Hillary Coe: Emmy Award-winning designer, certified commercial pilot, astronaut candidate, and drag-racing record holder on designing for SpaceX and Vast

Design Better

Visit our Substack for a video of the live interview, transcript, and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/hillary-coe

This is our 100th episode of Design Better. 🥳 It’s an amazing milestone! Whether you’ve been with us for years or you’re brand new to the show, thanks for listening and supporting our work.

We saved something very special for our 100th episode: a live episode with Hillary Coe, formerly a design leader at SpaceX who is now leading design at Vast, who are building commercial space stations.

When we first learned about Hillary, we weren’t entirely sure she was a real person: currently Chief Design & Marketing Officer for Vast and working on the world’s first commercial space station, Hilary was a design leader for SpaceX and creative director for Apple and Google, a certified commercial pilot, astronaut candidate, drag racing record holder and advocate for young women and men entering STEM fields: how can so many talents and accomplishments be wrapped up in a single human being?

But Hillary is real—we’re lucky enough to have her here with us today for a very special live episode of Design Better at NYCxDesign Festival, resented in partnership with Automattic—makers of Wordpress— and Wert&Co—who have for decades connected inspiring brands and incredible talent.

Space exploration has transformed from a big government program to a global commercial enterprise. As we increase our presence among the stars, there’s a role for design to play in shaping our experience. Who better to help us understand design in space than Hillary Coe, Chief Design & Marketing Officer at Vast who are making commercial space stations.

Bio

Hillary Coe is an Emmy award-winning design leader employing bold, multi-platform innovations to solve the world’s greatest challenges. As SpaceX's first Director of Design, she defined the visual strategy and narrative for human spaceflight in the 21st century while leading efforts to conceptualize human experience for current and future spacecraft. As Chief Design & Marketing Officer at Vast her mission continues with the development of a permanent human presence in space, and the world’s first Commercial Space Station.

Outside of aerospace, her background in design leadership extends to Google mobile AR, Apple Watch fitness and ground-up product development for the high speed satellite internet service Starlink.

Outside of her career, she is a commercial pilot, astronaut candidate, drag racing record holder and advocate for young women and men entering STEM fields. More specifically, her humanitarian efforts include working with the Department Of Education on the National STEM Challenge and advising XPRIZE on new ways to incentivize radical breakthroughs that move humanity forward.

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