99% Invisible is a show about the designs and ideas that are almost unnoticeable in their ubiquity to all but the most attentive; the mistakes, marvels and mockeries that worked their way so keenly into life that they have rendered themselves utterly unconsidered. A fabulous salute to these elements of everyday architecture, this podcast is a very special corner of the internet.
Mr Roman Mars
For a show so wide-reaching and ambitious, this podcast requires a great host to ably introduce, elaborate and select these meanders into the ignorable monuments of human life. Luckily, Roman Mars constantly proves his excellence through his clear dedication, consideration and thoughtfulness that are vital to the magic of the shows imagination, majesty and scope. He brings the show a gravitas and sense of melodic harmony the envy of many of his peers, offering as it does this almost musical window into the podcasts’s central events, rendering them instantly vital and engaging. His goal of illuminating these forgotten corners of mans architecture is fabulously pursued through exploring not only the stories behind the objects, but the individuals who envisioned these creations as well. And since 99% Invisible is set around the concept of stumbling across pieces of forgotten pieces of human detritus, design and misadventure, these stories become more fascinating through their sheer rareness as much as their innate intrigue. Mars’ cause is further aided by the people around him, who find the stories waiting to be told, bringing their own perspectives and styles on the phenomena they are discussing, considering the reasons, rationales and reflections on these things so frequently ignored by humans. Through this mixture of storytelling manners the podcast becomes a captivating ride through the people who made the things the way they are, needless to mention how the objects, places and ideas shaped the people who live with them in turn.
Mars, Roman Mars.
Another of 99% Invisible’s great feats is it’s variety. Not limited to designed objects, Mars’ reach extends as much into places and concepts equally elegantly: widening the field to consider design as a concept, rather than a process. To have such an eye and ear for the stuff that goes unnoticed by almost everyone else in everyday life, the odds and sods of things, places and ideas that are created for specific purposes, some intricately designed, others simply thrown together; the items that are imagined and whose imagining is forgotten the moment they seep into the everyday process of existence, requires an extraordinarily precise vision for story telling and narrative crafting, both of which Mars has an inestimable knack. For so many of these elements their creation is forgotten, their inventors uncredited, their very existence taken as a given. But not by 99% Invisible! A podcast whose heroic task is seemingly to find and explain as many of these creations as possible, and a job they pull off with aplomb.
Fabulous and forever insightful, 99% Invisible is as much feat as it is podcast, a grand uncovering of forgotten history that is almost as wonderful as the things they discuss. The shows hub is over at 99percentinvisible.org, where you can read episode summaries and find out more about everything, whilst you can find Roman Mars tweeting through the pseudonym @romanmars.