Shows / 99% Invisible
99% Invisible
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
99% InvisibleMini-Stories: Volume 11
In this set of short stories, 99% Invisible producers talked with host Roman Mars about everything from the Fresh Air Movement to the lost Lenin in Antarctica…
99% InvisibleMini-Stories: Volume 10
In this set of short stories, 99% Invisible producers talked with host Roman Mars about everything from climate-changing sheep to the persistent urban legend…
99% InvisibleMini-Stories: Volume 9
Each year, 99% Invisible producers select short design stories to talk about with host Roman Mars. Some of these were just too brief to make into full 99pi…
99% InvisibleRoman Mars on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn
Roman Mars joins Jesse Thorn on Bullseye this week to talk about life before podcasting, and what decades in radio has taught him. Roman has worked in podcasts…
99% InvisibleChapter 5: Housing Finally
If homelessness is the problem, housing is the solution. But it’s not always that simple. Kate Cody has been living in her encampment community for a long…
99% InvisibleChapter 4: The List
When Tulicia Lee tried to get help with housing, she was essentially put on a big long list with a bunch of other homeless people. If you live in the U.S…
99% InvisibleChapter 3: Housing First
In the 1980's, a psychologist named Sam Tsemberis was working with mentally ill homeless people on the streets of New York. Sometimes, when he thought it was…
99% InvisibleChapter 2: The Hotline
Katie Mingle heard a lot about 211 doing this reporting. Not just from Tulicia Lee who called a bunch of times, but from everyone—from homeless people and…
99% InvisibleChapter 1: Tulicia
When we think about homelessness, we often have a certain image in our mind—people pushing shopping carts, or big sprawling tent encampments. But for the vast…
99% InvisibleAccording to Need: Prologue
The way homelessness has exploded in California over the last decade, you’d think there was no system in place to address it. But there is one -- it just…
99% InvisibleAccording to Need coming December 1
According to Need is a documentary podcast in 5 chapters from 99% Invisible’s Katie Mingle that asks: What are we doing to get people into housing? Coming…
99% InvisibleThe Great Indoors
Emily Anthes is the author of The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behaviour, Health and Happiness, and she notes that even…
99% InvisibleSean Exploder
As you might know, we have our own composer here at 99pi named Sean Real who works with the producers to score our episodes with original music that she writes…
99% InvisibleIn The Unlikely Event
If you’ve ever flown on a plane, you’ve been directed to study the safety briefing card in your seatback pocket. Every passenger plane, commercial or private…
99% InvisibleYou've Got Enron Mail!
Enron collapsed nearly 20 years ago, but chances are something you use today was affected by emails sent by 150 of the company's top employees. These emails —…
99% InvisibleThe Lost Cities of Geo
Geocities was an online collection of metropolises, each with their own neighborhoods built around shared interests. The city metaphor helped make a whole new…
99% InvisibleTake a Walk
During publicity interviews for The 99% Invisible City someone asked us, “What is your favorite way to experience the city?” The answer is walking. If you have…
99% Invisible99pi Presents The Next Billion Users
This bonus episode is sponsored by Google’s Next Billion User Initiative. Every week millions of people come online for the very first time. And everyone – no…
99% InvisibleSign Stealing
In the early days of baseball, sign-stealing was almost like a game within the game. Teams and players would try all kinds of tricks to get a glimpse of what…
99% InvisibleFor the Love of Peat
When we think about carbon storage, we tend to think about forests, but peatlands are also incredible carbon sinks. In Europe, peatlands contain five times…
99% InvisibleExploring The 99% Invisible City
We're excited to celebrate the release of The 99% Invisible City book by host Roman Mars and producer Kurt Kohlstedt with a guided audio tour of beautiful…
99% InvisibleGoodnight Nobody
The unlikely battle between the creator of the New York Public Library children's reading room and the beloved children’s classic Goodnight Moon. Goodnight…
99% InvisibleThe Address Book
An address is something many people take for granted today, but they are in fact a fairly recent invention that has shaped our cities and taken on great…
99% InvisibleHighways 101
Icons and symbols and signage are all around us, and nowhere more so than on the open road. So for this episode of Ubiquitous Icons: hop in the car with Roman…
99% InvisibleWhere Do We Go From Here?
There have been many waves of panic and resistance to new people moving into the public sphere and needing accommodation. And a focus of that panic has often…
99% InvisiblePodcast Episode
After the 1970s oil crisis, the global economy went into a recession. American unemployment hit 11 percent. And suddenly, middle-class families didn’t have…
99% InvisibleThe Revolutionary Post (Repeat)
Winifred Gallagher, author of How the Post Office Created America argues that the post office is not simply an inexpensive way to send a letter. The service…
99% InvisiblePolicing the Open Road
Before the twentieth century, most Americans rarely came into contact with police officers. But with more and more drivers behind the wheel, police departments…
99% InvisibleCalifornia Love Scared Straight
Walter Thompson-Hernandez was just eleven years old when he was admitted to L.A.'s infamous Scared Straight program for graffiti related crimes. In this…
99% InvisibleValley of the Fallen
About an hour northwest of Madrid, an enormous stone crucifix rises 500 feet out of a rocky mountaintop. It’s so big you can see it from miles away. Beneath…
99% InvisibleThe Dolphin that Roared
When Emily Oberman found a flag of the island nation of Anguilla her father had helped design in her attic, she had no idea it was connected to one of the…
99% InvisibleA Side of Franchise
There are many books about McDonald’s that criticize the company for its many sins, and author Marcia Chatelain has read all of them. But her book comes at…
99% InvisibleFreedom House Ambulance Service
One night halfway through a graveyard shift at the hospital, orderly John Moon watched as two young men burst through the doors. They were working desperately…
99% InvisibleReturn of Oñate's Foot
All across the country, protestors have been tearing down old monuments. These monuments have been falling in the middle of historic protests against police…
99% InvisibleReturn of the Yokai
In the US, mascots are used to pump up crowds at sporting events, or for traumatizing generations of children at Chuck E. Cheese, but in Japan it’s different…
99% InvisibleInstant Gramification
If you’re on Instagram, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen a picture of one particular building called the Yardhouse. It was designed by the London-based…
99% InvisibleWedding Dresses: Articles of Interest #12
A wedding was once seen as a start of young adulthood. Now, a wedding has come to represent a crowning achievement -- a symbol that your whole life is together…
99% InvisibleDiamonds: Articles of Interest #11
Diamonds represent value, in all its multiple meanings: values, as in ethics, and value as in actual price. But what are these rocks actually worth? The ethics…
99% InvisibleSuits: Articles of Interest #10
Menswear can seem boring. If you look at any award show, most of the men are dressed in black pants and black jackets. This uniform design can be traced back…
99% InvisiblePerfume: Articles of Interest #9
The world of high end perfume is surprisingly lucrative, considering that scent is often the most ignored of our senses. But one can't judge a scent solely by…
99% InvisibleKnockoffs: Articles of Interest #8
Brands hold immense sway over both consumers and the American legal system. Few know this as well as Dapper Dan, who went from street hustler to fashion…
99% InvisibleA Fantasy of Fashion: Articles of Interest #7
In the wake of World War II, the government of France commissioned its most prominent designers to create a collection of miniature fashion dolls. It might…
99% InvisibleThe Natural Experiment
In general, the coronavirus shutdowns have been terrible for academic research. Trips have been canceled, labs have shut down, and long-running experiments…
99% InvisibleThe Smell of Concrete After Rain
There have been over 200,000 deaths as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. All have been tragic, but there are two people in particular we’ve lost due to…
99% InvisibleMasking for a Friend
Here in the US, we're not used to needing to cover half of our faces in public, but if you look at the other side of the world, it's a different story. In…
99% InvisibleUnsheltered in Place
99% Invisible producer Katie Mingle had already been working on a series about unhoused people in the Bay Area for over a year when the current pandemic began…
99% InvisibleWipe Out
If you have tried to buy toilet paper in the last few weeks, you might have found yourself staring at an empty aisle in the grocery store, wondering where all…
99% InvisibleThis Day in Esoteric Political History
In times like these, we could all use a little historical perspective. In this new podcast from Radiotopia, Jody Avirgan, political historian Nicole Hemmer…
99% InvisibleThis is Chance! Redux
It was the middle of the night on March 27, 1964. Earlier that evening, the second-biggest earthquake ever measured at the time had hit Anchorage, Alaska. Some…
99% InvisibleRoman Mars Describes Things As They Are
On this shelter-in-place edition of 99pi, Roman walks around his house and tells stories about the history and design of various objects Buy Beauty Pill…
99% InvisibleMap Quests: Political, Physical and Digital
The only truly accurate map of the world would be a map the size of the world. So if you want a map to be useful, something you can hold in your hands, you…
99% InvisibleThe Weather Machine
The weather can be a simple word or loaded with meaning depending on the context -- a humdrum subject of everyday small talk or a stark climactic reality full…
99% InvisibleOver the Road
At the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, drivers from all over the country converge each year to show off their chrome and exchange stories…
99% InvisibleFraktur
If you have ever caught even one minute of the history channel, you have seen fraktur. You’ve seen the font on Nazi posters, on Nazi office buildings, on Nazi…
99% InvisibleWhomst Among Us Has Let The Dogs Out
The story of how “Who Let The Dogs Out” ended up stuck in all of our brains goes back decades and spans continents. It tells us something about inspiration…
99% InvisibleMissing the Bus
If you heard that there was a piece of technology that could do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change, you might…
99% InvisibleThe Worst Video Game Ever
Deep within the National Museum of American History’s vaults is a battered Atari case containing what’s known as “the worst video game of all time.” The game…
- 99% Invisible
Their Dark Materials
Vantablack is a pigment that reaches a level of darkness that’s so intense, it’s kind of upsetting. It’s so black it’s like looking at a hole cut out of the…
99% InvisibleShade
Journalist Sam Bloch used to live in Los Angeles. And while lots of people move to LA for the sun and the hot temperatures, Bloch noticed a real dark side to…
99% InvisibleMini-Stories: Volume 8
This is part 2 of the 2019- 2020 mini-stories episodes where I interview the staff about their favorite little stories from the built world that don’t quite…