2019 AIGA Medalist Debbie Millman

Millman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 29, 1961. Her mother was a seamstress and her father owned his own pharmacy, which she says exposed her to brands when she was little. She went to public schools through high school and then the State University of New York at Albany, graduating in 1983.

Millman's portfolio has been broad both in its scope and level of success: she is the author of six books, president emeritus of AIGA, co-founder of the world’s first Masters in branding program at the School of Visual Arts, editorial and creative director of Print Magazine, and president of Sterling Brands; her illustrations have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, and Fast Company, and her artwork shown around the world. But she was not always as confident as her on-air persona suggests. After graduation, she drifted between jobs in freelance design—doing paste-ups and layouts for a cable magazine or as in-house designer for a real estate company—before founding her own small design business. “My first ten years after college were experiments in rejection and despair,” she explains. “I knew that I wanted to do something special but, frankly, I didn’t have the guts.”

That all changed at age 30 when Millman decided to change her life, setting herself the goal to work for Frankfurt Balkind, “the best design firm in the country at that time.” At her interview, Aubrey Balkind offered her a job, but not as a designer. “He didn’t think my work was good enough—and this was all the work I had created in my entire career thus far!” Millman took the job in marketing all the same. A frustrating year later, she was recruited for The Schechter Group, a global communications consultancy. She had never done brand identity but soon found her niche creating packaging design for the firm.

The funk was beginning to lift by 1995, when she was recruited to join Sterling Brands. Millman spent half her life there, starting in sales, skyrocketing to president and then becoming partner. She worked on the Burger King logo, the branding and packaging for Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones, the global redesign of 7UP, and the Tropicana identity and packaging. “I helped grow Sterling from 15 people when I started in 1995 to 150 people in 2016,” she says with pride.

It was during her middle years at Sterling that Millman hoped to achieve “creative satisfaction that wasn’t commercial.” The impetus came in 2003 when she was personally targeted in an editorial by Felix Sockwell on the design blog Speak Up. Not one to shy from confrontation, Debbie started commenting—stating her position and clearing any misconceptions and misinformation that Sockwell had cast about her. “At the end of the discussion, the overall feeling from everyone was ‘Hey, this Debbie is alright!’ A few days later, I apologized and invited her to become an author on "Speak Up,” recalls blog founder Armin Vit.

Amid the contemporary din of anti-brand rants, no one could have predicted that Millman would become such a significant voice in podcasting. Even she is puzzled. “I find the early shows to be unlistenable. I think it took me about 100 episodes to find my ‘style.’”

“Debbie has the ability to get extraordinarily personal, even intimate, insights from her subjects. At the same time, she encourages them to explore the biggest of big ideas.” — Michael Bierut

Those 100 episodes took dedication—an asset that makes Millman a talented interviewer. “I usually spend about ten hours researching for every one hour of actual interviewing,” Millman says. “I love researching my guests. I usually cull about 25 pages of research from my findings, and then whittle that down to about five pages of questions about their lives. I often say that a good interview is like a good game of pool: You want to shoot one ball in one hole but also leave enough balls on the table in position to successfully shoot the next. I want to be able to pivot if my guest takes the interview in a different direction.”

Millman’s interviews are engaging because she predicates her work on preparation, insight, and poise. “I was always most impressed by the basic honesty with which Debbie talks about her own experiences,” says Stefan Sagmeister, a frequent guest, “and how she is able to bring that stance to her interviews, as well.” Pentagram partner and co-founder of Design Observer Michael Bierut agrees: “Debbie has the ability to get extraordinarily personal even intimate insights from her subjects. At the same time, she encourages them to explore the biggest of big ideas. This ability to shift between scales is remarkable and is at the heart of the value of what Debbie has created.”

“Debbie’s found a way to both capture the moment and expand on its future,” says Design Observer co-founder Jessica Helfand. “Generous and curious, at once a seasoned critic and a spirited participant, her Design Matters archive is a rich time capsule of cultural capital—as valuable today as yesterday, as meaningful tomorrow as it will prove a generation from now. That seems to me not only an unparalleled design contribution but a priceless one.”

Millman selects guests whose work and personality she admires. The list is impressive for its breadth of age, experience, and perspective. It ranges from astrophysicist David Spergel to author and activist Anne Lamott; performance artist Laurie Anderson to veteran journalist Lewis Latham. While in the past Millman primarily talked to designers about design, now her guests include a wider range of creative minds, discussing how they design their lives.

“I am endlessly fascinated by the trajectory of a person’s life,” says Millman. “The choices they make, how they overcome obstacles or handle success, and how they essentially become who they are.”

And the most satisfying guests? “Ones who love to reveal all the secrets of their lives.”