Season 2: Episode 12 – Krishnaa Nair, Colin Chan, Meredith Bond, Noah Ahrens

How well are we preparing our design students for a career? Do we talk about climate and sustainability enough or effectively? What are our design students thinking and feeling about their education and future? Marc O'Brien guest hosts and learns from four California College of the Arts (CCA) design students about their insights into those questions and ideas to improve design education in part two of this two-part series called Climate Design in the Big World.

Krishnaa Nair is an Indian digital artist from Haryana, born in Gujrat. She attends California College of the Arts and lives in the Bay Area. She enjoys art directing, creating visual identities for brands, collaborating with other artists, and finding unique, exciting new ways to solve problems.

Colin Chan is a product designer and an advocate for good. Based in San Francisco, CA. He traveled far from his home in Singapore to pursue the ability to inject his enthusiasm for technologies and human-centered interaction into a force of change. He believes in designing experiences in the way we want to treat others and ourselves. Colin’s philosophies guide his practice of learning, engaging, and re-learning again in the field of user experience while continually informing his values in applying truth, empathy, and compassion to problem-solving. Moving from communications to art, he is currently pursuing a BFA in Interaction Design at California College of the Arts with a minor in Computational Practices. He’s open to opportunities to learn, grow and serve meaningfully in this field and, more importantly, be part of a force for change.

Meredith Bond is a mixed-media artist and designer who loves scavenging for hidden things, trying out every idea, and being unrestrained in her work. She loves taking new routes, whether that be in her sketches or on the bus exploring the city, where she can find a good cafe or a funny hat shop. Where will she go next?

Noah Ahrens is a graduating interaction designer from San Francisco attending California College of the Arts. He grew up around California, mostly living in San Diego where he enjoys surfing when he's offline. Noah has previously worked at Capital One as a user experience designer and currently works for Heymarket on the design team. From a young age, Noah developed a passion for design on both visual and systemic levels. He aims to design by exploring and solving problems by focusing on improving individual lives as well as society as a whole.

Theme music by Casual Motive

At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.

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