. Every partnership is custom, and rates depend on the channel mix and scope.