99% Invisible (Director's Cut)

Series produced by Roman Mars

Series image

Trying to comprehend the 99% invisible activity that shapes the design of our world.

A tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world. From producer Roman Mars and KALW in San Francisco.

In August 2012, 99% Invisible became the highest-funded journalism project in Kickstarter history, raising over $170,000 from 5661 backers.

With over 4 million downloads online, 99% Invisible recently peaked at #2 in iTunes ranking for all podcasts in the US, and had occupied the #1 spot in both the Arts and Design categories.

"Roman Mars lights the radio. His pieces conjure other worlds, grapple with big ideas, make sound three dimensional. They are smart and funny and original. The Kitchen Sisters would like to be Presidents of his Fan Club."
-The Kitchen Sisters, Peabody Award-winning producers for NPR

"We think what he’s doing is inspiring. It has a kind of rhythm and musicality that you don’t normally find in radio or podcast storytelling."
-Jad Abumrad, Radiolab

"I love the show. It's wonderful. [It] actually reminded me of why I love radio."
-Jonathan Goldstein, CBC's WireTap

"Mars is the Ira Glass of design."
-Allison Arieff, The New York Times Opinionator design columnist

Learn more: http://99percentinvisible.org Hide full description

A tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world. From producer Roman Mars and KALW in San Francisco.

In August 2012, 99% Invisible became the highest-funded journalism project in Kickstarter history, raising over $170,000 from 5661 backers.

With over 4 million downloads online, 99% Invisible recently peaked at #2 in iTunes ranking for all podcasts in the US, and had occupied the #1 spot in both the Arts and Design categories. "Roman Mars lights the radio. His pieces conjure other worlds, grapple with big ideas, make sound three dimensional. They are smart and funny and original. The Kitchen Sisters would like to be Presidents of his Fan Club." -The Kitchen Sisters, Peabody Award-winning producers for NPR "We think what he’s doing... Show full description


197 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
99% Invisible #307-Immobile Homes (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
"Part of the paradox at the heart of manufactured housing is that it's precisely the thing that makes it so affordable that also makes this a highl...

Bought by KZYX and KZMU Moab Community Radio


  • Added: May 25, 2018
  • Length: 21:53
  • Purchases: 2
99% Invisible #308-Curb Cuts (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
If you live in an American city and you don’t personally use a wheelchair, it’s easy to overlook the small ramp at most intersections, between the ...

Bought by ABC, WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass., and KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: May 25, 2018
  • Length: 31:29
  • Purchases: 3
99% Invisible #300-Airships And The Future That Never Was (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
Today, blimps are mostly just PR gimmicks, but for over a century, lighter-than-air crafts have been backed by large companies and, at times, whole...

Bought by KZYX, WDBM, PRX Remix, and KMRE-LP Bellingham, Wash.


  • Added: Jun 05, 2018
  • Length: 14:40
  • Purchases: 4
99% Invisible #310-77 Steps (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
As the U.S. war effort ramped up in the early 1940s, the needed a chair that was fireproof, waterproof, lightweight and strong enough to survive a ...

Bought by KMRE-LP Bellingham, Wash.


  • Added: Jun 06, 2018
  • Length: 17:08
  • Purchases: 1
99% Invisible #311-The Barney Design (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
In hindsight, the notable part of the game wasn’t how the two teams played, but the way they looked. The Bulls were dressed in red jerseys with the...

Bought by KMRE-LP Bellingham, Wash. and WOUB


  • Added: Jun 14, 2018
  • Length: 15:52
  • Purchases: 2
99% Invisible #312-Post-Narco Urbanism (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
Medellin, Colombia, once overshadowed by drug lord Pablo Escobar, went from being the bloody cocaine capital of the world into a place that’s often...

  • Added: Jun 26, 2018
  • Length: 24:05
99% Invisible #313-Right To Roam (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
Young ramblers of Manchester set in motion changes that would transform how England thinks about private property. The Kinder Scout trespass has be...

Bought by ABC and WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass.


  • Added: Jun 28, 2018
  • Length: 21:58
  • Purchases: 2
99% Invisible #314-Interrobang (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
In his article “Making a New Point...," ad man and type nerd Martin Speckter proposed the first new mark of English language punctuation in 300 yea...

  • Added: Jul 24, 2018
  • Length: 16:33
99% Invisible #316-The Shipping Forecast (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
Four times every day, on radios all across the United Kingdom, a BBC announcer begins reading from a seemingly indecipherable script. “And now the ...

Bought by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation


  • Added: Aug 02, 2018
  • Length: 16:10
  • Purchases: 1
99% Invisible #317-Built To Burn (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
When Jack Cohen studied wildfires, he discovered that houses that had burned down were surrounded by green trees. This made him radically rethink h...

Bought by WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass., KBUT Crested Butte, Colo., and KPIK-LP


  • Added: Aug 02, 2018
  • Length: 28:05
  • Purchases: 3
99% Invisible #318-Fire and Rain (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
The Thomas Fire burned more than 280,000 acres. It eventually burned into the still-fresh scars from other recent fires and simply put itself out. ...

Bought by KBUT Crested Butte, Colo. and PRX Remix


  • Added: Aug 21, 2018
  • Length: 25:57
  • Purchases: 2
99% Invisible #321-Double Standards (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
In 2017 alone over 12,500 Asian Americans had double eyelid surgery. Given the history of the procedure, it makes sense that some people in the U.S...

  • Added: Sep 04, 2018
  • Length: 19:28
99% Invisible #323-The House That Came In The Mail (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
The thousands of pages in a vintage Sears catalog are like a snapshot of the world as it was a century ago. And starting in 1908, the company that ...

Bought by KZYX


  • Added: Sep 24, 2018
  • Length: 23:07
  • Purchases: 1
99% Invisible #322-The First Straw (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
A straw is a simple thing. It’s a tube, a conveyance mechanism for liquid. The defining characteristic of the straw is the emptiness inside it. Thi...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Sep 11, 2018
  • Length: 19:00
  • Purchases: 1
99% Invisible #324-Billboard Boys: The Greatest Radio Contest Of All Time (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
For the contest, three people would ascend 30 up a ladder to a platform running under a WSAN billboard. Whoever stayed up the longest would walk aw...

Bought by KHNS


  • Added: Sep 24, 2018
  • Length: 22:44
  • Purchases: 1
99% Invisible #325-The Worst Way To Start A City (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
In the 1860s and 1870s, white settlers from the areas around Indian Territory — like Kansas and Texas — started to realize that there was vast piec...

  • Added: Oct 19, 2018
  • Length: 22:19
99% Invisible #326-Welcome To Jurassic Art (Director's Cut)
From: Roman Mars
Series: 99% Invisible (Director's Cut)
Piece image
Dinosaurs used to be depicted as big, dumb, cold-blooded reptiles. They were thought of as evolutionary failures destined for extinction. And that ...

Bought by KZYX and PRX Remix


  • Added: Oct 26, 2018
  • Length: 20:01
  • Purchases: 2

Playlists That Feature This Series: