Michael Graves
American architect and designerWikipedia
41
MENTIONS
17
EPISODES
17
PODCASTS
Search complete. 41 mentions across 17 episodes found for "Michael Graves".
Oct 29, 2026
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And so for my whole career, I'd been imagining things to do with teams.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And at Target, that was to bring good design to everybody through a partnership with Michael Graves.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
At Apple, that was to launch the Apple stores.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
It was to help launch products like the iPhone.
23 MINS LATER
Ron JohnsonGUEST
I just couldn't stop staring at it.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
It was the most beautiful tea kettle.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And it was designed by a guy named Michael Graves and produced by an Italian company called Lessie.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
It was like $149.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
Now, Target had a lot of good people, but they were kind of skeptics.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
Now, you'd bring up, like, Michael Graves.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
I had so much pushback when I wanted to bring Michael Graves to design products for Target.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
People were saying, oh, you can't do that.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
We're in a fight with Walmart.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
That'll make us look expensive.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
Who knows Michael Graves? What is design? We sell fashion and we sell basics.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
No one under, you know, just on and on.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
That might make us preferred.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And so I launched at that time the first ever partnership where we retained an architect, Michael Graves, to design products for Target.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And then we went and sourced them with our power to manufacture goods, which we knew how to do.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And we didn't just go out there and put in two or three items.
Jerome DwightHOST
And How was that? Like, how did you find the courage to to actually, you know, present something that was, you know, quite disruptive, but unique?
Ron JohnsonGUEST
It was it was for me, it was the issue people had a target was Walmart's winning on price.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
So now we go put on the cover of our circular, Michael Graves design, tea kettles, you know, all these, you know, we're going the other way, you know, they thought it would really miss position target.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
But I just knew with every bone in my body, that these people were shopping target for everyday items and health and beauty and kids clothes but they weren't buying their home goods there and we just got to get a higher share wallet right but but the way i i got everyone to agree to this is i i did a lot of little homework so if you think about it back then even today target carries like 30 toasters well i counted up and walmart only carried 25. so and all of our toasters were between 9.99 and 15 dollars Well, it's just confusion.
BillHOST
So there've been a couple architecture firms that have had like an industrial design practice within them.
BillHOST
The other one that comes to mind is Michael Graves with like the teapots and everything.
BillHOST
But yeah, uh paul flew cray you wouldn't necessarily think of it because he was very much a classicist at the time but by by the time he dies the firm is starts doing more modernist and more art deco designs um and then by the time they're in like the 60s they're just totally modernist at the time um So the story I like to tell is that they helped with the design of the Patco cars in the 60s, H2L2.
BillHOST
And so the cool thing with that is it got this kind of black front to them.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
Different things.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And then I was lucky enough to come to Princeton to work for Michael Graves, where I got to work on museums, high rises, a couple of large developments, and also product design, which... opened my eyes and, and really, um, I woke up one day and realized my daughter, my oldest was 13.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And if I was ever going to get my business going, it was, it was time because most businesses, you know, either in the first five years.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And I figured that would give me five years and I'd be able to, um, put myself in a position where college and all that would be able to be covered.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And, um, So I gave my notice at Michael Graves and I opened my firm.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And with the interest of... of doing everything and doing anything and, uh, started in a windowless office with just me and my computer.
Joshua ZinderGUEST
And, uh, shortly after I had four or five projects and I realized I needed to bring some people on because I didn't want to be a cad jockey.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
Now that design could command the markup of fashion, but it never had to be marked down because good design by definition is timeless.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And so we launched an initiative at home with Michael Graves to bring design to the masses.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And it was a huge hit.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
It was a huge hit.
Luke JonesHOST
Yeah.
George GingellHOST
But I don't think Michael Graves had done much that was...
George GingellHOST
Well, anyway, a lot of what we would think of as postmodernist had not been built, but also the word, the term meant its kind of constituent components at the time, things after modernism-
Luke JonesHOST
Yeah
53 MINS LATER
Luke JonesHOST
Yeah
George GingellHOST
...
George GingellHOST
Michael Graves and TVM and Aldo Rossi and-
Luke JonesHOST
So there's a s- I think it's maybe the third edition has, um, Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia, uh, from New Orleans on the front, which I think is...
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And that would be design.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
Because there were items that had been emerging, like the Alessi Michael Graves tea kettle.
Paula PantHOST
Right.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
That had been the icon in New York in the 1980s.
Paula PantHOST
And that sold for $150.
Paula PantHOST
Mm-hmm.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And our highest priced tea kettle at Target was $9.99. What if we could do a Michael Graves tea kettle for $30? That'd be an incredible value.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And it would be probably priced about where Crate and Barrel starts their tea kettles.
Vijay DamojipurapuHOST
Right.
Ron JohnsonGUEST
And we did design for all 'cause I, you know, I asked a question one day, "Why does good design have to be expensive? What if everyone could have access to good design?" And created a partnership with Michael Graves, and how we presented the products, how we reached out and taught people about something new applied to how we presented products at Apple-
Vijay DamojipurapuHOST
Yeah
Ron JohnsonGUEST
... and how we talked about the Mac.
Bill GallagherHOST
He's the creator of the Apple Store and the Genius Bar, fastest retail concept ever to a billion in annual sales.
Bill GallagherHOST
He brought design to the masses at Target, at Target with Michael Graves, and, uh, he was the former CEO of JCPenney also.
Bill GallagherHOST
And, uh, he's got a background in economics from Stanford, Harvard MBA.
Bill GallagherHOST
He's a first-time author here with his book, Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius.
7 more episodes mention Michael Graves.
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