The 99PI Anniversary Special: 15 for 15

ROMAN MARS: This is 99% Invisible. I’m Roman Mars. 

So, here’s the thing. This year marks the 15th anniversary of 99% Invisible, which is honestly kind of hard to believe. If 99% Invisible were a person, it would be old enough to have a provisional driver’s license in some states or celebrate a quinceañera. That’s kind of all you can do at age 15 in this country–but still! 

The first episode of 99% Invisible was released on September 3rd, 2010. And since then, we’ve had 15 years of stories about design, architecture, and the choices we make that shape our world–15 years of taking the time to stop and read the plaque–15 years, of you, our listeners, sending us the most incredible observations about the built environment that we never would have noticed on our own. 

To mark this milestone, we thought we’d do something a little different. Instead of our usual deep dive into one particular design story, I’m going to answer 15 questions submitted by our listeners and the staff about the show, about the field of design, and about me. And to help me navigate this whole thing, I’m joined by 99PI producer Vivian Le, who will be moderating the questions. 

VIVIAN LE: Hi, Roman. Happy birthday! 

ROMAN MARS: Thank you so much. I’m a little nervous, but I think we’ll get through this together. 

VIVIAN LE: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, granting me the power to choose these questions was a very bold move on your part, so we’ll see how this goes. We got a lot of fun questions. Some of them were submitted through email. Some came through social media–our Discord server. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, nice. 

VIVIAN LE: And a bunch of them I just made up because I thought it’d be really funny for you to answer on mic. So yeah, I’m ready to jump in if you are. 

ROMAN MARS: I am ready. Let’s go for it. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay, great. So, the first question came from Taylor from New Jersey. Shout out to New Jersey, my second favorite state. But Taylor actually has kind of a doozy of a question for you. They ask, “A city hires you to make their residents’ lives 10% better without spending any money. You could only rearrange, remove, or repurpose things that already exist. What do you do?”

ROMAN MARS: Without spending any money?

VIVIAN LE: No, no. And you can’t create anything. It’s basically just redoing what already exists. 

ROMAN MARS: Okay, so I have one idea. I don’t know if it completely fulfills the idea of no money. But if rearranging, removing, and repurposing works–I feel like all those things involve a little bit of money, honestly–but I think that the best way to make a city better would be dedicated rapid bus lanes, which I think, if you have the busses and you have lanes and you just need to paint them and mark them, it kind of fulfills the mandate of the question. But that would be, like, regular– Take every bus you have–school buses and public transit buses–and just have a lane. Have them run every 10 minutes between places that are important. You will make a city tremendously better. I don’t know if it’s really free. But not to quibble with Taylor–just in general–the whole concept of fixing stuff without money is a thing that I find… It’s, like, a weird political thing that people talk about that is like, “No, we actually throw money at things that we value, and that’s okay.” But I would throw a little bit of money at this. I think it’s much cheaper than light rail and various other solutions. It really is a rearrangement of resources and the emphasis on making a city a better place. But rapid, very frequent bus routes between places would be huge–dedicated bus lanes. That means they run smoothly because there’s no other cars in the lane. I think that’s how I’d make a city better. Almost any city would be made better by that. 

VIVIAN LE: Yeah, it’s pretty good. So, the next question is actually a voice message. So, I’m going to play it for you. 

TAYA: Hey, this is Taya from Seattle. And I’m really excited to congratulate the entire team at 99% Invisible and thank you for being such an awesome part of my life for the past 15 years. And I am just asking for 15 more. My question is for Roman. I’m wondering–in the time that you’ve been doing this–has your definition of design changed at all? And if so, how? 

ROMAN MARS: I always interpreted it pretty broadly, even when the show started. But I think, in the beginning, when you’re trying to present a thesis to an audience, you keep it a little bit tighter with buildings and cities and product design and flags and things with visual design. And I always knew that I thought of design quite broadly. And the reason why I chose the name 99% Invisible and not A Blank Design or The Design of Things or whatever was because I thought that that name was so evocative and open-ended to the idea of what we could include in it in terms of design. So, I always thought of it pretty broadly. It has gotten more broad over time. When I think about, like… I mean, I never would have conceived of The Quiet Storm episode of Christopher’s in 99% Invisible, but I love it. And I think that’s one of the things– The way that my definition of design has evolved is that, as the show opened up and had more people in it and more brains on it, it has evolved because of their interests. And then I’m such a fan of our staff that I just like to follow them wherever they go when it comes to this as sort of the mandate of design. And that has necessarily broadened it because there’s just more minds on the show than there was before. So, in that way, it’s evolved. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay. So, next question–this one came from our Discord. And it was from someone with the name YFNH–catchy. So, they are asking, “Barring the noble funicular, what’s the one designed object that’s fallen out of common use that you think deserves another chance?”

ROMAN MARS: I mean, the first thing that comes to mind–and this is not a strongly held belief–but I think cash. 

VIVIAN LE: [LAUGHS] Like money? Like paper money? 

ROMAN MARS: Like paper money. Like, I know that I like all the tools of tapping and you know Venmo and various things and I get it. But I feel like we are going down a path of having our economy locked up by apps and things and the messiness of the economy and looseness of giving change and giving tips and paying for cash and not being banked. And I think that there’s something that we will lose, and it has potentially big downsides down the line. I think there’s kind of an inherent classism in the loss of cash. I think there’s a lot of control there that I’m feeling queasy about when I go to a place that says they don’t accept any cash. It’s not a strongly held belief. And I love all the conveniences. I’m not saying that those things are bad. I’m just saying that I think there’s a cost. I think that there’s a societal cost at risk when we lose cash completely. 

VIVIAN LE: I think that’s actually a really great answer. 

ROMAN MARS: Okay, thanks! 

VIVIAN LE: It’s a great answer because I feel like every country, too… When they print their own banknotes, it’s like a little piece of artwork, you know? 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, that’s another part of it that I wasn’t thinking about, but totally. I think that, as much as I think our paper money is so boring and so awful– That’s the part I don’t love. I wish we would expand it to have, like, leaders in science and art and poets and stuff on our money, the way every other country in the world does–and better colors and everything. As a representation of a kind of a civic pride, that’s another huge loss–totally a huge loss. But yeah–all around cash–I feel like there’s great opportunity there to represent our best selves. And I also just think that the openness of cash as a system is super important and it’ll be a shame if it goes away completely. 

VIVIAN LE: So, our next question came from someone named Connor Hibbs. He submitted this through email. He actually submitted two questions and cheated. I’m gonna ask one of his questions. 

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHS] We run a tight ship here. 

VIVIAN LE: I’m sorry, Connor. “What is something you come across in your everyday life that intrigues you but you haven’t created a story about?”

ROMAN MARS: Oh, I’ve had this long-standing desire to do a story about the Brannock Device. Do you know what the Brannock Device is, Vivian? 

VIVIAN LE: No, tell me more. 

ROMAN MARS: Okay. The Brannock Device is that metal, foot measuring tool that is in shoe stores. 

VIVIAN LE: Ah. Yes! Yeah. 

ROMAN MARS: I’ve always kind of loved them. I don’t go to shoe stores as much anymore. But as a kid, they’re fun to play with. They’re heavy. And they’re fun to put your foot in. And they kind of have an ASMR quality to them. Like, you mess with them and you’re measuring something. And I researched them once because I thought, “Everyone loves this thing. This is the greatest thing.” And I found that the Brannock Company of Syracuse, New York–that’s the only thing they’ve made. And I think they’ve– I don’t know. Maybe a hundred years– I have no idea. I can’t remember the research I did on it. But they’ve made one thing, and that is that thing. They’ve made that metal thing in different colors, I think, recently. But they make this one thing. It’s called the Brannock Device. It’s named after the founder of the company. And I’m just kind of fascinated by it. 

VIVIAN LE: For sure. And it is–I never really thought about it–in every single Payless and every single shoe store. And they’re solving a problem that you could solve with a ruler, essentially–something that you probably already have. 

ROMAN MARS: It does the width and height of the shoe and then translates it into shoe size and stuff. It’s a pretty simple thing. But the fact that it is so simple– And there’s new ways to kind of do it. Like, they have you stand on a digital thing and they measure your foot. I’ve never really done those before. But I just think that there’s an elegance to it. There’s, like, a weight to it and a history to it that I just thought, “Oh, there’s probably something cool here.” I just don’t know what it is for sure. So, in a way, I could never pitch it to the staff. I’ve told some people about it. But I feel like I’d have to just go there and see what the vibe of those folks was like and see what their deal was. 

VIVIAN LE: One day. 

ROMAN MARS: One day, I’ll do that. 

VIVIAN LE: We’ll send you there one day. Great. Okay. So, our next question is another voice message. It’s from another Connor. About a third of our listeners are named Connor. So, here’s Connor. 

CONNOR HARRINGTON: Hey Roman, this is Connor Harrington, a long-time listener, first-time caller from the lovely… Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now, I’m a big fan of another pod that you made an excellent guest appearance on, Blank Check. So, my question for you is what would 99PI’s four favorites be if the pod had a Letterboxd account? 

ROMAN MARS: Nice. Should you explain Letterboxd? 

VIVIAN LE: Yes. Absolutely. 

ROMAN MARS: I’m not on Letterboxd, but I know it, so… 

VIVIAN LE: Do you know what the question’s asking you specifically? 

ROMAN MARS: I do. 

VIVIAN LE: You do. Okay. So, for listeners who might not know, Letterboxd is a social media platform, basically, where you’ll post about movies that you watched. You can make lists of things that you just watched. And basically it’s a way for movie buffs to find each other and talk about movies and that kind of thing. 

ROMAN MARS: It’s a way to turn an enjoyable thing into work, as far as I’m concerned. 

VIVIAN LE: [LAUGHS] Exactly. It’s to gamify something that should be relaxing. But yeah, it’s a really popular platform with movie buffs. And so there’s something called the Letterboxd Four, where you will basically post what are your top four movies. And that doesn’t mean what do you think are the best movies. It’s kind of what are your favorite movies. And it’s become a little bit of, like, a Myers-Briggs personality test. So, what you put in your Letterboxd Four kind of defines a little bit your personality. So, I think Connor here is asking, “What are 99PI’s Letterboxd Four?” 

ROMAN MARS: It’s hard for me to know, like, what 99PI’s one is. I can kind of just do me, I guess. But maybe they’ll give some window into 99PI. But I always say that my favorite movie is– It’s very basic. Jaws has been my favorite movie forever because I think it is the best buddy comedy, I think it’s the best adventure movie, I think it’s one of the best horror movies, and it’s all rolled into one. And when you watch it over and over again, different parts of it are emphasized and you forget about little bits. I’ve seen it so many times. And I’m stunned by–in the beginning–how much information is conveyed about the island and the city as Brody is walking around and people are cross-talking over each other. And I just love it. I love it. 

Really, my favorite movies are all kind of sprawling–you know–with different sections that have different tones. I think another one is the Godfather. Again, so basic–I get it. I’m not trying to surprise you here necessarily. I’m a huge Coen Brothers guy. I have a hard time separating best and favorite, but I think their best and my favorite is Fargo. Again, it balances tons of tones. I think it’s super funny, I think it’s super harrowing, and I think it tells you a lot about human nature. And I can watch it again and again. The most recent movie that I would say is the most 99PI movie–and the one that really knocked me out recently–is Perfect Days. I think that’s… 

VIVIAN LE: I haven’t seen that one. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, it’s so good. It’s Wim Wenders, who’s a classic indie auteur type. But it’s about a guy who is just making his way cleaning public toilets in Tokyo. And it’s just the greatest. It has great music. It has a great vibe. I think if everyone watched it, the world would be a better place. It really teaches you about life and contentment. And I just think it’s super beautiful. 

VIVIAN LE: I mean, yeah, cleaning toilets in Tokyo set to nice music sounds like a 99PI episode. 

ROMAN MARS: It feels like it has a kind of underlying spiritualism that I sometimes feel with 99PI. Specifically, we would never do something so un-story-like as that one. It’s more of a mood. But it has just appreciation of urban landscape, of ritual, of care… You know, it has that feeling that I think people told me about the show–I don’t know if I knew I was embedding it in the show in the very beginning–but this sort of sense that when you notice design details, you notice that you’re being cared for by people. You notice things are being made better for you. And this is a movie that’s just about that–about somebody who is making the world better for other people and himself and just finding great contentment in that and contentment in the world. And it’s just lovely. You really should watch it. I think you would like it. And it has just the greatest soundtrack because he also buys cassette tapes–used cassette tapes–of, of you know, Velvet Underground and stuff like that. The music is so good. So, it’s great. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay, I promise I’m going to watch this one. And I will post on our movie club Slack channel as soon as I watch this. 

ROMAN MARS: Sounds good. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay, so the next question came from somebody here on staff at 99PI, who you will probably recognize. 

JOE ROSENBERG: Hey Roman, this is Joe. You know me. Now that you’re such an expert on con law, if you were allowed to make one serious change to the Constitution, what would it be? 

ROMAN MARS: So, that, of course, is our producer, Joe Rosenberg. I think you just have to eliminate the electoral college. I think that’s it. I mean, I think everything good follows from that. That sort of weird proportional weight and sort of the tyranny of the minority and all that sort of stuff just goes away. I’d much rather have the tyranny of the majority than the tyranny of the minority. And a lot of the horrible stuff unwinds when you have the popular election of the president. I think it’s huge. I think that’s what I’d change first. 

VIVIAN LE: So, the next question is, “What’s a design-related hill you’re willing to die on?”

ROMAN MARS: I don’t want to die on any hill, I don’t think. I mean, mostly when it comes to certain design things or design movements, truly the answer is nothing. I can be convinced by a good story or a good reason for any ugly thing to exist or whatever, if it’s really thoughtful and done right. That was the whole premise of the show. If they couldn’t see the ugly building–because we were doing this on the radio or in podcasting–they could learn to love it before they learned to hate it by seeing it. You know what I mean? But the one that’s sticking with me–and this is gonna be kind of abstract, and I don’t know if this is going to come off well–is the idea of the march to make things more and more efficient makes the world a worse place. And I think of that in terms of advertising. The idea that we were going to efficiently measure how effective advertising was through clicks and eyeballs and stuff erased all of the extra money that made all the journalism and all the pop culture that you cared about in the 20th century–it made it all possible. The inefficiency of the advertising system made everything good in this world. I think that the idea that you’re trying to get things to be as efficient as possible is actually a terrible world-destroying idea. The most efficient restaurant is a ghost kitchen that has no storefront because that’s inefficient because it could be empty sometimes. And it’s a ghost’s kitchen that just ships you a thing and has an underpaid delivery person and brings it to your door and you never leave. And this is stripping away all the goodness of the world in those cities. I think efficiency is absolute garbage, and that is the design-related hill I’m willing to die on. I feel like you should always be allowing for great deals of inefficiency to make a nice designed city–a nice designed system–and make it work. I really hate the focus on efficiency. Not only does it destroy all these good things, it takes money and gives it to the worst people–the platform creators and the tech people–instead of all the loose, empty change and tips and things. And it’s not like things are cheaper or things are better. Money is being transferred to the wrong people instead of creators and people who make the world a better place through community and creation. 

VIVIAN LE: Yeah. A more efficient world is a place where more people are left out, essentially. More people are going to be more inefficient the more people that are included. 

ROMAN MARS: Yeah, totally. You need friction. You need the space of creation–that open freedom of an inefficient system where money sloshes around inside of it. These frictions and inefficiencies are what make everything good about the world. Yeah. So, if you can handle that big abstraction, that is the design-related hill I’m willing to die on. 

VIVIAN LE: I mean, that’s a great spicy hill to die on. 

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHS] So, I want to hear nothing about how good efficiency is or the Department of Government Efficiency. Nonsense. That is the worst world that we’re building when we do efficient things. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay. Next question. So, Gelsey Bennett on Instagram was wondering, “When you were delivering pizzas in Memphis, what restaurant were you delivering for?”

ROMAN MARS: Okay, so my cousin–my beloved cousin–Lynn Kruther, who passed away several years ago, was the regional manager of seven locations of Papa Johns throughout Memphis. 

VIVIAN LE: Wow. 

ROMAN MARS: And so when I was extremely broke, I left grad school. I was moving out to San Francisco to do something. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I delivered pizzas in her restaurants. I mostly worked out of the Bartlett location that’s kind of outside of Memphis. The big store was the Midtown store. I worked there a little bit and lived in Midtown. So, if you had Papa Johns delivered to you in Midtown–but especially Bartlett and Cordova, kind of outside Memphis, like north of Memphis–you may have gotten a pizza from me. This would be in the mid ’90s.

VIVIAN LE: You were a Papa Johns guy then. 

ROMAN MARS: I was a Papa Johns guy. I mean, I was never a Papa Johns guy. But that was the job that was offered to me. But in addition, if you grew up in Memphis in the ’80s and ’90s, my cousin Lynn owned a video store called Video Stop in Germantown, Tennessee. And you might’ve gotten movies rented by me. And this was when I was way underage. I worked there, like, all growing up. And then I worked at the Cecil’s, bagging groceries. So, I worked a lot in Memphis during the summers and during breaks and stuff like that. And then at one point I was talking with Chuck Bryant of Stuff You Should Know, who grew up in Germantown, Tennessee, and was a huge movie fan and ended up moving out to Los Angeles to work in movies before he started his podcast career. And we determined that he very likely was a customer at the video store that I was a clerk at. 

VIVIAN LE: Hilarious. So–side story–Jayson De Leon, who’s one of the producers here at the show, used to do a lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and go to tournaments. And he’s gone to a few in Southern California. And I, at one point, would be, like, a videographer for a jiu-jitsu competition. There’s a chance that I might have recorded Jayson. 

ROMAN MARS: You’ve got some tape of Jason. That’d be awesome. That’s awesome. I love it. 

VIVIAN LE: So, our next question came from our Discord again, from a user named ASG1982 And they ask, “What goes into making a 99PI episode? Obviously there’s research and a script. But what are the steps of how it happens? And where do all the background people fit in?” It’s kind of a big question coming from a background person. 

ROMAN MARS: Well, that’s funny because I’ve always thought… Well, “background person” is not how I would phrase our staff. One of the things I love about the show is I think that people have gotten to know all of the producers and their personalities through the show. I mean, definitely I have a big imprint on the show, but I think a lot of people’s tastes and stuff comes out. But what’s really interesting is how much everyone works on every show in some way. So, the process of putting together an episode, I think, is kind of around sixteen weeks at this point; that’s how we count on it. They sometimes come in faster. But we don’t count on them being much quicker than that. And a person pitches a story, it gets greenlit, and then they go report it for a while–just, like, find out stuff, interview people… They get assigned an editor, and that editor works with them to try to realize the sort of the potential of both what they’re finding and what people desired in the pitch. And then it comes into form as a script that those two people mostly work on together. That’s the first time I see it, at that point–when it’s a script and we do what we call a “read to tape,” but I think most people might know it as, like, a “table read,” where essentially we just perform it live. And a bunch of people are in the room. I mean, this is all Zoom. It used to be one room, but now it’s all in Zoom. And people put notes in a Google Doc all along as we’re performing it–and playing the tape that’s been cut. And there are probably, like, when we’re done, hundreds of notes?

VIVIAN LE: Hundreds. Hundreds of comments.

ROMAN MARS: Yeah, hundreds of comments. 

VIVIAN LE: An overwhelming amount of comments.

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHS] In a way, it’s a pretty brutal process. But everyone is really kind. And everyone, I think, is, like… We’re trying to get to the best thing. And I think that everyone has, like, been trained to recognize that this is good–this is a good process. I’ve always liked our edits. I’ve been in other rooms or heard horror stories of other rooms about edits where people leave crying and stuff like that. That doesn’t– I mean, people can leave frustrated because there’s a lot to do and stuff like that. But we don’t have a culture of cutting each other down here. 

VIVIAN LE: No, no, no. 

ROMAN MARS: We do have some brutal shorthands for things. All the notes that come in–sometimes they’re like, “Oh, I like this person. I dislike this. We should move this part to here or whatever.” But we have some shorthands in the edit. So, somebody will put in “CWGHF.” Did I do that right? “CWGHF,” which is, “Can We Get Here Faster?” which is one of those ones where, like… Oof.

VIVIAN LE: Yeah, and it comes up in every single script. It’s like, “When is it gonna happen?”

ROMAN MARS: So, “Can We Get Here Faster” is one. Oh, Emmett’s– I love this one. “Relentlessly chronological” is something that Emmett said once. 

VIVIAN LE: Devastating. Devastating comment.

ROMAN MARS: And it has to do with, like, these histories. Sometimes we do these long histories and you just feel like you’re plodding along. It just captured something that I felt for a long time but never put words to it–that sort of sense of just like, “Oh, but if I skip from 900 AD to 1800, I have to put these, like, three things in between.” But you feel that they’re unnecessary. And sometimes we just free ourselves from this idea. Instead of being relentlessly chronological, just do the parts that are important and fun for the story and stop being so relentlessly chronological. Sometimes the driving force of the action is time. And sometimes it’s the thesis of the collection of things, so you lead with that first. And so it’s just a matter of mixing things up so you don’t feel like you’re just reading a timeline of events. So, “relentlessly chronological” is a dig that kills me. So, then there’s that big long paper edit with lots of notes. Then the producer incorporates those notes and creates an audio version of it. So, like, I’ll get my script and I’ll record my parts. They’ll record their parts and put it together. And that becomes what we call a “listen edit.” And we listen to it all together as at least a first draft audio file and do the exact same thing–put all the notes in here. And then those notes are incorporated into something called a “notes mix.” And instead of us all getting together, we all kind of listen on our own and we put little notes in. Yeah, and then Martín mixes it. And then it comes out, and it really is, like, a long process. And editing is a much bigger chunk of it than reporting, I would say. 

VIVIAN LE: Yeah, for sure. 

ROMAN MARS: And so every story has been touched by–you know–at least five or six people. Like, it’s a big group effort. It really takes a lot to put into it. 

VIVIAN LE: Yeah, a story gets turned into soup multiple times over several weeks, and then it becomes a little episode butterfly by the end of it. It’s a nice, gentle–but also scary–process. 

ROMAN MARS: Yeah, it’s rigorous. But it’s pretty gentle. Most people who’ve done a tour through the show have commented on how, when they do this in other places, it is not so fun. I take real pride in that. 

VIVIAN LE: Quick story–I do remember my first story was a freelance story. And it was my first time ever doing an edit like that. And I came in through I think it was the zoom. And this was, like, an hour and a half into a three-hour process. You and Delaney were arguing, I think, about Agent Orange or something. My internet dropped off, and I was gone for ten minutes. And when I came back in, no one noticed I was gone and you were still arguing about Agent Orange.

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHS] Well, there you go. 

More of your 15th anniversary questions after this… 

[AD BREAK]

VIVIAN LE: Okay, our next question is a voice message. And it’s someone that you and I will recognize, but maybe some of the listeners have not heard their voice very much. 

KELLY PRIME: So, my question is, “If you could commission any designer, living or dead, to create the ultimate piece of 99% Invisible merch–like branded merchandise–what would that merch be?” And I ask this as someone who proudly owns and wears one of our brand new 99PI swimsuits. 

ROMAN MARS: [CHUCKLES] Oh, that’s Kelly Prime. 

VIVIAN LE: That is Kelly Prime. 

ROMAN MARS: She doesn’t show up on the show a lot–her voice–because she’s an editor. But yeah, Kelly Prime’s the greatest. Yeah, the funny thing about the swimsuit–just as an aside–was this was presented to us because there’s a big merch team at SiriusXM. And they’re just like, “What about this? What about this? What about this?” They just kind of throw things at us. And they presented the idea of the 99PI swimsuit and towels. And everyone was like, “Oh my god. What, are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous.” And then they would go, “But if you make them, can I have one?” And so my wife did that. Vivian did that. 

VIVIAN LE: I did that, too. Yeah.

ROMAN MARS: And so we just did it because we were like, “Well, the people that will enjoy this will find it–and fantastic.” And so let’s see–the perfect merch… I would love a Dieter Rams-designed podcast player that really only plays a podcast. I mean, the iPod was definitely based off of Dieter Rams’ stuff with Braun. His little miniature radio looks like an iPod–like the first generation with the wheel and the white thing. Like, a dedicated podcast player, you know, that… 

VIVIAN LE: Just podcasts only. 

ROMAN MARS: It’s just podcasts only–maybe a little bit of a screen on it so you could see some stuff. It’d have to be sort of internet enabled. But yeah, I think something like that would be the ultimate thing that I would probably enjoy and would be a nice 99% Invisible thing. And it’s a very niche, not very widespread used device, rather than a real piece of merch. But yeah, that’s the thing that comes to mind. 

VIVIAN LE: For sure. So, our next question–it’s also a voice message, which I will just play for you. 

GILLIAN JACOBS: Hey, Roman. It’s frequent 99PI contributor Gillian Jacobs. And if you were to create a show called 1% Visible, what would it be about? 

ROMAN MARS: Well, that’s the same thing. I mean, “99% invisible” means “1% visible.” 

VIVIAN LE: [LAUGHS] So, it’d be the exact same show. 

ROMAN MARS: Yeah, I mean, I think so. But this does bring to mind one thing. I’ve been thinking about and we’re sort of developing the idea of a show of a less abstract, more tactile kind of how stuff works quality of, like, describing infrastructure. “I touch a light switch. That wire goes to a wire that goes to a wire that goes through a transformer…” It’s really about your interacting with how the world works in less of a story way and more of just like, “I just don’t understand how that works. How does electricity come into my house?” That’s what that feels like to me as an idea of 1% Visible. And that’s a thing that we’re developing, and I think that would be worth doing as a 1% Visible. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay, so next question: “If aliens visited Earth and you had to show them one designed object to explain human civilization, what would it be?”

ROMAN MARS: Wow, that’s a tall order. I don’t know. I’m kind of obsessed with– My go-to answer is the Golden Gate Bridge. I just think it’s super gorgeous. And I think it looks like what it does. Its design and physics and stuff is on display and it’s beautiful and I don’t know. That’s probably my answer. There might be a deeper answer there, but I just love it. I love looking at it. 

VIVIAN LE: That’s a really good bridge. Okay. Next question: “What is the most emotionally manipulative piece of design that people encounter daily without realizing it?”

ROMAN MARS: I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is people really react to anything with faces or eyes. I have a couple of things. The things they react to are faces and eyes, and they react to music. And I love using music in storytelling because you can just get people on board with something. It’s so manipulative in just the greatest way possible. And I love using it all the time. I love movies with good scores in them that are emotionally manipulative. And then in terms of faces and eyes, I think there was a study that if you put eyeballs or some kind of human face on a tip jar, people tipped more. I think anything that has eyes or looks like somebody’s watching you is probably the most emotionally manipulative stuff that you encounter on a daily basis. Cute faces–I mean–if your kids weren’t cute, if your dog wasn’t cute… They’re so adorable and they’re so annoying. And you would never endure them in other ways if they didn’t have these just cute little faces. And so that’s the most emotionally manipulative thing–how people use it. And mostly, I think, people use it in a benign way. And mostly it’s, like, good that you love your children because they have cute faces. [CHUCKLES]

VIVIAN LE: It’s mostly good that you love your children. This does remind me of… You know, we get a lot of those autonomous delivery carts here in Los Angeles. And they have these digital interfaces that have an actual face on it that smiles. And it’s just like, “Please don’t murder me. I’m just trying to do my job. Don’t knock me over. Don’t steal me. Please.”

ROMAN MARS: It’s true. I think that’s definitely why those faces are there. I don’t know if they work 100% of the time, but it’s why they’re there for sure. 

VIVIAN LE: Okay, so next question: “What’s something you deeply believed about designer storytelling 15 years ago that you’ve now completely reversed your thinking on?”

ROMAN MARS: Completely reversed? I mean, the obvious one to me, in terms of storytelling and storytelling about design, is that I created what I thought was the thing that the world needed–this perfect, little, five-minute jewel of a story that was kind of a story but more of an opinion and had a few key facts and something that made me laugh and whatever. And I never thought I would make a show like The Power Broker Breakdown that is, like, three hours long of two dudes talking about a book. But I loved making that show. So, I’ve kind of turned around a lot on that. And I just learned that a lot of my favorite podcasts are like that. And I just sort of forgave myself and gave myself the permission to create one on my own. 

VIVIAN LE: It is funny that the lesson that you learned after 15 years of making a podcast is that you like podcasts.

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHING] Exactly. Yeah.

VIVIAN LE: So, the next question is from me because I’m curious if you will answer it. So, you know, there are a lot of design lessons that the show has tried to impart out in the world, like buses are good and cities that are walkable are great. So, there’s a lot of positive design lessons that, I think, people take from our show. Do you think there are any design decisions that have been unfairly blamed on your influence? 

ROMAN MARS: Okay, well, I think I know where this is going, which is, I don’t think, unfairly blamed. But it definitely is blame, and I take some of it as being justified. So, probably the biggest cultural reach me or the show has ever had was this 2015 TED Talk about flag design, where I sort of enumerated the North American Vexillological Association’s principles of flag design as written down by Ted Kaye, who was great. And I love his pamphlet called Good Flag, Bad Flag. I did an episode based off of it and talking to Ted as the sixth episode of this show. And then when I was approached to do a TED Talk, I kind of had this idea of putting together this big grand theory of design with lots of different stories and stuff. And it wasn’t really working. I was trying different parts of it live, and it wasn’t really working. But this expanded flag talk was the one that was making people laugh and being fun and putting up pictures of flags and making fun of flags and stuff–and then using the design principles of flags to talk about design principles in general and that they kind of work for almost everything. And the flag talk was really huge. Like, it was bigger than I thought. When I went to TED Conference, the former prime minister of Australia was there. 

VIVIAN LE: Why? 

ROMAN MARS: He gave a talk, and he was talking about normalizing trade relationships with China or something. And I was like, “Oh my God. In two days, I’m going to do my dumb flag talk. And now I feel like such a loser.” And I did this talk, and it was totally a home run. People loved it. There was a standing ovation. It was so much fun. And the title of the talk–it was eventually titled by TED as The Worst Designed Thing You’ve Ever Not Noticed or something like that. And it was about city flags and how city flags need to be better. And I used lots of different examples. And it being released into the world resulted in maybe, I think, at this point, 300 or more flag redesigns all around the world. And most of these flag redesigns are just old. They put the city seal on a blue field, and they’re just thoughtless flags. And they’ve been redesigned without too much controversy. And the lesson of the whole thing was, if you’re in a city that doesn’t fly a flag, it’s probably because it violates these design principles. And a good way to get to the point where you have a flag that you’re proud of is to use these design principles to create one because it’s this great symbol that nobody owns–that everyone can have city pride in. And when you see it in action, like when you see it in Chicago, it’s amazing. It’s this amazing unifier. It’s on the shoulders of police officers. It’s on hipster tattoos. Every type of business uses the stars or stripes parts of the Chicago flag. And when it’s not well-designed, like San Francisco, you barely see it anywhere. And the whole point was to love your flag and have a municipal symbol that nobody owns. And if your flag is bad, it probably violates these principles. And maybe redesign it so it’s a good one. But the key is love your flag. Use your flag. It’s resource that’s wasted, okay? And there’s a line at the end that, I think, people kind of missed, which is, “I don’t care if your flag is ugly. Just use it. Use it! Don’t let it go to waste because otherwise sports teams and corporations–they take over the identity of a city.” And so a lot of people redesigned their flag and, I think, mostly for the good. I never get involved in flag redesign contests or flag redesign drama. My point was just to talk about it as a thing and have people do it because people should choose what represents them. And using the principles, that’s a good way to do it to make a good one. 

Now–like anything where you’re sort of putting a list of things to make things good or a certain orthodoxy gets created–in that orthodoxy, I think some of the redesigns have had a samey-samey quality to them, you know? And it was not something that I imagined because I didn’t really think it would have that big of an effect. Especially my praise of the Chicago flag has led people to create a lot of Chicago-y-style flags instead of something kind of cool and on their own. And actually, violate those principles when they’re meaningfully worth violating, like the idea of two to three colors. I love, for example, the California flag. It says California Republic on it. A flag is supposed to work in two directions. So, having words on it is a bad flag. You know what I mean? You see it from the opposite direction, so it’s backwards. I don’t care. California Republic is so — It tells you so much about California and Californians that it still says California Republic on it, I would never change it. And I put out a whole addendum of things on the TED site of flags that violate the principles but are still fantastic. And Ted Kaye, who wrote the book on this, totally agrees with that type of stuff, too. Thoughtful violation of the rules is totally part of it. Adhering so closely to the rules that everything kind of looks like it was made in a very simplistic Illustrator-type program and doesn’t have the joy and verve of some of these flags that came up in different ways–I think that there’s just the danger of any sort of design orthodoxy on anything. And so I take some blame for that; I know that I was the instigator in that. But I really didn’t mean everything should look boring. The whole point was just have something that you loved so that you flew it. And I think that was the part that was, like, a little bit missed. So, I take some blame, but I also think that my whole point was to make something cool and fun that you would get a tattoo of because you just loved where you were from. And it doesn’t matter if your flag is perfect or whatever. It should represent the city in a cool way. That’s all I care about. 

VIVIAN LE: And to be fair, I think a lot of flags that were inspired by your TED Talk ended up better than they were before. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, I think the vast majority did. I would say that 90% of it did. I just think that, occasionally, you see… They often do design contests, which I think is a way to flatten creativity, honestly. It brings in a lot of ideas, but then when people vote on it, they choose the one that is kind of the most anodyne–the most that feels like a flag. And now the idea of what feels like a flag has changed into kind of something that isn’t super inspiring. You should just hire someone to make something cool and to commission them and make it great and put it out there. And if it is a little more–I don’t know–shocking or whatever, that’s a good thing. Your city should be unique. 

VIVIAN LE: Great. Okay. So, that was 15 questions. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, good! 

VIVIAN LE: But I also have a bonus here for you–another voice message. I’m going to play it for you.

TINA: This is Tina from Germany. And my questions are how Roman’s twins are doing and how they are feeling about their cameos in the early episodes of 99 PI. 

ROMAN MARS: That’s a good question. The twins are doing great. Mazlo and Carver are about to go to college. I did ask them if I could say where they’re going to college and they said no. [CHUCKLES]

VIVIAN LE: Smart. Very smart.

ROMAN MARS: But I think they’re pretty proud of their role in the show. I mean, for people who don’t know–who didn’t listen to early stages–MailChimp was a sponsor in the very beginning. They had a product called TinyLetter. And their slogan was “Email for People with Something to Say.” And my kids were very talkative from a very early age. And I thought it’d be funny if I just would say, “Hey, Mazlo, what do you have to say? Oh, hey, Carver, what do you have to say?” And honestly, this empire was built on the charm of those twins. If we didn’t have that as a sponsor in the very beginning, I do not know if we would be here today. And so it was a huge part of the show. It made people tune in to the end to hear what they had to say. I think they’re quite proud of their role. And when they stopped, I think it was okay for us to stop. But I think they were a little bit, like… The company ended the product, and so there was nothing more to do. You know what I mean? And it took me a minute to describe to them that they didn’t do anything wrong–that it was just that the thing got canceled. 

VIVIAN LE: Wait, they thought it was their fault? 

ROMAN MARS: It was really Carver who was like, “Oh…” And I was like, “But they just stopped doing the ads. And it’s okay. And I still love them. And people still love them.” And so getting that lesson to them was kind of a sad one. And I think today they’re pretty proud of it. 

VIVIAN LE: And just for comparison, how old were they when they first started doing the ads? 

ROMAN MARS: Maybe four. Like, they were three when I started and maybe three or four when the ads started running. And they ran for a long time, like six or seven years–something like that. 

VIVIAN LE: I did go back in the archives. And I did pull one. And so this is what Mazlo used to sound like. 

ROMAN MARS: Support for 99% Invisible is provided in part by TinyLetter–Email for People with Something to Say. What do you have to say, Mazlo? 

MAZLO: My favorite thing to talk about is robots and Iron Man suits and stuff. 

ROMAN MARS: Robots and Iron Man suits. I would subscribe to that newsletter… 

ROMAN MARS: That makes me cry. 

VIVIAN LE: Aw. They’re so big now. 

ROMAN MARS: They’re so big. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah, I love my adult children. But when you’re a parent, you miss those little voices. It’s so sweet. But yeah. I’m so excited for the people that they’ve grown up to be. They’re the best 

VIVIAN LE: Great. I mean, I guess we’re going to leave it on the note of you crying. 

ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHING] Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that works for me. 

VIVIAN LE: Well, thank you so much, Roman. This has been really fun. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, my pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. And thanks for all the thoughtful questions. I thought this was actually really… Like, this was interesting–for me too! I’m really into it. This was not bad. 

VIVIAN LE: Thanks. 

ROMAN MARS: All right. Yeah. Take care, everybody. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Mazlo, what do you have to say? 

MAZLO: I’m going to college, as of recording this, in just over a month. I’m currently planning to do Art and Writing. I–like you–am interested in a lot of different things to only my own fault. And I don’t think I’ll be able to find a job where I can research everything in the world. But you know–

ROMAN MARS: Maybe you can. 

MAZLO: Well, maybe I’ll find something. 

ROMAN MARS: Carver, what do you have to say? 

CARVER: I am planning to study Physics and Communications. I want to become a science communicator and talk about the things that I love and spread information and teach people, kind of like what my dad does. 

ROMAN MARS: Oh, I’m touched! That’s sweet. Okay, well, you know, early on, the show didn’t have a lot of advertisers. And the ads with you really was the first solid foundation for the financing of the show. So, you basically paid for your own college education by doing TinyLetter ads. 

CARVER: Oh, wow. I mean… Great. I can now tell people I put myself through college. 

ROMAN MARS: 99% Invisible was produced this week by Vivian, and also by all our wonderful listeners who submitted such thoughtful questions. Mix by Martín Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real.

Kathy Tu is our executive producer. Kurt Kohlstedt is our digital director. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Jayson De Leon, Emmett FitzGerald, Christopher Johnson, Lasha Madan, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prime, Jeyca Medina-Gleason, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% Invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence.

We are part of the SiriusXM Podcast Family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building… in beautiful… uptown… Oakland, California.

You can find us on all the usual social media sites, as well as our new Discord server. There’s a link to that, as well as every past episode–15 years of 99% Invisible–at 99pi.com.