This is Design School

On this episode, we talk with Frank Chimero, Creative Director at Fictive Kin, and author of the book ‘The Shape of Design’. Frank talks about how he found design by using it as a foothold to have a deeper relationship with the things he really enjoyed, how designers have the opportunity to teach a commitment and expectation of craft and quality to fellow disciplines, about the value in experience outside of efficiency, and how work and experiences are cyclical in nature.

On this episode, we talk with Mitzi Okou, a Senior Interaction Designer at Spotify and Founder of 'Where are the Black Designers.' Mitzi talks about her journey from studying classical music to UX Design, about how transparency begets a more forgiving culture, and her work in pushing the needle for diversity and representation so we truly don’t have to ask, “Where are the Black designers?” anymore.

On this episode, we talk with Catherine Lim and Jennifer Cheng. Catherine is a UX Researcher at 98point6, and Jennifer is a UX Lead Product Designer at IQVIA. Catherine and Jenn each talk about their journey to design, their shared critical lens on the design discipline, and their resistance to the pipeline of design school to the mainstream commercial industry. They also discuss how this critical lens, along with a funding opportunity and hearing an interview by an undocumented immigration activist, led to the motivation to create Archivo: A self documentation toolkit. Archivo, designed in partnership with Maru and local community partners, was a project which provided a guide for undocumented people to collect and organize paperwork to prove their continued presence in the U.S.

On this episode, we talk with Leisha Muraki, a Director of Brand Strategy at RORA, and a Lead in Brand Experience at MDMD. Leisha talks about how graduating in the middle of a financial recession forced her to take risks and work abroad in search of job security; how her experience building a career and practice in Venture Design shifted the judgement of design from aesthetics to strategy; and how the most important currency in the world is not capital but connection, including the connection with one’s self.

On this episode, we talk with Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, Dean of the School of Design Strategies, Associate Dean at Parsons School of Design, and the Conference Co-Chair of the Digitally Engaged Learning (DEL) Conference. Cynthia talks of being an artist who teaches design, and finding her way to the discipline through a passion of Art, a background in Electrical Engineering, and the worldview of growing up as a third culture kid. Cynthia discusses the practice and considerations of Integrated Design, including politicizing acts of helping, removing assumptions that you have what it takes to make someone else’s life better, and the importance of how we each represent history when walking into any given situation.