Journal & media
Thoughts,
in print & on air
Writing, conversations and coverage — on design, life, work, longevity and AI.
2025
AI Is a Mirror
AI is a reflective tool that reveals what leaders can’t see about themselves: blind spots, stakeholder perceptions, misaligned values. Used well, it lets us prototype different futures — and see who we are in them.
2025
Who Are You Without Your Title?
One executive wrote their first design brief and realized they had asked for a career, not a life. We define ourselves so easily by what we do instead of who we are — and the two need to become one.
September 2024
Fast Company
How to Maintain Professional Relationships When You’re Constantly Switching Jobs
Iterative careers made up of multiple chapters ask us to design our relationships as deliberately as our roles.
August 2024
Fast Company
This Is How You Develop (and Rekindle) Workplace Friendships
Friendship at work is not a soft extra. It is one of the strongest predictors of a long life you love.
September 2022
Fast Company
3 Strategies to Disrupt Yourself for Greater Success in Changing Times
Deconstruction:Reconstruction applied to a career — take the whole apart, see it differently, put it back together.
August 2017
Harvard Business Review
To Come Up with a Good Idea, Start by Imagining the Worst Idea Possible
To reach an original idea, you have to approach it sideways. The worst idea is often the shortest route.
January 2018
Inc.
How the Most Creative People in the World Really Find the Best Opportunities
Optimism, empathy, holistic thinking, collaboration and an open mind — the five principles at work.
Podcast
Design Matters
Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Ayse Birsel
A long conversation about design, life and the space between them.
Generation Flux
Fast Company
“Our Lives Are Our Biggest Projects”: Creating Your Own Original Life
With Casey Gerald, on designing an original life.
WePresent
WeTransfer
My life is my biggest project, so what if I apply my design process?
On turning a product designer’s process toward the most important project of all.
Podcast
The Coaching Habit
Ayse Birsel’s One Best Question
The single question Ayse asks everyone she works with.
Podcast
Giant Thinkers
Deconstructing and reconstructing to design the life you love
The method, step by step.
Series
Hosted by Ayse Birsel
Design the Life You Love — the podcast
Conversations with people who’ve designed inspiring lives: Jocelyn Wyatt, Debbie Millman, Paola Antonelli, Stefan Sagmeister, Amit Gupta and Marshall Goldsmith.
2023
PIX11 New York Living
Author details how to design a long life in her new book
A television conversation about Design the LONG Life You Love.
December 2014
TED
Ayse Birsel: The Designs I Love Most
A short tour through the objects that shaped a designer.
March 2024
The New York Times
The 25 Most Defining Pieces of Furniture From the Last 100 Years
The Madame Dakar sofa for Moroso is named among the century’s defining pieces.
February 2023
Fortune
The iconic industrial designer behind some of your favorite household goods is trying to design new ways to live longer
On longevity as a design problem.
January 2023
Forbes
Innovator Ayse Birsel: Design The Long Life You Love
A profile of the book and the thinking behind it.
February 2023
PRINT Magazine
Ayse Birsel Shares Her Secrets for a Meaningful Life
Pen, paper and the practice of paying attention.
October 2015
TIME
How to Sketch a Life Plan
The first book, and the idea of drawing your way to a life you love.
2017
Thinkers50
Talent and Awe
On the Thinkers50 Radar list of management thinkers most likely to shape the future of organizations.
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