Grace Bonney

Grace Bonney is an author, blogger, entrepreneur, and Founder of the interior design blog, DesignSponge.

Bonney founded Design*Sponge in 2004. The blog focuses on the creative community, with the goal of making the art and design world personal. It is dedicated to intersectional and inclusive conversations about design and cultural issues.

She also wrote the DIY interior design book DesignSponge at Home (2009). In 2016, Bonney wrote the New York Times Best Seller In The Company of Women, a book featuring more than 100 stories about women entrepreneurs who overcame adversity.

Grace founded the D*S Biz Ladies Series in 2008, which began as a national series of meetups for women running creative businesses. The series now lives on as a weekly column on the site where business owners can receive free advice and guidance on setting up and growing their creative businesses.

From 2013-2015 Grace hosted a radio show, After the Jump, dedicated to exploring the bigger issues within the creative community. From interviews with artists and makers to investigative shows on deeper topics like branding, social media, pricing and hiring employees, the show was one of the highest rated design podcasts on-air and drew an average of 500,000 listeners per show.

In 2018, she also began publishing the magazine Good Company: Where Creativity Meets Business.

Bonney's DesignSponge blog was officially closed on August 30, 2019, the site's 15th birthday.

Grace was named as one of The Frederick Douglass 200 by the Guardian in 2018, a list of 200 people who best embody the spirit and work of Frederick Douglass. She was also called a “Martha Stewart for Millennials” by The New York Times and was named a "Top Home Influencer of 2017" by Forbes Magazine. She has been a featured guest on Good Morning America, The Nate Berkus Show, The Martha Stewart Show, NBC’s The Chew, Martha Stewart Radio Show, American Public Radio, and Marie Forleo TV.

Grace has been a keynote speaker with a wide variety of organizations ranging from design schools and trade organizations to design guilds and national corporations, like Target, Ann Taylor, Oracle, BlogHer, Blogtacular, IDS, IDSA, and Weapons of Mass Creation.