Love Letter to a Garden and 20 years of Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Debbie Millman is a shapeshifting creative who does a little bit of just about everything. She is a writer, designer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the podcast Design Matters- which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Last month, Debbie also published a beautiful new book Love Letter to a Garden. It details her journey into gardening through her signature illustrations, creative vignettes and recipes from her wife, Roxane Gay. As of May 1st, she and Roxane are also the proud co-owners of The Rumpus. 

In this episode, Debbie tells host Ellen McGirt about her unexpected journey into gardening and the cold reach-out that led to Love Letter. She also shares her process for using Midjourney to create many of the book’s illustrations. Debbie also reflects on what 20 years of Design Matters has taught her about the podcasting industry, creativity and herself. She also shares her thoughts on how technology will factor in the future of design and whether brands still have the capacity to be human.

“We are not only facing what people are calling a constitutional crisis, but I think we’re experiencing a capitalist crisis in that,” Millman says. “Brands, not all, but for the most part, seem to be kowtowing to the racist sentiment that a lot of the leadership of this country is now proclaiming. They are doing this for reasons that will ultimately be a big part of what their downfall will be. And consumers are not stupid…and anyone that thinks that creating brands that stand for exclusion, discrimination, prejudice, white supremacy, anti-LGBTQ. Those brands will not last…Consumers will come to know them as the tools of a late stage capitalist regime that have no interest in actually serving the audience that they have made these products for.”

And stay tuned to hear Debbie read a moving passage from Love Letter to a Garden!

On this season of DB|BD, we are Designing for the Unknown. Host Ellen McGirt asks visionary designers how they navigate uncertainty- whether it be technological disruption, global crises, or shifting cultural norms.

To learn more about Debbie, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

Love Letter to a Garden
Debbie Millman on The Tim Ferris Show, September 2020

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss our episode with Diaspora Co.’s Sana Javeri Kadri on redesigning the spice trade.

Transcript

Ellen McGirt Debbie Millman is a shape-shifting, brilliant, hardest-working, superstar, badass, writing, educating, branding queen. Let me explain at least about the shape- shifting part. I met Debbie at the American Institute of Graphic Arts, better known as AIGA Award Ceremony in 2019. I had been tapped very unexpectedly for an award that meant the world to me, the Stephen Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary for a column I was writing for Fortune about race and culture and leadership. She had been tapped as one of the recipients for the big award for the night, the AIGA medal, which is their highest honor and a very big deal. Now, let me set the stage. Backstage was the usual chaos with presenters and stage managers and design world people and directors and lost script pages. And with all of that noise and all of my nervous energy, I didn’t immediately recognize her. But what I did notice was her, this lovely woman disarming the energy with a smile or remark, acknowledging the accomplishments of others, hugging, rubbing shoulders, smoothing ruffled feathers, and just being the light in these cramped spaces backstage. I think you’re amazing, she said to me as I walked on stage. Don’t you know I walked beaming? And eventually she took the stage. It felt like I watched her transform before my eyes into Debbie Millman, the daughter of a pharmacist who developed an interest in consumer behavior by watching people browse her dad’s pharmacy and who fell in love with barrettes. The woman with no formal training in design, writing, fine art or business, but who moved to Manhattan and began to excel in all these things. Finding success in something called branding, its own kind of shape-shifting magic. If you know what branding is, if you fight about what branding isn’t, if you hate it, if you love it, if you’ve been to the grocery store or Burger King or bought Twizzlers or Tropicana, you can thank Debbie Millman. She shaped these conversations and these brands. But on that stage, she was also something more. She shared stories about experiencing sexual abuse as a child, about coming out at 50, and about the strange tension of receiving an award for building a life in branding seen as the devil’s work by traditional designers. She had opened up her heart and her pain and her path and her joy, and was offering a platform for others who didn’t fit the mold. Now, I don’t like using the word brave. I think it’s overused and typically insulting, but she was real and truthful in that moment, and you could feel the whole world shift with her. The world could use a shift today, and that’s why I’m so glad Debbie Millman is here. In between hosting episodes of her award-winning podcast, Design Matters, she has produced yet another new and wonderful book, Love Letter to a Garden, which is, in my view, a perfect book, a reminder to be open and patient, stories about plants and people and love, with recipes. I’m Ellen McGirt, and this is The Design of Business|The Business of Design. This season, we’re designing for the unknown. Let’s get cooking. 

Debbie Millman Hi Ellen. That was incredible. Oh my god. Every inch of my body is blushing. 

Ellen McGirt Oh see that doesn’t happen very often and thank you for letting me say nice things in front of you. That was like the best part of my week. 

Debbie Millman Mine too. 

Ellen McGirt Let’s dig in. Before we get to this lovely book, and I really enjoyed it. It was a balm for my soul. Congratulations on so many things, but particularly at 20 Years of Design Matters. When you reflect on your 500-episode archive, what does it tell you about the last 20 years of podcasting, of creativity, and of society? 

Debbie Millman Well, in terms of what it tells me about podcasting is I’ve been witnessing the sort of bewildering faces of people back in the mid-aughts wondering what that word actually meant to then slowly having people experience their own podcast trajectory and then feeling like knowing about them made them smarter or an early adopter. And then the explosion, the big explosion of podcasting in the world. And then there was a moment in time where I was embarrassed because I thought that what I was doing was just sort of, one in a zillion that was happening. And whenever anybody asked what I did, if I said I had a podcast. Like, oh, you have a podcast, too. Like everybody in the world was having their own podcast. 

Ellen McGirt That’s the worst. 

Debbie Millman What’s yours about? Oh, yeah. 

Ellen McGirt My whole life and soul, that’s all. 

Debbie Millman Yeah, and and now that it’s been, now that its been 20 years, you know when I say, when people ask me what I do. I say I have a long-running podcast. Let’s really bring out the big guns. I have long-running podcast and and then they’ll say oh how long and I’ll say 20 years and then I’ll be like Oh, wow. So you were podcasting before podcasting was podcasting .And I’m like, just barely, just barely. 

Ellen McGirt And so I will never ask you the terrible question of which one is your favorite episode, it’s impossible. But was there a moment in time when you knew that you could really do this and the conversations you were having were having real impact? Because if you look at the sheer breadth of talent, of perspectives that you have over the 20 years, it’s kind of an astonishing record. 

Debbie Millman It’s a great question, Ellen. And I wish I had a more optimistic answer for you because I’d like to think that I am contributing to culture in a positive and meaningful way. I often struggle with my own value, my own worth, my own purpose. That really extends to everything that I do, not just the podcast. But I don’t know if there was a moment, one of the big and wonderful and surprising moments actually happened, I believe it was 2016. I was looking at my Facebook page for some reason. For some reason, I went in to look at something and I saw next to a speech bubble, a number. And so I clicked into that and I realized that people had been leaving me messages. And that was the year that Hamilton had launched. So whatever 10 years ago is, because I think Hamilton just celebrated its 10 years. So it’s 2025, so it’s 2015. And so, I went in to look and there was a message from the publicist of the show. And he had been interested in my interviewing the director of Hamilton. And I was gobsmacked. I could not believe what I was reading. And I went from glee to mortification in a matter of seconds when I realized that he had left the message six months before. 

Ellen McGirt Goodness. 

Debbie Millman And so, I don’t know if he had his phone number there as well, or if I researched the company and then called, but I immediately got in touch with him. And at that point, he said that Tommy Kail, the director, would love to do the show, but now he was in London opening Hamilton there, and then he was gonna be somewhere else opening Hamilton, there. And so it might be a while. And I was just, fine, okay, I’ll wait forever. And stayed in touch with him and, lo and behold, eventually I did interview Thomas Kail and he was so kind and so generous and so warm and so willing to have a conversation with me. I felt that day that I had achieved something really meaningful that people that I admired in this sort of very kind of untouchable way. Like these are people that would never pay attention to me and would never consider being on the show. And suddenly that this genius was willing to have a conversation with me. I really felt very, very happy that day. 

Ellen McGirt That’s a wonderful example and I’m so glad that you clicked that button because we all know, we all know not to read the comments and I think the publicist should have known that too. But I would posit a guess as to why someone of that stature and talent would want to talk to you. And it’s partly because you create a space for people to talk about the things that they struggle with and the things they strive for and the thing that make them excellent, which is not something that can be reduced into a sound bite. Or a bumper sticker. And this is where the magic happens. And I would say that as tough as it sounds, as tough as I know that it is to search your whole life for purpose and meaning and to make sure that you’re on track, that the nature of your search has created such a beautiful body of work. 

Debbie Millman Thank you. I really am a bit overwhelmed when I even look at the both quantity and quality of people that I’ve spoken to. And I know that my website states that I have interviewed over 500 people, but it’s been a while since I updated that number, and I think the number now is closer to 700,. And I feel, as if the opportunity to do this has been the great and unexpected gift of a lifetime. Like how all of these people said yes to speak to me about their lives and to know if they knew anything at all about the show that I go deep and that they were willing to take that path with me. I still can’t believe it. I really can’t. And I can’t even believe that it’s been 20 years, Ellen. I can’t. You know, one of the founders of Design Observer, Bill Drenttel, was one of the first people that took the show seriously. And I had been airing the show on an online radio network that I was paying them to produce. And I was broadcasting it live from my office every Friday. And I did 100 episodes that way. And in those last, I don’t know, 90 to 100 episodes or so, Bill approached me and asked me if I’d be willing to bring the show over to Design Observer. And I was thrilled. I mean, I was shocked. I mean, Design Observer, one of the first great erudite, intellectual sites to come for real design and cultural discourse. And then he said, once I said, yes, emphatically, like anyone to think about it. It’s like, but we do have to do something about the sound quality. Like, yeah, I know. 

Ellen McGirt Aww. 

Debbie Millman I mean, I was doing an online radio show from my desk in the Empire State Building where I legitimately had an office so I could legitimately say, broadcasting live from the Empire State Building. But the sound was being pressed through a modem and telephone lines and it was pretty dreadful. And I said to Bill, look, I’m not a sound engineer. I wouldn’t even know how to do this. And he introduced me to Curtis Fox, who was then doing a podcast for the New Yorker and The Poetry Foundation. And Curtis signed on, he became my producer in 2009. He’s been my producer ever since. 

Ellen McGirt Wow. 

Debbie Millman So I really, really owe so much to Design Observer and to Bill, and Jessica, and Michael, and Rick, and you. And what’s interesting for me is how much Design Observer back in the day helped me grow my audience. In 2011, I was nominated for the People’s Choice Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. And Bill found out before I did. And he called me, and he told me, and I was thrilled. But I was also up against, that year, the Highline. The Highline had just launched, and it was really competitive. And Bill said, I’ll never forget this conversation with him. He said, do you really want it? And I said, yeah, of course I do. He goes, well, then we’re gonna have to work hard for it. And as long as you’re really willing to want this, then I’m willing to help amplify this. And he did. And I won that award that year. And it was all because of Design Observer, putting it out there, and then other people that I know seeing it there, and then their amplification. Because I was too, and I’ve always been very reluctant, to self-promote, it’s probably one of the biggest issues that I’ve had growing the show. And because of that moment in time, I won that award, which was surreal, surreal still, surreal. I went to the White House, I met Michelle Obama, I stood next to her. I mean, it was incredible, all because of Design Observer. 

Ellen McGirt Well, I did not know any of that, and I’m so glad that you shared that with, and it’s just, it makes me know that our legacy and karma is so wonderful and propels me forward to work just as hard and be such a good steward going forward. So I thank you for telling me that. So I wanna go back to your early days of branding, when branding was new and you were new. We’re the same age, we’re both lifelong New Yorkers. We were both new back then, but I wanna talk about you and where you were finding your voice. Because you said something about self promotion, about yourself, which I can relate to, and I find very poignant, since it is literally your job and your genius to find the essence of truth, the promise of brands and brand makers and stories and bring them to the attention of a broader public. That’s literally your job. So let’s talk about where you got good at all of that part in the professional part of your life. 

Debbie Millman Well I think a big distinction in doing it for myself and doing it for others, is just that. Like I’m very, very good at helping others find their purpose, their positioning, their message. But for myself, not so much. And that’s fine. I mean, I’d much rather spend time thinking about other people than thinking about myself. But it’s always been a bit of that cobbler shoe syndrome, where it’s just a lot easier for me. And I just rather not always do the hard things for myself. 

Ellen McGirt I understand, I understand. But you did it for others, you did for others beautifully. Is your ascension at Sterling the right place to start? 

Debbie Millman Yeah, I mean, I arrived at Sterling in 1995. At that point, I was already well into my 30s. I had spent the previous 12 or so years, 13 years, since I graduated, bouncing around, having a lot of rejection, a lot of, I made a lot questionable choices. It was a time of profound confusion in a lot of ways. But I would say by ’93, when I first got to the Schechter Group, which became Interbrand while I was there, I had begun to discover my talent in branding. And I had already experienced one success in repositioning, but I didn’t know it was reposition at the time. Um, in ’92 or ’93, I started working with the radio station Hot 97, and I was asked to help the radio station transition from the country’s number one dance music radio station to the world’s first hip hop station, which a lot of people at the time thought was very risky. But the general manager of the radio station, a brilliant woman named Judy Ellis and the promotion director, another brilliant person named Rocco Macri, they felt very strongly that the world was ready for this and they engaged with me and another creative person that is also really brilliant. His name is Johan Vipper and together we worked with Judy and. Rocco and a couple and many other people at the station to reposition Hot 97. So we worked on the repositioning, but then Johan and I also worked in all the creative. So that was probably my first real success. And, but I didn’t know it was branding at the time. I just thought it was creative. And then once I started working really full time, head down in branding, then I looked back on that experience. I was like, oh, that was one of my first experiences in repositioning a brand. 

Ellen McGirt So from there, you establish the first ever master’s program in branding. I’m just I’m jumping ahead in time. 

Debbie Millman Yeah, not much, not much time. I mean, that I did. I worked with 97 for 12 years. I was there off staff creative director. And then that that relationship ended when Judy and Rocco left. And that was, I think, 2005 or so. And then by 2007, Steve Heller had reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in working with him to develop the this first ever Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts. And of course, I jumped at that too. 

Ellen McGirt I can imagine, because it’s really an opportunity to define in such an interesting way what modern branding actually is. 

Debbie Millman Absolutely, absolutely. It was another gift of a lifetime and one of the issues that I had at the time in doing that when we submitted the plan to the Department of Education for their approval and the accreditation and so forth, their pushback was, I don’t have a terminal degree. But there was no terminal degree in branding and so they made an exception for me to be able to teach this master’s program without a master’s degree because there was none at that 

Ellen McGirt Did teaching the program earn you a master’s because I feel like it should have? 

Debbie Millman You know, I think it’s something I’m going to talk to David Rhodes about. He’s the president of SVA. And, and so, no, I always tell my students when they graduate, you now have something I don’t, a master’s degree in branding, and they get quite a lot of glee from that experience. 

Ellen McGirt I bet they do. But in that time since you’ve been teaching this course and, of course, talking to young aspirational, creative people, creative directors, and branding experts, how has what they needed to do succeed changed? You know I’m going into, I’m gonna hit you up on AI. I’m gonna hit you on all the vision of the future stuff because there seems to be a foundational piece, and then there’s an ever-changing piece. 

Debbie Millman Yeah, I mean, I think the foundational piece is our brains. You know, behavioral psychology, cultural anthropology, understanding statistics, understanding quite a lot of financial insights and math, of course, design and creativity. But the tools change. The tools change quite a bit. The tools have been changing. In the way that we express, create, research, and so forth since the beginning of time. And in the time that I’ve been doing this work, I was probably one of the last, if not the last generations that worked professionally on a drafting table. That was working with wax machines and X-Acto blades, and you know just as an FYI, and I didn’t realize this until very recently, there was a time when paste-up artists, drafting artists, were um thumbing their nose at practitioners who were using X-acto blades instead of razor blades. And I thought that was so interesting. But I came of age as a designer in the 80s which then launched our entire entry into using computers. And I started using CompuGraphic machines back in college when I was working on the student newspaper. And so when I graduated, that was one of my real few marketable skills, because I had a degree in English literature and Russian literature, not the sort of roadmap for success that one might hope for when graduating college. But I, then had to transition over the years to learning how to make design with a computer and watched as some of the greatest designers of our time back then were completely dismissive of the computer and talked about how there was no soul in working with a computer. You couldn’t create design with soul from a computer. They were not only utterly dismissive but they were They were fundamentally, vocally disgusted by it. They felt that it was repugnant, repulsive to even consider doing work like that. And if we did, it would destroy the industry. It would destroy thousands of jobs and we would all be losing our jobs to these computers that could do the work for us and so on and so forth. And for anybody that’s listening, that might be of age, you know that’s pretty familiar that conversation is one we’re having today with with AI. And I point that out you know when I was in my early years you know I read all the print magazines, communication arts, and UNLC, and there were interview upon interview with the likes of Milton Glaser, and Massimo Vignelli, and all of my heroes who were all vehemently opposed to the technology at the time. And then by the ends of their lives as I became friends with them and then came to their studios and interviewed them. You know, there were lots and lots of computers around, lots and lots. Milton, I remember seeing Milton sitting over the shoulder of two designers that were seated at their desks with their computer monitors in front of them. And he’s like, okay, move that there, and move that there, move that there. So he had his work around, but the conversations were vehement, volatile, persuasive, but ultimately rejected. 

Ellen McGirt Technology moves on. In addition to everything else that you’re doing, as of May 1st, I believe, you and your wife Roxane Gay are the proud owners of The Rumpus. And I know that Roxane has done a lot of writing for them as well. Why? What’s your plan? I’m intrigued. 

Debbie Millman Uh, so are we! We just took, um ownership. And Roxane, as you mentioned, um, in many ways got her start on The Rumpus with a bunch of other extraordinary writers, uh, Isaac Fitzgerald, Cheryl Strayed. She started Dear Sugar on The Rumpus and, um the previous owner reached out to Roxane about the possibility of her taking ownership because the the current ownership they were they were looking to move on to doing other things. And initially Roxane passed without even asking me about it and she just didn’t think you know I’d be interested. And then she was mentioning it and I said what, what! The Rumpus! Like the great legendary Rumpus? Could we afford it? And so we went into conversations and ultimately were able to strike a deal. And now we are in the process of redesigning it. We’re working with Santiago Carrasquilla, genius designer, former student 10 years ago. And he’s working on a new logo for us, which I’m super excited about. And we’re talking to different writers and editors and we’re gonna expand the coverage from literary to cultural. So we’ll include design and art. And film and theater, performing arts. And I can’t remember being this excited about an endeavor ever. When I was in college, I was the editor of the arts and features section of my student newspaper. And I often refer to that year as one of the best years of my life because I was at the helm of creating a section in the student newspaper that I could entirely make my own. I chose the writers, the artists, the photographers, and put the whole thing together. And as I said, it was one of the great experiences of my life. And when I graduated, I thought, oh, I’d love to work at a magazine. And I did, I worked at different magazines over the years and still do. But the idea of being able to compose something, from nothing, or well no I mean obviously it’s something, The Rumpus is something big. But to create something new that I can contribute to the legacy of this great great brand is just… Yea. 

Ellen McGirt You’re about to be in the same mood that I’m in. I feel the exact same way about Design Observer. And it was, as a person who’d been in traditional journalism for a very long time, including at Fast Company where we covered design. And there was a moment not that long ago in my life when I realized that there was, no matter how hard I worked or how much I contributed, I was never going to be tapped for the thing that I wanted to do, which is exactly what you just described. So congratulations to you and Roxane. I cannot wait. We’re gonna be sending readers and celebrating you and I just can’t wait to see what comes of all of this. 

Debbie Millman Thank you. Thank you. 

Ellen McGirt I loved, loved this book, your garden book. Like most of it is, like most of your work, it features your distinctive handwriting and there’s photo and art and there storytelling and it takes you on a journey. Tell us about how Love Letter to a Garden came to be. 

Debbie Millman Love Letter to a Garden is my first non-interview, non-academic-oriented book. I have two books of illustrated essays that I’ve done in the past, but this approach was very, very different. And it came to me out of the blue. I had, during COVID, Though I’m a native New Yorker and have lived in New York my whole life, when I met Roxane, she’d been living in Los Angeles and wanted to stay, wanted to keep her house there. And so we started as a couple to live in both places. And so I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Los Angles over the seven years we’ve been together now. During COVID, she wisely thought that it might make more sense for us to be in Los Angeles because we had a car, we’d be a bit more mobile. We had more sky, a backyard, and so forth. And so we did. Initially, we thought it was gonna be for a few weeks, and obviously, you know, we know how that turned out. And while I was there, I had a lot of time on my hands, and so because her backyard is really big and beautiful, I started to try my hand at gardening. There was a garden center a few blocks away from the house, practically walking distance, and so I could go there anytime I wanted, and think about what I wanted to grow and plant and nurture. And I started writing about it. I started posting on Instagram, these little vignettes about my experiences in the garden, which were a little bit similar to the visual stories I started to do when I began going on Nat Geo expeditions a few years before. And people seemed to like them. I ended up being asked to create some visual stories that I ultimately narrated for that year’s TED conference in 2020 when it went completely online. 

Ellen McGirt Oh yes, that’s right. 

Debbie Millman And so these little interstitials that I made, which were about storytelling and gardening and travel, they were aired between some of the TED Talks. And then, so we’re in 2025, so I guess in 2023, I got out of the blue a cold email from an editor at Timber Press. Timber press is part of Hachette. And they asked me if I’d be interested in doing a visual book about gardening. And Ellen, I thought it was a prank because I am not a gardener. I am an aspiring gardener, I am somebody who loves gardening, who does not come by it naturally, and who has struggled over the years to create some type of natural space that’s beautiful and maybe provide some sustenance. But it’s been fraught. And so I wrote back and said, if you’re interested in my doing something that is about my quest at becoming a gardener, which includes the future. Then yes. But if it’s about how to craft your own urban garden, then I’m not your girl. And they said, okay, they said okay. And it really became a story about, in many ways, I think perseverance and experimenting with something that you love just for the sheer joy of this thing you love as opposed to success or accomplishment. 

Ellen McGirt Yeah no, and it’s absolutely beautiful and before I ask you to read a passage, you can read whatever passage you like, I want to acknowledge that you walk us through your creative process for all the images in the book including where you use Midjourney which I thought was very interesting. It was a very educator thing to do but it was also it was a wonderful way of just sharing your process. Why do you do that? 

Debbie Millman So all of the images in the book are from photographs that I’ve taken. And I love illustrating. Again, sort of like gardening. It’s hard for me to say, I’m an illustrator. I work at being an illustator every day of my life. And I loved drawing and I’ve always loved drawing since I was a tiny little girl. But I’m not the kind of person, like Christoph Nieman, who can just draw anything from a vision in his head. His brain. That’s not me. I need something in front of me. I need to be able to see where the light and the shape and the dimension all converge. And so all of the photos that I took became the basis, became the reference for all of the images that I made. So if I needed to draw something, needed to draw an image of an apple, I would take an apple, photograph it, and then recreate it in another way, whether it be illustration or watercolor or paint or collage or any number of things. In this particular story, I’m recalling a memory, and a memory that was unreliable because of its grandeur and its magical thinking in a lot of ways. So there really was no memory that existed In the real world, it was just a memory that I had constructed in my head. And so because of that, I couldn’t really draw anything, and I tried, I really really tried um, but I couldn’t do it. And I decided to go to Midjourney and put in a whole bunch of prompts, see what came out, and I was actually inspired to go to Midjourney, not by any direction by anybody, but by what I had viewed in my students using Midjourney to create some reference materials for their thesis the previous year, which I was astounded by. And so I went to Midjourney, I put in a whole bunch of prompts, it’s a very complicated drawing. And so I could never really get one whole image that worked, but old school, went and got bits and tiled them all together. I printed all the images that I got. I was able to construct a piece of reference tiling the various images together and then was able create both a watercolor and a painting that I layered on top of each other to create this sort of ethereal point of view. But I don’t think I could have done it without some assistance. 

Ellen McGirt It was just gorgeous. It was wonderful to hear, to learn more about your process. So yes, if you wouldn’t mind reading whatever you choose, read whatever you’d like to read. 

Debbie Millman This is called A Waterfall in Brooklyn. My grandparents lived in a little row house with a big backyard in Borough Park, Brooklyn. There was a chain link fence at the end of the yard, which opened to a shared pathway between all of the houses. The trees there were huge, and as a little girl standing beneath them made me feel like I was in a forest. I remember running as fast as I could through this deep, dark ravine until I reached the end the path. There, I found myself facing a waterfall. Surging waves curled and fell over the edge of the alleyway and tumbled down until I couldn’t see them anymore. There was a waterfall in Brooklyn. This memory couldn’t be real and I have no idea what inspired it. Several years ago, I decided to investigate. I went to Google Maps, typed in my grandparents’ address and chose the aerial satellite view. It was surreal seeing the same row of houses, the same school nearby. The same long avenues. Unsurprisingly, there was no waterfall. But towering high above the houses were the trees, lush and verdant. They were really there. Suddenly, I was a little girl on a little block in Brooklyn, standing beneath the canopy of towering trees as tall as the sky. As I sit with this memory, I understand how it seemed possible to a child that this forest could lead to a waterfall. Somehow.

Ellen McGirt How do you get through that without crying? 

Debbie Millman Oh, thank you. 

Ellen McGirt Just hearing it in your voice. I heard it in your voice in my head and I was still emotional, but just hearing it in your actual human voice is even more so. 

Debbie Millman Thank you, Ellen. Um, it’s such a visceral memory. And I did more than just go to the, to, to Google back in the day, the image in the book that I have of that satellite aerial view is legitimately from 2008, which is it’s dated in the books. And you can see it actually in the image. It’s embedded in the images from Google. I took a screenshot at the time because I wanted to remember it. Never, ever thinking that, you know, um, 17 years from now, you’re gonna write a book about this. So keep that image safe. I was lucky to still be able to find it in my computer. But I actually did go back to Borough Park. I took the train, went back, walked around the block thinking that maybe there’d be an opening that I could go into and see that alleyway and see if there was a waterfall there. But there wasn’t. And so the funny part of the story that I can share, is I asked Jacqueline Woodson to write a blurb for the back of the book, and Jackie’s also somebody that’s lived in Brooklyn for decades, and though she wasn’t born in Brooklyn, spent most of her childhood growing up in a brownstone in Brooklyn. And when she first read the story, she said, you know, Debbie, there were a lot of waterfalls in Brooklyn back in the day. And I was like, what? It’s like, yeah, Brooklyn’s right on top of water. There are always waterfalls all over Brooklyn. And so it’s very possible that there was a waterfall there when I was growing up, but I just have no actual tangible memory of it. 

Ellen McGirt I choose to believe, I choose to believe. She’s a good friend. 

Debbie Millman She is a good friend. 

Ellen McGirt That was a, that’s a good friend, that was a good friend thing to say. There could be a waterfall, there could be waterfall. The other thing that’s very beautiful about the book, besides everything, is Roxane shares her recipes and it’s an opportunity to think about just how your little harvests become nourishment for the two of you and then for us as well. Tell us a little bit about working together on the book and other parts of your life, because you certainly are working together more and more now. 

Debbie Millman Yeah, and I love that. I was working on this book, and I don’t remember whose idea it was. It might’ve been my editor’s idea, because part of what I felt so proud about at the end of the book was actually, like drum roll here, my first salad. 

Ellen McGirt It was great, yeah. 

Debbie Millman The first salad containing everything that I had grown, lettuce and some radishes and some carrots and cucumbers and tomatoes and so forth. And all of the photos that I took in this time between 2020 and 2022 were just out of pride. They were like, oh my god, look at this tomato. Look at this cucumber. And took that photograph just out of the sheer joy of my accomplishment. At some point, again, I don’t really remember who it was that suggested it. I don’t think it was Roxane, but why don’t we include some recipes of the things that Roxane was making at that time? Because I’m not a cook. Roxane is both a cook and a baker. She’s phenomenal at both. And she was legitimately making things with the harvest that I would bring in from the backyard. We had so many tomatoes, that she, and we really regret not including this recipe now, she made her own ketchup. 

Ellen McGirt Wow. 

Debbie Millman It was phenomenal. So ketchup and tomato sauce and she made an amazing tomato galette, things that were just extraordinarily delicious. And so somehow that idea bubbled up to our consciousness and then she made it happen. Roxane is amazing. I mean, Roxane makes me, she inspires me every day to be better, to do better, to make better, to think better. She was a real, she was a real proponent of my doing this book because I think she knew how much I wanted to do something like this. I had always wanted to do something like this, but never really felt capable to make it happen on my own. Like somebody had to ask me and I just didn’t know that anybody was ever gonna ask me. And so she was really excited that I had the opportunity to do this and then being a witness to my doing it was I think really important to both of us because it showed me in many ways what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and drawing and writing stories is going to factor into a big part of that and that’s something that I never thought I’d say out loud. 

Ellen McGirt I’m so glad you are, and I’m so glad that you did. I want to end on a philosophical note. You told the LA Daily News in an interview in April, speaking generally about the world, that “brands are manufactured meaning, and humans evolve. People who aspire to be brands lose a lot of the messiness and abstractness and growth that comes from being human”. How does this relate to your take on the current state of branding and brand design? And is it possible even for brands to truly embrace the human, that human messiness and abstraction? 

Debbie Millman Well, we’re seeing a lot less of it, and we are not only facing what people are calling a constitutional crisis, but I think we’re experiencing a capitalist crisis in that brands, for the most part, not all, but for the most part seem to be kowtowing to the racist sentiment that a lot of the leadership of this country is now proclaiming. And, they are doing this for reasons that will ultimately be a big part of what their downfall will be. And consumers are not stupid. I think Richard Kirshenbaum said years and years ago that you can spray them with insecticide and they might go away for a while, but they’ll be back. And anyone that thinks that creating brands that stand for exclusion, discrimination, prejudice, white supremacy, anti-LGBTQ. Those brands will not last. They might get a bump right now because of the current regime, but in the grand scheme of things, consumers will come to know them as the tools of a late-stage capitalist regime that have no interest in actually serving the audience that they have made these products for, but engaging them to spend their hard-earned money on supporting the lifestyles and the beliefs of the executive leadership of these companies, which have no runway as far as I’m concerned. The truth will eventually come out. When people talk about the ending of the DEI initiatives in this country, I actually say well what word actually do you object to? Equality, inclusion, diversity. Tell me which word bothers you. What they’re really saying when they talk about DEI, they have used, they have created a shorthand that when they say DEI that somehow means less or unqualified. And that is not the intention at all. And that this word has been repositioned in this way is egregious and some of the work that I’m doing now I’m hoping will tell that story in a compelling way, but for now I believe that we’re going to have to eventually take stand and that will be messy. That will messy in the economy, but necessary. 

Ellen McGirt I agree, that’s very, very powerful. I flagged in my intro your remarkable generosity of spirit and your remarkable willingness to share your difficult, messy human journey to get where you are today. And I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about what it takes to be that generous, to be personal. I’m gonna flag for our listeners your appearance on Tim Ferriss’ podcast where you really went deep as he was struggling, as talking about his struggles. With suicide ideation and depression. What does it take for you to be that resilient, that you can be that present in the truth, in your truth and the truth of others?

Debbie Millman Well. It’s taken a long time to even be able to acknowledge that I can do that. But I think a lot of that ability comes from decades of therapy and growing over the decades and realizing that some of the terrible things that did happen to me when I was a kid. We’re not my fault it wasn’t because i was damaged or dirty or less than or unworthy, although I still do find myself, confronting some of those issues on a regular basis, but the biggest evolution for me was really the slow disappearance of shame in regards to these experiences. When you keep something a secret for as long as I did, you begin to feel, no, you don’t begin. It’s because of this deep shame at anybody knowing who you really are. Why what happened happened. And,  when you are strong enough, and I don’t know that it’s brave enough, when you’re strong enough to reveal some of what you feel is shameful, if you’re with people that love you and care about you and support you, and it takes a while to find those people, you won’t be excommunicated, you won’t be rejected. And so, As I did begin to disclose what had happened to me, as I did began to reintegrate those parts of me with therapy, I became less shamed. And I think the more you share your story with others, the less shame you hold. And the more opportunities you have to mirror a way of thinking about what happened to in other people so that they can see by example that sharing these things doesn’t destroy you. And I wouldn’t say that it’s ever done with generosity in mind, but it is done with a sense of pride now I feel really palpably. You know, when people talk about pride in the LGBTQ space, I feel that. Like I understand that. I never really understood why pride was involved. You know, pride is something that I grapple with in some ways because it feels like you’re being proud of yourself. But in this particular case, I think it’s more a sense of pride at being with a group of people that all experience and share something similar and the pride that you feel in that sharing and in that like-minded reality and in that sense of there being a justice and being who you are. 

Ellen McGirt That’s perfect. You make me wish such beautiful things for people Debbie you make me wish for a messy evolution you make me wish for more sharing you make me wish for more strength and resilience and you make me wish that everyone is planting more and more seeds because that will get us to a much better place. Debbie Millman thank you so much for joining me. What a delight. I love you. 

Debbie Millman I love you too, Ellen McGirt. Thank you. You are just a glorious human being. I meant what I said in 2019. 

Ellen McGirt You know, you made me feel so good. 

Debbie Millman But it’s true, you should. 

Ellen McGirt We love you too, Alexis. 

Ellen McGirt The Design of Business| The Business of Design is a podcast from Design Observer. Design Observer was co-founded by Jessica Helfand. Our show is written and produced by Alexis Haut. Our theme music is by Warner Meadows. Justin D. Wright of Seaplane Armada mixed and mastered this episode. Thanks always to Sheena Medina, Sarah Gephart, Rachel Paese and the entire Design Observer team. And for more long form content about the people redesigning our world, Please consider subscribing to our newsletters The Design of Business and The Observatory at designobserver.com