Time feels natural. Constant. Inevitable.

But the way we experience time today is almost entirely invented.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore how time went from something humans observed, sunrise, seasons, cycles, to something we track, schedule, owe, and feel constantly behind on.

For most of history, time was local and flexible. An “hour” changed with the seasons. Noon was simply when the sun was highest where you stood. That all broke in the 19th century, when railroads needed synchronized schedules and consistency became a matter of safety. In 1883, American rail companies quietly erased local time, resetting clocks nationwide in an event later called “The Day of Two Noons.” Time became infrastructure before anyone voted on it.

From church bells to factory whistles, punch clocks to atomic clocks, this episode traces how time evolved into a system of coordination, productivity, and control. We look at how industrialization turned time into money, how precision created anxiety, and how modern life layered calendars, deadlines, and notifications onto a natural phenomenon that was never meant to feel this rigid.

Time isn’t just physics.

It’s culture.

It’s design.

It's construct.

And most of the stress we associate with it comes from systems less than two hundred years old.

The next time you feel rushed, behind, or like there’s never enough time, remember: you’re not failing at something natural. You’re navigating a design, one built for order and efficiency, not peace or presence.

That’s Curious by Design.

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You probably didn’t mean to look.

But something landed anyway.

In this special episode of Curious by Design, we explore why billboards look the way they do, and how they became one of the most effective attention-capture systems ever created.

Unlike street signs, billboards don’t guide or instruct. They interrupt. They live in shared space, competing for a fraction of your attention while you’re driving, thinking, or simply passing through. And they do it using principles discovered more than a century ago.

From painted ads along railroad lines to massive displays on interstate highways, billboards evolved alongside predictable movement. As trains, then cars, created steady streams of passing eyes, advertisers learned a critical lesson: at speed, people don’t read, they sample. Design shifted accordingly. Fewer words. Bigger shapes. High contrast. Faces. Repetition.

This episode breaks down the biology behind billboard design, why contrast grabs attention, why faces are impossible to ignore, why motion triggers awareness, and why familiarity often works better than persuasion. We look at how digital billboards borrowed the brain’s sensitivity to movement, why cities regulate how fast they can change, and why some places decided the tradeoff simply wasn’t worth it.

Billboards don’t wait for permission.

They rely on proximity.

And they work because attention doesn’t need consent, just exposure.

The next time something sticks in your mind long after you’ve passed it, remember: the most effective billboard isn’t the one you recall seeing. It’s the one that feels familiar later.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Street signs are so effective that you barely notice them.

You stop.

You slow down.

You go.

Often without remembering why.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore how street signs became one of the most successful behavior-control systems ever created—and why their shapes, colors, fonts, and symbols look exactly the way they do.

Before standardized signs, roads were negotiated spaces. Eye contact mattered more than rules. But when automobiles arrived in the early 20th century, speed turned misunderstanding into danger. Governments quickly realized they couldn’t rely on judgment alone. They had to design behavior.

This episode breaks down the hidden science behind street signs: why stop signs are octagons, why warning signs are diamonds, why red interrupts your brain, why yellow demands attention, and why highway fonts are engineered rather than designed. We look at how psychology, human perception, and reaction time shaped every detail—and why familiarity often wins over improvement, even when better options exist.

Street signs don’t work because you read them.

They work because your brain reacts to them faster than conscious thought.

The next time you stop at a red light or slow down without remembering why, remember this: you didn’t make that decision alone. You responded to a design refined over more than a century to guide human behavior quietly, automatically, and at scale.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Time feels natural. Constant. Inevitable.

But the way we experience time today is almost entirely invented.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore how time went from something humans observed, sunrise, seasons, cycles, to something we track, schedule, owe, and feel constantly behind on.

For most of history, time was local and flexible. An “hour” changed with the seasons. Noon was simply when the sun was highest where you stood. That all broke in the 19th century, when railroads needed synchronized schedules and consistency became a matter of safety. In 1883, American rail companies quietly erased local time, resetting clocks nationwide in an event later called “The Day of Two Noons.” Time became infrastructure before anyone voted on it.

From church bells to factory whistles, punch clocks to atomic clocks, this episode traces how time evolved into a system of coordination, productivity, and control. We look at how industrialization turned time into money, how precision created anxiety, and how modern life layered calendars, deadlines, and notifications onto a natural phenomenon that was never meant to feel this rigid.

Time isn’t just physics.

It’s culture.

It’s design.

And most of the stress we associate with it comes from systems less than two hundred years old.

The next time you feel rushed, behind, or like there’s never enough time, remember: you’re not failing at something natural. You’re navigating a design, one built for order and efficiency, not peace or presence.

That’s Curious by Design.

Why would a space meant for privacy be designed to feel so exposed?

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore the uncomfortable history behind American bathroom stalls, and why the gaps, open bottoms, and half-closed doors were never an accident.

The modern stall emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when rapidly growing cities were battling disease outbreaks like cholera and typhoid. Public bathrooms weren’t designed for comfort. They were built for sanitation, airflow, inspection, and control. Fully enclosed stalls trapped moisture, hid problems, and slowed maintenance. Open designs solved those issues, and privacy became negotiable.

As standardized partitions, building codes, and industrial manufacturing took over, that compromise hardened into infrastructure. What started as a public-health solution became the default, repeated across schools, airports, offices, and stadiums for decades.

This episode looks at how a century-old fear of disease, combined with efficiency and oversight, quietly shaped one of the most universally awkward design experiences we still live with, and why changing it has taken so long.

The next time you’re standing in a public restroom, staring at a door that almost closes, remember: you’re not seeing careless design. You’re seeing a historical tradeoff that worked… and never went away.

That’s Curious by Design.

It’s not alphabetical.

It’s not intuitive.

And it wasn’t even designed to help humans type better.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore the strange history of the QWERTY keyboard—a layout created in the 1870s to prevent early typewriters from breaking. What began as a mechanical workaround became a global standard, not because it was the best option, but because everything else grew around it.

From jammed metal arms to typing schools, job requirements, and modern computers, QWERTY is a case study in path dependence: how early design decisions can shape the future long after their original purpose disappears.

The next time you type a message or send an email, remember, you’re using a solution to a problem that no longer exists… carried forward by habit, familiarity, and momentum.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Every product, city, system, and business around us didn’t just happen.

It was designed, by people, under constraints, making tradeoffs.

Curious by Design is a podcast about how things get built, and why they end up the way they do.

In this short trailer, host Jason Hardwick introduces the idea behind the show: exploring the hidden decisions, historical moments, and design choices that quietly shape our everyday lives. From technology and infrastructure to culture and systems we rarely question, each episode starts with curiosity and follows it deeper than expected.

If you’ve ever looked at something and thought, “Why did they do it this way?”

You’re in the right place.

Welcome to Curious by Design.