Design Discord

About Design Discord

Design Discord is a podcast that digs into what it really takes to build a creative business today. Hosted by artist and furniture designer Fernando Mastrangelo, the show explores the business side of creative work. Fernando and his accomplished guests bring perspectives that span generations — combining decades of industry experience with a grounded understanding of the challenges facing the next generation of designers. Each episode features candid conversations covering pricing, production, market trends, visibility, PR, and the real obstacles creatives face. Nothing is off the table!

Publisher

Design Discord

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 May 2025

Latest episode

5 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 29 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   5 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Cristina Grajales on 35 Years in Design: Prouvé, Perriand & Her Newest Artist, Mastrangelo

   Design dealer Cristina Grajales shares her remarkable 35-year journey in the collectible design market with host Fernando Mastrangelo, offering insights into iconic designers and market evolution.

2. 

   20 Aug 2026

   What It Really Takes to Work With High-End Interior Designers: Nicole Fuller Breaks It Down

   What does it actually take to work with a high-end interior designer? Fernando Mastrangelo sits down with Nicole Fuller — founder of her namesake lifestyle design firm with studios in New York, Los Angeles, London, and soon Palm Beach — for a candid, no-fluff conversation about how she builds trust with artists, vets new talent, and decides who earns a seat at the table on multi-million dollar residential and hospitality projects. Nicole breaks down her process for discovering artisans on a global scale, why she still buys through galleries even when she has direct relationships with artists, how she "tests" new collaborators before handing them a major commission, and what separates an artist with real staying power from someone riding a trend. She also gets into the business of collectible design, how secondary market value gets tracked, and why fearlessness is non-negotiable if you want to grow as a creative. This episode is part of Design Discord, the podcast where we go beyond the finished room or the finished piece to talk shop with the people actually building the design world — titans & tastemakers who've spent decades learning what works, what doesn't, and what it really takes to make it at the highest level. If you're an artist, maker, designer, or just obsessed with how the best in the business operate, this is the insider access you won't find anywhere else. 00:00 Intro 00:48 Growing up with her artist mother, Diane Bokel 04:47 Modeling in London & living in King's Cross 08:42 Becoming an interior designer by accident 09:41 Landing her first mega estate project 14:00 Running a firm across 4 cities 18:19 How she discovers new artists & artisans globally 22:07 Inside her art advisory division 23:04 Why she still buys through galleries, not direct 24:20 How she tests new talent before committing 26:44 Why Milan is the design world's hottest city 28:16 Buying art for love vs. investment 30:44 Collectible design & tracking secondary market value 33:07 Betting on rising talents 39:39 The explosive crossover of art, fashion & design 45:23 Are interior designers the industry's real gatekeepers? 48:02 What she wishes artists understood about commissions 50:41 Why fear kills great artists — and how to beat it 56:14 Her new private members club 59:34 What's next: hospitality, landscape design & more Subscribe for more conversations with the designers, artists, and tastemakers shaping the future of design.

3. 

   6 Aug 2026

   Design Media Insider Tells All: Dan Rubinstein on Vogue, AD & The Grand Tourist

   Dan Rubinstein — founder of The Grand Tourist and former Home & Design Director at Departures magazine — sits down with Fernando Mastrangelo to talk about how design media really works, and why it's changing faster than ever. Dan turned a pandemic passion project into a 160+ episode podcast and a full biannual hardcover print magazine. In this conversation, he shares candid stories from his years at House & Garden, Surface, and Departures, breaks down why the old magazine business model died but great storytelling didn't, and hands out real, tactical advice for designers trying to get press today — no publicist needed. They also dig into the collapse of the design fair model, whether "collectible design" is really just decorative arts with a new name, the K-shaped economy reshaping who's actually buying design, and what's happening behind the scenes in the gallery world right now. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 02:14 What old-school magazines got right 04:35 House & Garden, Surface, and Departures 07:34 His "Devil Wears Prada" moment 08:16 5 years, 160+ episodes of The Grand Tourist 09:37 Is the magazine model broken? 12:01 Media is getting "atomized" 15:33 Personalities vs. institutions 17:44 Building a brand, not just a podcast 19:11 Podcasting as the new radio 20:00 Interning at The Sally Jessy Raphael Show 23:13 Defining The Grand Tourist as a business 24:46 From podcast to hardcover magazine 28:07 "Prolific, not comprehensive" 29:43 Lessons from Murray Moss 34:00 Is design's center of gravity shifting? 37:09 How young designers get press now 39:24 Real advice for landing coverage 44:16 The death of the design fair model 45:19 What's next for The Grand Tourist 50:12 Defining "collectible design" today 55:06 The K-shaped economy of design buyers 58:05 Inside the gallery world's growing pains Guest: Dan Rubinstein, founder of The Grand Tourist  thegrandtourist.net (http://thegrandtourist.net/)  Instagram: @danrubinstein Host: Fernando Mastrangelo, Design Discord Follow, rate, and subscribe if you enjoyed this one — it helps us bring on more guests like Dan.

Inside a recent episode

Cristina Grajales on 35 Years in Design: Prouvé, Perriand & Her Newest Artist, Mastrangelo

Published 5 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] All of you are my children. It's a very intimate relationship. This is why our gallery, our collection is not so large, because we are very much involved with our designers and artists. One of the things that I always tell my designers is like, just give me all your ideas. Tell me everything. As crazy as they are, let me see them. And then I think that our job as gallerists, pretty much many times, Fernando, is editing. It's looking through all these ideas that you present. I'm coming up with the formulation. that makes sense from two sides, from the artistic side and from the commercial side. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

3,713

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.3 / 5

21 ratings

Spotify

4.8 / 5

38 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 40 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

17

Social presence

0

YouTube

74

Engagement

85

Contact Design Discord

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Shows with a similar audience

• 

  Business of Home Podcast

• 

  The Art Angle

• 

  Design Matters with Debbie Millman

• 

  Monocle on Design

• 

  Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel

• 

  Middlebrow

Questions about Design Discord