inFLUX

On Nico's and Varun's last episode before graduation, we are happy to say that we have a great guest to celebrate the end of an era. The guest is none other than Khoi Vinh, Design Director at Adobe. Khoi details his journey as a designer starting from Otis College of Art and Design to his time at The New York Times to his current position at Adobe. Varun and Nico also pick his brain on the difference between artists and designers as well as between generalists and specialists. Furthermore, Varun was excited to have Khoi on the podcast to talk about his love for movies and his blog, Subtraction. As the last episode of the quarter and 2021-2022 academic school year, this episode is unmissable and a farewell letter to everyone who has listened for so long. That said, I'm sure Nico and Varun will be back sometime or another.

Prior to this spring's FLUXathon, inFLUX hosted their first ever live conversation featuring two incredible IR student guests interviewed by the next's year amazing hosts. With the addition of audience interaction, this episode dives deep into the  intersection between IR and UX, a very topical talking point considering the increasing popularity of IR technology and the metaverse. Sit back and relax because there is a lot of information in this one.

This episode has been in the making since the very start of the podcast. It is with none other than our editor, Josh Willey. Josh is a SCAD Sound Design graduate that is now freelancing. He has been good friends with Varun for a few years now and this podcast would not have been possible with him. Listen to this episode to get the scope on how Josh joined the podcast, his experience at SCAD and his opinions on listening in on Varun and Nico for so many episodes.

Today is a special day because we will be introducing the new co-hosts for the coming 2022-2023 academic school year, Belle and Amadeus. Amadeus has been on the podcast before while it will be Belle's first time. Together, with Varun and Amadeus, inFLUX is bringing one of its longest episodes till date where we not only talk about the future of the podcast but its past too along with some fun new hot takes.

As the last episode of winter quarter, Nico and Varun bring on Lara and Matt, the new co-directors of FLUX for the upcoming academic year. Together, they talk about both their SCAD and FLUX journey up until now, while sharing some of the excitement for next year. The fun, goofy dynamic between Lara and Matt is not worth missing.

This delightful episode brings back SCAD alumnus Erin Imhof to talk about her journey post-SCAD in which she took some time off for herself and eventually ended up at Visual Logic as a User Experience Designer. Her story will resonate with a lot of seniors that are currently nervous for graduation and are hunting for jobs. Beyond her post-SCAD journey, Nico and Varun were able to dive deep into her amazing UX projects at SCAD which were not only impactful but amongst the most joyful projects seen by the department. A fun little bonus for our passionate listeners, Erin also happens to be our editor Josh's girlfriend, so tune in to hear how they met. 

For the first time in inFLUX history, Nico and Varun didn't have a guest on the show and had the fearsome task of just talking to each other. As scary as it was, they managed to have a fun time by diving into senior studio, talking about the elusive Nort (AKA @scadshed on Instagram), and ending the episode off with a conversation on the media they have been consuming. If you enjoyed this style of episode, let us know and there may yet be more to come.

The new quarter is kicking off with Amadeus, the youngest FLUX officer on the team right now as well as the co-director of STARTUP this year. His positive vibes have always been loved by everyone of the team and today he shares them with all you listeners. Tune in to hear us chat about his journey to UX, starting off college in an all-online fashion, as well as hearing some new fresh hot takes.

This season we have gone out of our way to find designers from Las Vegas. This week we have another fantastic designer from there, Matt Walker. Matt is a senior product designer focused on design systems at Mailchimp. His journey to become a designer is a rather fascinating one with him starting out in agencies, then being one of the early UX designers at Home Depot to his current role at Mailchimp. Nico and Varun dive into this journey, a little about design systems as well as the obsessive fascination with Figma that every designer seems to have nowadays. This episode marks the end of our 2021 releases and we will return in January with more episodes. Stay tuned because we have some great things in the works.

This marks the first collaboration between FLUX and Design CO. Not only are these two extremely different schools to study design at, but they are located on opposite coasts. Nico and Varun are joined by Sergio and Adam in this chat. Over the period of their chat, they discuss the difference between the two schools as well as the two clubs. Like always they end with a rapid fire with some never asked before hot take questions.

This week we have the incredibly kind Jackie Sabillon! Jackie is a recent SCAD graduate, who graduated right before the COVID outbreak almost 2 years ago now. The episode was recorded over the summer when Jackie was a product designer for Click Therapeutics in New York. Since then, she has started a new position at MIT Media Lab as a User Experience Designer. In the episode, we get to talk to Jackie about her move from Illustration to UX, her interest in game UX and her calling to empower those around her.›

After summer break, inFLUX is back and it is going to be bigger and better than before. We kick off this new season with Travis Neilson who is not only a designer at Google but a musician, ex-YouTuber, and more. Varun has been wanting him on the show since the beginning and we are excited to finally have him on. Nico and Varun sit down with Travis to talk about personal impact by COVID, design trends, content creation, music and more.

Have you ever wondered where the intersection of UX and Fashion is? To answer that question, we bring in two senior SCAD students, one from each major, Edie and Deane to see what they think. The conversation doesn’t end there. Together, we reflect on learnings over the past year as well as discuss design trends we hate. Ultimately, this episode is a fun look into the minds of art school students, whether they are UX or not.

Varun's mentor, Sarah, joins us this week and we have a great time chatting. Sarah is currently working at Uber Freight as a product designer and she is a recent SCAD grad. On today's episode, we chat about her job hunt after having her offer at Uber rescinded, how she eventually found her way back and even about who her favorite FLUX member is. Listen to get the insight scoop on who the member is! We think you will be surprised.

We are back! After a small break, Nico and Varun return to talk to Keenan Mai, a User Experience Product Manager at HP in Fort Collins, Colorado. The conversation starts by talking about Keenan's unique journey into UX but then slowly transitions to a fun, obsessive chat about coffee and more. This episode also introduces a new format that we are testing and we hope you enjoy the refinements.

To mark the end of the quarter, we invited Zachra and Dallin, the co-directors of FLUX, to discuss the quarter and its large FLUX events including StartUp. This was a super fun conversation to have because we work with Zachra and Dallin regularly, but for those of you who don't know them as well, we dive in to their journey to SCAD, talk about their soon-to-happen graduation and much more. This episode provides insight into the people behind FLUX, so you definitely won't want to miss it.  We will be taking a short break till the next quarter too, so stay tuned till the next episode.

For the first time on inFLUX, our guest is one of the UX professors and it's none other than Professor Clark Delashmet. We start by talking about his journey to becoming a professor but move to more obscure topics such lab-grown whiskey as well as getting schooled on college football. This fun and lighthearted conversation with a great professor is definitely something SCAD students don't want to miss.

Nico and Varun are back this week after a short break. This episode the show grows bigger with two guests instead of one, Natalie Schaake and Joshua Nilsson, the co-presidents of SCAD IDSA. In this hilarious episode, we discuss what IDSA is and how it is changing this year, learn about Josh's connection with Paula Wallace (SCAD's president and founder) as well as get the scoop on Nico and Natalie's relationship. You don't want to miss out on this one.

On this special half-length episode of InFLUX, Savannah and Lara take over (again) to talk to Jen Bonnett, VP of the Savannah Economic Development Authority or SEDA. Jen and SEDA are a signature sponsor of this year’s StartUp event! We sat down to chat with Jen about her early career, SEDA as an agency and of course, StartUp! Since it was a short chat, we decided to release a special half-length episode, but don’t worry, we will be back next week with another full length episode and a pair of special guests.

On this special episode of inFLUX, Savannah and Lara take over to talk to Andrew Sibert, UX designer at Backbone. While at SCAD 6 years ago, Andrew founded STARTUP. This episode will dive into why he started it, the history of STARTUP and then move to the future with Savannah and Lara co-hosting this year. Outside of STARTUP talk, Savannah and Lara will talk to Andrew about his recent shift to Backbone, a company focused on mobile gaming, from his job at Google.