Climify

What are the best strategies to co-design in a community to create positive change? How can the designers’ work better reflect the aesthetics, lifestyles, and values of a predominately BIPOC community?Anika Goss, from Detroit Future City joins Eric to share how her organization co-designs with the people of Detroit to tackle, in particular, the Drawdown Climate Solution Sector of Food, Agriculture, and Land Use. In addition, Anika details the history of Detroit, from its renaissance to redlining, and from a riot to rebirth; showcasing current neighborhoods that are becoming beacons of hope as Detroit co-creates a more climate resilient and equitable city.

Have you ever felt helpless as an advocate for climate at your job or wondered where to find good paying jobs in climate action? If so, then this episode of Climify is for you!Jamie Beck Alexander, from Drawdown Labs, joins Eric to kick off Season 3 of Climify where each episode is themed by one of the Drawdown Climate Solution Sectors. In this first episode, Jamie shares her journey into climate activism (and how you can follow her lead), the mission of Project Drawdown, how she helped get big businesses to support the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and most importantly why “every job is a climate job”.

Welcome to season three of Climify! This season, I'm talking to women across the globe who are at the forefront of climate science and climate action. Each guest is a thought leader in one or more of the Drawdown.org climate solutions sectors. What you may ask are the Drawdown.org solution sectors? Well, important topics like renewable electricity, soil and agriculture, architecture, oceans, health, education, and so much more. The goal of this season is, of course, to continue to help design educators incorporate a foundation of sustainability and regeneration into their courses, and in turn, inspire more climate designers.  The new season of Climify drops April 12th, 2023 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can learn more on how to get involved at www.climatedesigners.org/edu or join the discussion over on Instagram @clmiifypodcast. 

Season 2: Episode 14 – Carissa Cabrera How important are oceans to our climate? How vital are they to our general health? Did a video of an injured turtle really change the world? Marine Biologist and educator Carissa Cabrera joins Eric and explains it all through her work in media, science, and activism. You’ll learn from this episode that indeed there is an ocean of opportunity for designers for climate action; dive in.Links mentioned on the show:Eric’s Mutant Fish printsPlastic straw removed from turtle’s nose (YouTube)Kiss the Ground filmPique Action Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guestCarissa Cabrera is a marine conservationist and sustainability educator based out of Hawai'i working on ocean climate solutions through media. She co-founded The Conservationist Collective to make ocean climate action accessible to everyone and encourage people to find their place in the movement.On the webThe Conservationist Collectivetiktok.com/@carissaandclimateSustainability & The Sea PodcastMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

Season 2: Episode 13 – Gianna Romero & Michelle Ngyuen What is it like to be a freelance designer who cares about the climate crisis? What are the challenges? What are the best practices to thrive? Recent graduates from the Univ. of Illinois graphic design (Michelle Nguyen) and SCAD industrial design (Gianna Romero) programs share their stories of trying to “design for good” while paying the bills. They also explain what ways their design education could have better prepared them for this journey. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guestMichelle Nguyen is a multidisciplinary designer passionate about creating effective design solutions for the common good. She especially takes an interest in exploring the intersection of design and sustainability.Gianna Romero is a multidisciplinary Industrial Designer who specializes in humanizing products and building great brands. Her expertise includes product branding and package design, consumer research and interpretation, and the development and implementation of everyday products/brands. With her love of design diversity, she aims to make impactful decisions for brand values, the environment, and for good. Eco-conscious design is good design.On the webmichellenguyen.designgiannaromerodesigns.comMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

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. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guestsKrishnaa 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.Music in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

Season 2: Episode 11 – Sadeen Alhalabi & Adam Dziaba 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? Eric learns from two University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign design students Sadeen Alhalabi & Adam Dziaba about their insights into those questions and ideas to improve design education in part one of this two-part series called Climate Design in the Big World.This podcast is sponsored by Dreamhost. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guestSadeen Al Halabi is a Sustainable Designer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She believes in the power of empathy and learning from nature to create spaces, experiences, and products for people today and 100 years from now. Her aim is to be part of the movement that decouples economic and societal growth from environmental degradation. Sadeen wants to implement her digital and practical design skills/experience to help create built environments that restore nature and bring communities together.Adam believes in designing with nature to create a better world, both for humans and for nature. He maintains that it is essential to understand the world differently in order to make the necessary change and that sustainable design should be inherent in every aspect of life. He is interested in revealing ways that we can still do the things we love without hurting the planet that still somehow loves us. Adam is interested in utilizing digital design and practical, hands-on work to present and actualize his ideas.On the weblinkedin.com/in/sadeen-alhalabilinkedin.com/in/adam-dziabaMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

Season 2: Episode 10 – Brooke Havlik The need for effective climate communication and storytelling is paramount to reach a public tipping point on important individual and political action. Good design and communication can shape any worldview and influence change. That is the good work Brooke Havlik had done for over a decade. In this episode, Brooke shares her vast experiences working in climate communication and effective strategies designers can use to turn the tide toward a better climate future.This podcast is sponsored by Dreamhost. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsResources mentioned in this episode:Yale Program on Climate CommunicationsClean CreativesCovering Climate NowData for ProgressClimate NexusDRILLED PodcastAbout our guestBrooke is a strategic communications expert with over a decade of experience creating and executing global campaigns for human rights, climate, democracy, and science-based organizations. Through her consultancy business, Brooke Havlik Communications, Brooke works with nonprofits, philanthropy, and media outlets that are focused on impact.Brooke is experienced in pursuing policy levers, narrative and culture change, storytelling, thought leadership, earned, owned, and paid media in order to achieve communications goals. She has advised philanthropy directors, influential nonprofit leaders, human rights advocates, and helped to conceptualize, design, and launch successful communications strategies. She has a keen ability to initiate, shape, and implement projects, using her network of relationships in key media markets, like New York City, D.C., and London. Brooke’s work shaping narratives has been featured in more than one hundred national and international news outlets, ranging from The Guardian and BBC to The Washington Post.Prior to founding Brooke Havlik Communications, she served as a Communications Officer at Open Society Foundations, where she worked across several human rights programs. She served as the lead communications advisor for the Open Society Justice Initiative, often collaborating on complex legal campaigns in regional and international courts on issues such as press freedom, corruption, crimes against humanity, and ethnic discrimination.At WE ACT for Environmental Justice, she served as the Communications Director, supporting climate communication and advocacy campaigns at the federal, state, and municipal level, as well as advising senior leadership, including Peggy Shepard. She began her media career at WGBH-Boston, writing, editing, and directing digital content for the award-winning science documentary series NOVA.She is a judge for the Shorty Impact Awards, an international awards program created to raise global awareness around the positive impact that brands, agencies, and nonprofits can have on society. In her spare time, she coordinates Brooklyn Neighbors for Refugees, a volunteer-led community sponsorship program for Afghan refugees. Brooke lives in Brooklyn, NY..On the webbrookehavlik.comlinkedin.com/in/brookehavliktwitter.com/BrookeHavlikMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

Season 2: Episode 9 – John Jennings What media(s) could we use to tell better climate stories? What is the message that we should send to increase not only climate awareness but climate action? John Jennings, professor, comics artist, author, and design theorist shares with Eric a brief history of social justice in comics and why he thinks they are a valuable resource and medium to inspire climate activism for all ages.This podcast is sponsored by Dreamhost. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsCli-Fi Comics mentioned in the episode:Climate ChangedWorld Without FishTrashmanThe Great Pacific, Vol. 1: TrashedThe Great American Dust BowlThe Massive, Vol. 1: Black PacificSnowpiercerParable of the SowerThe LeakThe Rime of the Modern MarinerAD New Orleans After the DelugeTeaching Comics to Designers ResourcesComic Book DesignUnderstanding ComicsComics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary CartoonistAbout our guestJohn Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture.As a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric.Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.On the webjohnjenningsstudio.comtwitter.com/JIJenningsMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes

Season 2: Episode 8 – Laney Siegner Feeling down? Anxious? Stressed? Try getting your hands dirty in the soil. California-based soil expert Dr. Laney Siegner shares with Eric the amazing power of healthy soil and its fascinating story about how it can lessen the impacts of hurricanes, increase our overall health, and sequester carbon to decrease the impacts of climate change. Tune in also to learn the five principles of regenerative farming and how those can be translated for designers to create more responsibility to combat the worst of climate change. Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAs mentioned in the episode:GreenBrownBlueThe Ants and the GrasshopperDrawdown.orgBiggest Little FarmSoil Health Assessment worksheetAbout our guestLaney recently completed her Ph.D. at the U.C. Berkeley Energy and Resources Group. She researches sustainable, agroecological food systems and climate change education, and completed several summers of sustainable agriculture work while researching for her dissertation. She is the creator and director of the Climate Farm School program at Terra.do that offers a deep-dive hybrid learning experience, both online and on-farm, on topics ranging from soil health and regenerative agriculture to building a more equitable food system.She has published book chapters on teaching climate change in U.S. K-12 classrooms and on conducting participatory agroecology research. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as a middle school teaching fellow for 2 years in Boston, MA as part of an AmeriCorps National Teaching Fellowship.When she’s not teaching or learning, she enjoys being outside for a variety of physical activities – farming, worm composting, trail running, bird watching, or swimming in the ocean. Originally from the East Coast, she now lives on a farm in Sonoma County, California.On the weblaneysiegner.comTerra.do's Farm SchoolMusic in this episodeTheme music by Casual Motive   Climate Design AssignmentsAt 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. Get Assignments   Follow Climify on IG   « Back to episodes