Monthly Archives: July 2011

In Case You Missed It

As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty.

Some of the latest:

  • Advertising alum Lacey Waterman art directs a great TV spot for Discounthotels.com, shot at her former high school in Woodland Hills. YouTube
  • Architect Alla Kazovsky on teaching in Art Center’s Saturday High program. Huffington Post
  • Alum Everett Katigbak, a communication designer at Facebook, to speak at September’s Brand New Conference. Brand New
  • Hot Wheels creator, Mattel toy company co-founder and Art Center alum Elliot Handler died last week at 95. What’s your favorite Hot Wheels memory? MotorTrend
  • Art Center faculty member and author Krystina Castella on making ice pops at home. Columbia Tribune
  • Broadcast Cinema alum Steve Hwang’s documentary FOCUS—filmed and edited during his last term at Art Center, and screened here earlier this year—has been picked up by the G4 for distribution online. It’s the first installment of the network’s newly launched G4 Films series. View the entire feature online.

In Memoriam: Ed Hanak

Former Art Center senior vice president, secretary of the College’s Board of Trustees, Trustee Emeritus and key College fundraiser Edward Paul Hanak passed away on July 1 at the age of 83.

© Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

A native of Ohio and graduate of Ohio University, Hanak founded and served as the president of his college fraternity. He joined the army after World War II and served in Japan, then was then drafted into the Army and served in the Korean War.

After the military, he attended college on the G.I. Bill. He went on to work with the Greater Cleveland Growth Board, an arm of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, before moving to Pasadena to join Caltech’s development group in 1966.

Hanak joined Art Center in 1969 as vice president of development and, and as key fundraiser, spearheaded the drive to raise funds for the College’s various projects, in particularly the plan to build Hillside Campus. Hanak was at then-president Don Kubly’s side when they found and purchased property in the foothills of Pasadena and negotiated terms to erect the building designed by Craig Ellwood Associates.

Following his retirement from Art Center in 1986, Hanak continued to serve on the Board of Trustees as secretary, eventually honored as Trustee Emeritus.

A memorial celebration for Kubly, who passed away a few short weeks before Hanak, will be held this Saturday, July 30. Appropriately, we’ll take a moment during the program to acknowledge Hanak and his many contributions to Art Center.

Grad Media Design Work on Display at MoMA

Beyond the Fold, by Sebastian Bettencourt

Two Graduate Media Design projects are included in Paola Antonelli’s most recent exhibition, Talk to Me, now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They are Sebastian Bettencourt’s thesis project, Beyond the Fold; and Dustin York, Ting-Yuin Chien, Scott Liao and Jae Kim’s class project, The Messenger.

Also, new Grad Media alum Hoon Oh and current student Jisu Choi just completed a project at Synn Lab based on Hoon’s thesis work of interactive hybrid digital/physical sports.

Great work, everyone!

Talk Gardening with Marco Barrantes Friday

EcoCouncil has invited guest lecturer and landscape architect Marco Barrantes of La Loma Development to speak about gardening on campus this Friday.

Photo by Lara Warren

Barrantes maintains the drought-resistant garden at South Campus and will discuss rain garden design and construction, watershed planning and storm-water management, downspout art, rain cisterns and native plants. He will also describe multi-layered food forests—which mimic healthy ecosystems for maximum diversity, reduced maintenance and perennial gardening—in contrast to raised annual veggie planters.

The new Art Center Community Garden is still taking applications for plots, so email foodgarden@artcenter.edu if interested. And read more about the new garden here.

Open to everyone interested in learning more about these topics!

Marco Barrantes
Friday, July 29, 1 p.m.
CMTEL
Hillside Campus

**07/28: Due to an unexpected emergency, Barrantes will not be able to speak Friday, July 29. Please stay tuned—we’ll announce the rescheduled date as soon as possible.

Art Center Student Awarded IDSA Scholarship

The Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) Gianninoto Graduate Scholarship program has awarded a $1,500 scholarship to Pengtao Yu, a second-year Grad ID student at Art Center.

Yu

“My interest in industrial design started with my curiosity of how things work and my obsession with beautiful objects,” says Yu. “Four year of undergraduate industrial design training, along with several internship experiences in top design studios, has given me strong traditional design skills.”

Yu has won two International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) awards in the student design category, and one of his furniture designs has been licensed by a major U.S. manufacturer to put into production.

IDSA’s Gianninoto Graduate Scholarship was originally established by the late Francesco Gianninoto, a US package designer who was a founder of the Package Design Council. Two of his most famous designs were the Marlboro cigarette package (mid-1950s) and “Elsie Daisy,” the Borden Cow.

Congrats, Pengtao!

Creative Inspirations: Stefan G. Bucher

Don’t miss this exclusive screening of the new film produced by lynda.com on Art Center alum, designer, illustrator and writer Stefan Bucher. It will be screened Thursday at the Ahmanson, and is free and open to the public. RSVP to alumni@artcenter.edu by July 25.

Looks like a great film—take a look at the preview below.

Creative Inspirations: Stefan G. Bucher
Thursday, July 28, 7 p.m.
Ahmanson Auditorium
Hillside Campus
RSVP to alumni@artcenter.edu by July 25

Advertising Department Launches New Speaker Series

Art Center Advertising students—as well as the entire Art Center community—can enjoy candid discussions from a variety of seasoned advertising and other professionals at a new speakers series kicking off tonight.

Creative directors, copywriters, art directors, strategic planners, emerging technology experts, agents of social change, publishers, game developers, directors and many more will participate in this exciting new series, which will tackle issues from the creative side to the business side of advertising—and all points in-between.

The series kicks off tonight with art director Rob Anton from acclaimed ad agency 72andSunny. Following the discussion, there will be a Q&A with the speaker, and students can show current portfolio work for critique and feedback. Enjoy Anton’s spot for the Getty above.

Advertising Speakers Series: Rob Anton
Thursday, July 21, 7 p.m.
Hillside Campus
Conference Room B

Designing for Sustainability: The Student Perspective

Photo by Dice Yamaguchi

The scope of design is rapidly expanding in leaps and bounds. Today’s designers feel a responsibility to address environmental, social and economic needs with their work more than ever before. In light of the changes taking place in recent years, Art Center has been developing a comprehensive design curriculum and its importance has been underscored in the school’s five-year strategic plan.

Art Center students Jessie Kawata and Yan Kramsky are co-presidents of the student-run group EcoCouncil, which has been largely responsible for helping green the College and introduce sustainable initiatives throughout the campus and curriculum.

The two were featured keynote speakers at last week’s California Higher Education Sustainability Conference. Together, they led the final presentation of the conference, sharing their perspectives on sustainable design and reflections on the event. Earlier in the conference, Vice President of Designmatters Mariana Amatullo participated in a panel discussion moderated by Associate Professor and Director of Sustainability Initiatives Heidrun Mumper-Drumm titled Embedding Sustainability into Existing Curriculum.

Kawata and Kramsky took some time out of their busy schedules—they graduate next month!—to talk with Dotted Line about EcoCouncil, comprehensive design and what they hope people took away from their presentation.

Dotted Line: Just what is the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference?

Photo by Dice Yamaguchi

Jessie Kawata: Students, educators, staff and administrators from community colleges, four-year colleges, public and private schools come together to talk about sustainability and various Climate Action Plan (CAP) initiatives in higher education. It was held in Long Beach.

We were one of the few private colleges to attend, and we were the only featured speakers from a private school—not to mention Art Center was the only art and design college present. So it was a real honor for both of us to be involved.

Dotted Line: How did the opportunity for you two to be keynote speakers come about?

Yan Kramsky: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm suggested that we apply. It’s funny, we didn’t realize we were applying to be keynote speakers, just workshop speakers, so we were surprised and honored to be selected as keynotes.

We have experience with sustainability initiatives from a grassroots perspective through our work with EcoCouncil, and I think we are the types of students that they were looking for, who could share our specific experiences.

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