Monthly Archives: May 2011

Cannes Palm d’Or Winner Edited by Art Center Faculty

Terence Malick’s new film Tree of Life has won the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Palm d’Or Award, the festival’s top prize. The film was co-edited by Art Center Film Department instructor and mentor Billy Weber.

Tree of Life is the story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son (played as an adult by Sean Penn) through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (played by Brad Pitt).

Weber earned an Academy Award nomination for editing Malick’s Thin Red Line as well as one for editing Top Gun. His many editing credits include Nacho Libre, Miss Congeniality, Bulworth, Days of Thunder, Midnight Run, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, 48 Hrs and Beverly Hills Cop.

He directed Josh and S.A.M. and served an associate producer on The New World. He is currently editing Madagascar 3 for DreamWorks Animation. Congrats!

Remembering Don

Kubly and a student with a model of Hillside Campus

Don Kubly passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

He was an alumnus, our second president, an influential leader, a colleague, mentor and friend.

A native of Pasadena, Kubly came to Art Center to study Advertising, quickly earning a reputation as one of the school’s best students.

“We wanted to be leaders in the field, so it wasn’t a matter of training, but a matter of truly understanding,” Kubly said in a 2010 interview. “A school like ours was unusual back in those days.”

Kubly met his wife, Sally, while both were students at the College’s first campus on Seventh Street in Los Angeles.

Don and Sally Kubly. Photo © Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

“When Don asked my father if he could marry me, my father told him that if we did, he would have to take on my Art Center tuition,” Sally remembered in a 2010 interview. “That’s what motivated Don to begin teaching, that tuition payment.”

After graduating in 1949, he landed a job at N.W. Ayer & Son in Philadelphia, one of the country’s leading advertising agencies. Serving as a senior art director for more than 16 years, Kubly won numerous gold medals and other top awards for his creative work.

In 1963, Kubly returned to Art Center to work with College president Tink Adams as assistant to the director, teaching and managing the school’s day-to-day operations.

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Don Kubly, 1917-2011

Students, Faculty, Alumni, Staff and Friends:

Today, one of Art Center’s most influential leaders, Don Kubly, passed away at 93 years old. Don’s active involvement with the school spanned 47 years, starting as a student in 1938 and continuing as second president of the College. Don was a dear friend of the school and mentor and colleague to so many.

Don was a truly great and inspirational figure in Art Center’s development. Student, alumnus, educator and president, he never wavered in his dedication and commitment to Art Center or in his enthusiasm and excitement for our students.

His many contributions to Art Center have had a lasting impact on the College. He has left us a great legacy and built us a beautiful home in this wonderful location in Pasadena. We are all indebted to him for his brilliant work and profound care.

On a personal note, I am honored to have met Don and to have made a connection with him. He was always very warm and supportive of our work, our strategic plan and our community’s collective vision for the future.

A public celebration of Don’s life will be held at Art Center in the coming weeks. We’ll be sure to keep you informed here at the Dotted Line.

Our hearts go out to his wife Sally and his entire family. Don will truly be missed.

Sincerely,
Lorne M. Buchman
President, Art Center College of Design

Day in the Life: A Saturday High Alum Shoots for Nike

Angela Choi, as photographed by Olivia Crawford for Nike Sportswear.

With most of us walking around with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter on our phones, it’s no wonder why it has become increasingly difficult to be aware of our own surroundings.

But don’t tell that to Saturday High alumna Olivia Crawford. The Pasadena native recently graduated from Polytechnic School and is now studying art and art history at the University of California, Berkeley. Crawford’s passion for capturing the people and events in her life through photography not only made her a standout in her Saturday High courses, but it also landed her a very cool gig during her last winter break.

An ad agency discovered her work on Flickr and asked her if she’d like to be involved with Nike Sportswear’s “Look of Sport” campaign. The job involved shooting photographs of athletic and stylish individuals from Los Angeles, photographed in a style remaining true to her own aesthetic.

Crawford agreed, and the campaign appeared online last month.

“Olivia is a disciplined, focused and intelligent kid,” says Saturday High instructor David Sotelo, who along with co-instructor Evah Hart, taught Crawford twice in Photography 2. Sotelo recalls Crawford being particularly inspired by Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, two artists whose work he and Hart regularly feature in their class. “The work Olivia did for Nike—that aesthetic evolved out of the inspiration she got from those photographers, artists who were using their everyday life as a diary.”

We recently caught up with Crawford to learn more about her experiences in Saturday High and her work with Nike.

Dotted Line: Which Saturday High classes did you take?
Olivia Crawford: I took an oil painting course my sophomore year of high school. We painted from models and that class really helped me with my later photography courses, Photography 1 with David Sotelo and Photography 2 with David and Evah Hart, which I took twice.

Dotted Line: What did you learn in those classes?
Crawford: Both emphasized making your own projects and learning to be sensitive to your environment. We came up with projects based on what we were seeing in our own photography and what we were reacting to in our environment.
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How Are You Spending Your Summer Vacation?

Photo by Amelia Stier

This summer, a group of Art Center students are immersing themselves in the culturally rich city of Berlin as part of Art Center’s cutting-edge take on traditional exchange programs called TestLabs.

In TestLabs, a group of students are selected representing a variety of disciplines, then placed in a metropolitan locale where they meet up with a corporate or nonprofit sponsor. The sponsor presents the students with a specific design challenge, which becomes their focus for the term. From there, the students form a pop-up studio, which becomes home base for ideation and instant visualization.

Through TestLab Berlin, Art Center students are spending the summer in the German city. The project includes a pop-up studio located at Bikini Berlin site, and is the start of a three-year partnership with GmbH.

In the current project, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, students are exploring ways to connect with Millennials using different areas of emphasis including music, fashion, sports, body modification and health and wellness.

Amelia Stier has set up a blog documenting the experience—be sure to follow along as the term progresses!

Photo by Amelia Stier

Business Dialogue Series Kicks Off Tuesday

The Summer Term Business Dialogue Series kicks off tomorrow. Presented by Art Center’s Art Center’s Office of Career Development, the hour-long presentations introduce students to the diversity of opportunities available in the fields of art and design.

Each term, leaders of design firms and studios come to campus to create awareness of their businesses, showcase their work and engage in conversation with students.

The give-and-take in these one-hour sessions exposes students to details about a variety of fields, to opportunities they didn’t know existed and to the expectations of employers.

The sessions are held at the Hillside Campus Boardroom, and free and open to current Art Center students.

Tuesday, May 31
MIKE MURPHY: Hollywood, Calif.
Guest Speaker: Mike Murphy, Animation Director

Tuesday, June 7
CRISPIN PORTER BOGUSKY: Boulder, Colo.
Guest Speaker: Matt Walsh, Vice President of Experience Design

Tuesday, June 14
NIKE: Beaverton, Ore.
Guest Speaker: David Schenone, Director of Design and Innovation

Tuesday, June 21
BMW GROUP/DESIGNWORKS USA: Newbury Park, Calif.
Guest Speaker: Chris Chapman, Director of Automotive Design

Tuesday, June 28
ENTREPRENEURSHIP with KILLSPENCER: Los Angeles
Guest Speaker: Spencer Nikosey, Creator

For more information about the Business Dialogue Series, contact Art Center’s Office of Career Development at jobs@artcenter.edu or 626.396.2320.

Product Alum Taking on Soapbox Race

Art Center Product Design alum and faculty Grant Delgatty is taking a unique approach to tomorrow’s Red Bull Soapbox Race in downtown Los Angeles, based on his new Urshuz line of footwear.

From the Pasadena Star-News:

Utilizing fasteners, buyers can attach and swap different styles of tops to Urshuz soles, or convert them into sandals. That’s pretty much how Soleman Redemption, Delgatty’s entry in the 10th annual event race, will work.

While he’s hurtling at 35-40 mph down South Grand Avenue, Delgatty will rip away Soleman Redemption’s foam top resembling a giant shoe to reveal a giant sandal underneath.

“Then at some point in the course, I’ll rip off the sandal, so it’ll just be the sole,” said Delgatty, who teaches product design at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.

We’ll be bringing you more on Delgatty’s Urshuz next month, so stay tuned.

Be sure to read the rest of this great article, and check out the slideshow: Pasadena team will compete in this weekend’s Red Bull Soapbox Race

Good luck, Grant!

Art Center Students Display at ICFF


At last week’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York, 25 designers from Art Center were honored in a retrospective celebrating the completion of a series of five innovative interdisciplinary studios sponsored by Bernhardt Design.

Personally championed by Bernhardt Design President Jerry Helling and Environmental Design Chair David Mocarski, the course was created to educate students in the process of designing products ultimately viable for production. At the conclusion of each studio, Bernhardt Design selected products for introduction in the commercial market. Since its inception, the design-through-production studio concept has served as a model for other similar educational programs.

Bernhardt Design’s partnership with Art Center came about from the school’s strong relationship with industry as well as its reputation as a leading art and design institution for more than 80 years. The studio course, hosted by the Environmental Design Department, has successfully trained students over the past seven years to design products that are visually stunning, appropriate for the commissioning manufacturer, fiscally feasible and suitable within the constraints of mass production. The products developed from the Bernhardt Design studios have not only been award winning, but commercially successful around the world.

Former Art Center students have embarked on successful careers, from designing for Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam to starting their own creative studios to working with top-tier manufacturers worldwide. Furthermore, the work of 20 designers from the program are currently in production with Bernhardt Design including the Red Dot Award-winning Loft chair by Shelly Shelly, the Audio chair by Chris Adamick, and Linc tables by Chase Wills.

Check out more of the work at the Designing Experience website.