99% Invisible

Podcast

99% Invisible

Roman Mars

834 episodesen-us
Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we've just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars. Learn more at 99percentinvisible.org.

Episodes

687. The Problem With Football Helmets

Football helmets can prevent devastating injuries, but they may also help make an inherently violent game feel safer than it really is.
Oct 13, 202643m

686. (Not Just) Another Brick in the Wall

A closer look at the messy, beautiful bricks hiding across Chicago.
Oct 6, 202628m

100 Objects #20: AA Sobriety Chip

Imbued in the Alcoholics Anonymous sobriety chip is a hidden history of America’s relationship to gender, religion, and morality.
Oct 2, 202652m

685. Tootle of a Devilish Song

How a Swiss mountain call crossed the Atlantic and helped define the sound of country music.
Sep 29, 202632m

100 Objects #19: Western Electric 500 Series

Former MythBuster Adam Savage joins Roman Mars to explore the history of the 500 Series Telephone and what we lost when we eventually decided to leave it behind.
Sep 25, 202638m

684. The Rocky Statue

How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged.
Sep 22, 202632m

100 Objects #18: Hair Relaxer

How a single product—the hair relaxer—became a mirror for all of America's contradictions.
Sep 18, 202635m

683. Doves Type

A legendary typeface, a spectacular friendship breakup, and one extremely committed act of revenge.
Sep 15, 202637m

100 Objects #17: M43 Field Jacket

How should the military outfit its soldiers to make them as safe and effective as possible?
Sep 11, 202641m

682. Kobuk the Destroyer

Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.
Sep 8, 202638m

100 Objects #16: Wheel of Fortune Dalmatian

How the ceramic Dalmatian became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows.
Sep 4, 202646m

681. 1-800-PODCAST

This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.
Sep 1, 202643m

100 Objects #15: Bundy Clock

How the time clock not only ignited a revolution in workplace efficiency and surveillance, but transformed our relationship to time itself.
Aug 28, 202637m

680. Spolia

Spolia, from a Liverpool neighborhood to ancient Rome.
Aug 25, 202628m

100 Objects #14: Basketball Sleeve

Producer and reporter Ramtin Arablouei has a simple question: Why are so many NBA players wearing a compression sleeve on their arm?
Aug 21, 202641m

679. The Bone Wars

Two rival paleontologists turn a hunt for dinosaur bones into an all-out scientific war.
Aug 18, 202644m

100 Objects #13: The Sand Letters

Comedian Elliott Kalan joins Roman Mars to tell the story of how a politician who owed so much to a corrupt government system became the one to dismantle it, thanks to one woman: Julia Isabella Sand.
Aug 14, 202648m

678. Bamboo Is Innocent

A devastating fire put one of Hong Kong's oldest building traditions on trial, but the real story runs much deeper.
Aug 11, 202632m

100 Objects #12: "Negro Cloth"

Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Negro cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by.
Aug 7, 202637m

677. The Borrowed Nature of Biomimicry

Behind every perfect nature-inspired design is a far more complicated story.
Aug 4, 202631m