Design Better · The Curiosity Department, sponsored by Wix Studio

Matt Raw: Balancing legacy and innovation at The New York Times

·47 min·4 clips

Matt Raw explains why getting feedback from many stakeholders at The Times makes design work better, not worse.

Trust is the material. The excerpt presents Matt's work at The New York Times as a steady negotiation between a familiar institution and a future that keeps moving. The pressure is close to the craft. His team designs for millions of people who expect reliable information, shown clearly across the website, apps, and many platforms. The tone stays calm. Innovation is not treated as a dramatic break. It sounds more like careful work inside an institution, with designers helping people gather around a shared picture of what comes next. Editorial integrity sets the edges. Experimentation sits beside the clarity and credibility readers connect with The Times. Even small interface choices carry weight. The cold open points to how one product decision can hold institutional trust when culture and technology are shifting. Design becomes a way to convene people. Matt talks about designers bringing people around a table, then coming back each week with points of view, new work, and ideas that move the organization along. The craft also turns inward. Later, the conversation moves into controlled vocabulary, career frameworks, and the architecture of growth inside a design organization. Language does practical work. Clear terms help teams avoid confusion in design reviews, performance reviews, and the regular moments when shared meaning can start to drift. Career paths need structure as well. Matt connects architectural thinking to how designers progress, understand expectations, and find their footing over time. A sponsor break cuts through the thread. The ad reads and closing credits add some noise, but the core conversation stays focused on design as patient, human-scale institutional work.

As heard by us

A measured look at how The New York Times uses design leadership to modernize products while protecting reader trust.

Matt Raw's Design Better appearance is strongest when it treats design at The New York Times as an operating discipline, not a layer of polish.

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Why you'd press play

You want a thoughtful look at how a newsroom designs for trust without standing still.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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