Category: Class Introductions

I’m Ta-shea, I’m multidisciplinary designer originally from Kingston, Jamaica. After receiving my BFA from The Cooper Union, I began my design career at Champions Design in NY, and shortly after began teaching design at the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

Love people, love design is my motto. I’m passionate about creating work that brings forth change and uplift communities. For the last three years I’ve aided nonprofit organizations throughout New York in brand development and strategy design to boost their fundraising and membership growth.

Outside of design, I’m an avid explorer and fitness junkie. I hike, roller skate, swim, weight lift, box and so much more ! I recently competed in my first 5k run, and by the end of the year I hope to compete in a Spartan obstacle race. Oh yea, I’m positively competitive! I also loovee to dance and play music in my down time. My favorite spot in Brooklyn to let loose is Bembe!

Instagram

Hi I’m Lynn. I completed my bachelor’s degree in Animation at California college of the Arts. After graduation, I returned to China and worked for two years as a pet taxidermist and toy prototype developer. Love anything related to animals.

Find out my taxidermy x stopmotion animation here!

https://m.bilibili.com/video/BV1LW4y167G5

And my Instagram: @nalynza_art

hi everyone! my name is Sophia Elizabeth Haase and I am originally from Rochester, NY. More specifically, I grew up in a small town called Fairport. This is a picture of me before I chopped off my hair so I look a wee bit different but I like it 🙂 I recently graduated from Marist College with a BS in digital media and a BA in fine art. I spent the summer in Long Beach Island which is where I took this photo. I miss the beach and being tan but I am having a good time living in the city. I love to eat food. haha just kidding. I like to eat good food and lots of it. I also love to listen to music and explore the city with my friends. I’ve always loved creating and crafting so I think I will really enjoy what we do in this class.

I am most looking forward to creating new things and gaining new skills along the way. I love working with my hands and I’m already excited to take apart my headphones hehe. Arduino and coding definitely scares me a little bit but I think this is a great environment to start learning. I really want to start up an art account on Instagram for my time at PoD, but I haven’t yet so for now I’ll share my personal account and my portfolio website which basically has everything you need to know about me. Thanks 🙂

https://sophiahaase.wixsite.com/portfolio

https://www.instagram.com/sophiaehaase

here’s a baby picture of me for fun because I was much cooler as a kid

My name is Becky Stern and I am your instructor! I live in Brooklyn and like to ride motorcycles and hang out with my dog. I grew up in Connecticut and came to NYC for undergrad. I am a content creator and post to my YouTube channel and also the DigiKey channel. I’m so excited to meet you all and have a great semester in Making Studio at PoD!

I’m born and raised in New Jersey but I like to consider myself NJ’s finest New Yorker. 😋 Before POD, I was working at Berlin Rosen PR agency (also based in NY), on the gaming and digital entertainment team. Working for companies like Unity, Casetify, Krafton, holoride, etc. I love working in tech specifically but I’m pretty interested in anything not fintech or health tech. 😅 I’m really looking forward to learning how to code more and also in general learning more skills towards hand crafted design. My background is more digital focused so I’m excited to get more physically crafty. I’m genuinely not apprehensive about this class, I believe I’ll do my best and learn a lot, any mistakes are just lessons along the way. 🤞🤞

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Favorite Things:

• Craft: Hmmmm this one’s tough but crochet and 3D design have been 2 new art forms I like playing around with

• Eat: Cereal or Soondubu jjigae (or I guess any soup)

• Movie: Mr. Bean’s Holiday

• Show: Adventure Time

• Do: Aside from visual art, I enjoy making music or learning languages

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

you can find me on every platform at @itsanajay

Here are some cute baby pics 🙂

你好！Hello! I am Yining Gao and you can call me Elaine! I come from Shenzhen, a city in south China without any specialty.😪

I had my undergraduate courses in South China University of Technology, and I majored in industrial design. But the courses there are too technical and without any atmosphere of design, so I came here to continue my study. I also minored in computer science but after studying I hate code.🥲( Just because I am not good at it)

I had an internship in a company which design and sell oral care products. And I worked as a CMF designer there. I think it is really interesting to choose color and style for a product after the research and contact with manufacturers. But I think I am lack of pratical design experience so that I hope that I can learn a lot from everyone!

My family cat called ‘Doudou’. I really really miss her.

The cat of my roommate.

I’m a Brand Strategist and Packaging designer from Mumbai, India. I build identity systems and process-driven experiences for brands that believe in the context of culture. My work stems from various cultural influences that, delve into meaningful narratives, out of the visual fodder around me.

I’ve been working in the space of brand design and strategy to create images and narratives for brands for about 4 years and through these years I’ve had the chance to work with teams and individuals designing for spaces, brands, platforms, and initiatives that believe in the value of good design and the power it has to shape minds. From outputs ranging from Brand strategy, Identity systems, Packaging design, and art direction, I believe in the idea of working together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Apart from deep dives into artist discographies and endless listening hours, I also work on curating playlists by the day and am always open to requests 🙂

A fun ongoing project I’m constantly working towards – the Women’s Mobility Project that sprouted during the course of Covid with a couple of friends.

Womxn’s Mobility Project is a project that amplifies stories, issues, anecdotes, histories and realities of non-binary, trans and womxn’s mobility in and claim to Indian public spaces. Urban and Online.

From what started as a conversation between three of my colleagues that pursue careers in art, film, and design, we decided to legitimize the project and make it public from an idea to a platform for individuals to share ideas, reflect their thoughts, and express their opinions.

Other than that I’m an outdoorsy person, (used to be) a national-level badminton player, a bouldering enthusiast, see-ing, seeking, and eating!

Hi！I’m Yining Zhang, and you can also call me jinny. I come from China,Beijing. I am good at graphic design, animation production, modeling, etc. During my college years, I self-taught the design of game mechanics due to my love for games.

—My photo—

I strongly agree that game is “the ninth form of art”. Media art is a kind of interactive experience. Its artistry depends on the creator’s exquisite design to make the audience hear the “overtones”. The digital age provides substantial space for the development of computer games. I am attracted by the charm of computer games. In the virtual world constructed by algorithms and modeling, I can freely experience all kinds of life. By studying computer game development mode and application rules, I have realized many whimsical ideas and built a fantasy world that belongs to me. Now, I also want to pass on the happiness I feel in the online game world to others.😉

I am Third-Culture-Kid, primarily raised in Germany, but I have been in America since 2016. I spent two years in upstate NY studying Computer Science before spontaneously transferring to Chicago to pursue my Bachelors of Architecture. I worked most recently as an architectural designer before arriving at the MFA PoD program.

Growing up I was always more science-math inclined, and changing into Design was a challenge at first. The spontaneous decision came through curiosity, and wanting to have a more cohesive well-rounded education with both technical and humanities classes. By the time I started Architecture school, I hadn’t drawn in 4 years and didn’t have any ‘making’ hobbies. It was intimidating, but by the time I graduated, I was confidently practicing fabrication skills and also had a whole new perspective on the world through design.

As I started working in the real world, I found that I enjoyed designing at smaller scales and various mediums rather than just through physical architectural works. I decided to pursue my masters in pursuit to define more of my design values, goals, and to have fun experimenting with more mediums of design and art. I am excited to combine my prior knowledge and put more physicality to my computing background, and explore other scales of design.

Outside of design I love traveling and visiting museums and galleries, reading design art theory/history books, workout classes, and I’m trying to make an effort in sketching in a new nyc neighbourhood every weekend! Also at my previous university, my friends and I started a student zine, the ig is @cumuluszine, and we ran an art gallery space together.