Sarah Gibson & Nicholas Karlovasitis leave uni, cram a fledgling furniture brand into a Newtown flat, and decide they are going to export Australian design to the world. That is the starting point for DesignByThem. In this episode we unpack how fifteen years later, they're actually pulling it off.

We talk about building a design brand from a tiny local market, backing Australian designers, and choosing factories around the world without losing the integrity of the work.

The conversation gets into IP, copies, pricing, cashflow, and why treating business as a design problem changed everything for them.If you care about turning design from a side project into a viable brand, this one is worth your time.

0:00 Intro

1:22 Why design still hooks them after all these years

3:00 Chasing ideas that make beautiful things accessible

4:08 Childhood Lego, pulling things apart and thinking like designers

5:11 Sarah’s path from obsessive floor plans to industrial design

6:10 Education, UTS and putting Australian industrial design on the map

7:34 Spotting the gap and founding DesignByThem as a collective

9:39 Building a platform for Australian designers not just a personal studio

11:02 Royalties, collaboration and why the best invoices go to other designers

13:08 Designers as business people and treating business like a design problem

15:09 Systems and spreadsheets

16:29 How they find designers and why so many wait to be discovered

19:29 Social media, saturation and why direct outreach still wins

21:35 Young designers, polish, missing knowledge and the AI trap

22:56 Why outsourcing the concept is a mistake and IP is everything

24:16 Using AI for the boring bits so more time goes into design

24:23 Sustainability, materials and designing for the full life cycle

27:15 Greenwashing, regulation and how far Australia needs to go

33:20 Working with architects and interiors and learning from clients

34:50 Feedback loops, data and using colour and custom work smartly

39:21 Australian craft as limitation and why they went global with manufacturing

41:42 Balancing local pride, accessibly priced products and global factories

43:52 Turning furniture design from a second job into a real career

45:03 Educating the public and putting the designer behind the product

50:03 How products, brands and spaces work together in the real world

53:12 Their Smart Design Studio workspace and why the setting matters

55:33 What they have learned, what they would change and why they still love coming to work