Scott Dadich
Abstract: The Art of Design – A New Series About Visionary Designers
Scott Dadich
Keynote Speaker
Co-Founder and CEO Godfrey Dadich Partners (GDP); Editor-in-Chief, WIRED (2012-2016); Vice President, Editorial Platforms and Design, Condé Nast (2010-2012); Creative Director, WIRED (2006-2010)
Widely recognized for his leadership and technology design expertise, Scott Dadich shares with audiences the future of technology design and how utilizing "The Wrong Theory" can lead to groundbreaking results.
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Scott Dadich's speaking fee: $25K - $40K
Scott Dadich is a designer, filmmaker, and journalist whose work has shaped some of the most influential stories of the past two decades. In 201, Fast Company named him one of the “50 Most Influential Designers in America.” In 2020, he received the National Design Award for Communication Design — the field’s highest honor — from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
As co-founder and CEO of Godfrey Dadich Partners (GDP), he spent nearly a decade leading the firm at the forefront of brand storytelling and strategic communications. He partnered with visionary leaders at Apple, Disney, Google, IBM, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Microsoft, National Geographic, Netflix, Nike, the Obama Foundation, Palo Alto Networks, Sony, and others to craft narratives that clarify purpose, shift markets, and move culture.
Leading GDP, Dadich pioneered The New Editorial — a methodology that combines journalistic rigor, narrative craft, and design as a strategic tool for solving complex problems. He and his teams became trusted advisors to CEOs, CMOs, and heads of state, translating complexity into clarity and strategy into story.
Previously, as Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director of WIRED, he led a period of editorial and business reinvention that spanned more than a decade. Under his leadership, WIRED won three consecutive National Magazine Awards for design and was widely credited with redefining the visual and editorial future of digital publishing at Condé Nast. Dadich is one of only three journalists to have interviewed both President Barack Obama, while in office, and Edward Snowden in exile in Moscow — offering a rare dual portrait of power, technology, and the future of freedom.
“Abstract: The Art of Design”, the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Dadich created and executive-produced, explores a deceptively simple question: what is design? Through intimate profiles of the world’s most renowned creatives — from architects and illustrators to sneaker designers and stage builders — the series takes viewers inside the minds and processes of those shaping the visual and functional world around us. Abstract sparked global conversation, drew critical acclaim, and earned three Emmy nominations along with the International Documentary Association award for Best Episodic Series. It even inspired the ultimate cultural compliment: a parody from Comedy Central.
A sought-after voice on the future of design, storytelling, and innovation, Dadich has spoken at Aspen Ideas Festival, MoMA, TED, SXSW, Semi-Permanent, DesignThinkers, and The Brand New Conference. He has led private forums for leadership teams, investors, and boards at 3M, Adobe, Apple, Dropbox, IBM, Instagram, Johnson&Johnson, Netflix, Nike, and Pinterest. His work has been featured in Adweek, Creative Review, Design Week, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Variety, and Politico, among others.
Dadich’s most recent films include “American Family | A Film About Freedom” (DNC, 2024), created for Vice President Kamala Harris, and “The Gift of Time” (Seiko, 2024), a poetic meditation on creativity, legacy, and the meaning of time.
Featured Videos
Scott Dadich
Abstract: The Art of Design – A New Series About Visionary Designers
Scott Dadich’s Speech Topics
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The Wrong Theory
For the past 30 years, the field of technology design has been on an industry-wide march toward more seamless experiences, more delightful products, more leverage over the world around us. Look at our computers: beige and boxy desktop machines gave way to bright and colorful iMacs, which gave way to sleek and sexy laptops, which gave way to addictively touchable smartphones. It’s hard not to look back at this timeline and see it as a great story of human progress; we have created a world where beautifully constructed tech is more powerful and more accessible than ever before. It is also more consistent. That’s why all smartphones now look basically the same—gleaming black glass with handsomely cambered edges. Google, Apple, and Microsoft all use clean, sans-serif typefaces in their respective software. After years of experimentation, we have figured out what people like and settled on some rules. Today is an important and exciting moment in the design of our technologies. We have figured out the rules of creating sleek sophistication. We know, more or less, how to get it right. Now, we need a shift in perspective that allows us to move forward. Scott Dadich calls this shift “The Wrong Theory”, and in a fascinating and provocative presentation argues that the future of design is centered in making decisions counter to widely accepted convention.
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The Future of Technology
In this presentation, Dadich discusses in detail the new discipline of “experience design.” We’re entering a new era, one in which designers create experiences centering not only on physical objects but on the fabric of digital information that surrounds us. That’s the next great challenge for design: weaving the threads of time, of technology, information, and access seamlessly and elegantly into our everyday lives. When a social network automatically checks us into a location, or cashiers can suggest new products based on our purchase history, or our connected TV calls up our favorite shows when we walk into the living room, it may seem like magic. But these are carefully designed experiences, they simply appear invisible.
Scott Dadich Topics & Types
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