Monthly Archives: September 2011

Kicking Things Off With Kickstarter


Transportation Design alum Gabriel Wartofsky has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to build his lightweight, compact, folding electric bike for commuters. (Plans are to launch his Conscious Commuter at Art Center later this year.) So far, backers have pledged $17,045 of his $25,000 goal needed to bring his bike to market. (The deadline to pledge is Sept. 29.) KCET just ran a story on Wartofsky—be sure to check it out.

Another project is currently on Kickstarter, this one created by a group of Art Center students for a class project. They are looking for funding to help them film and produce a short film inspired by an epic DC Comics vignette. The six-day shoot will take place throughout Pasadena with sets built from scratch at Art Center. Students leading the project are Domenic Moen (writer/director), Stephen Reedy (editor), Chris Saul (cinematographer) and Jake Viramontez (producer).

Check them out:

Students Spend Their Summer Augmenting Reality

Still from the promotional video for Juju, a student-created augmented reality application.

This past summer term, Art Center welcomed back its first visionary-in-residence, science fiction author Bruce Sterling (Schismatrix, Islands in the Net, The Caryatids) to co-teach an augmented reality (AR) transdisciplinary design studio with Graphic Design instructor Guillaume Wolf called Augmenting Reality.

Not certain what AR is exactly? You’re not alone. For the studio, Sterling and Wolf defined AR as a software program that must: 1) mix the virtual with the real, 2) be interactive in real time and 3) register in three dimensions.

AR is an industry still on the cusp, and applications are only now starting to sneak out of the labs and into consumers’ hands. “It may even be a bit before the cusp,” Sterling says of the AR industry. “It’s an old technology, but it’s a baby industry.”

In the course—hosted by the College’s Graphic Design Department and sponsored by Amsterdam-based Layar, a company whose AR platform claims more than one million active users—teams of students designed both concepts and prototype AR apps that ranged from virtual pets to an augmented “spiritual reality” experience.

Layar's Maarten Lens-FitzGerald gets some FaceTime with Graphic Design student Shi Jie Lim and Graphic Design Department chair Nik Hafermaas. Photo: Alex Arestei, Layar.

“I was impressed by the student’s concepts, execution and their presentation,” says Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, general manager and co-founder of Layar, who watched the teams’ final presentations virtually (during the final he was “passed” around the classroom on an instructor’s smartphone). “Even with innovative media, it’s still important to be able to tell the story using mainstream media. Not all AR people know this; but the students did.”

Words, no doubt, that are music to instructor Wolf’s ears, who wanted to make sure the students were designing based on something people can actually connect with.

“Why are people interested in anything? It’s not just about design, it’s about the psychology behind it,” says Wolf of what he tries to impart to his students. “Why is a product sexy? Why do we want it? How does a designer create that desire?”

(Read more, and view videos of the work, after the jump.)

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Remembering the Summer of Punk

© Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

During the summer of 1986, Art Center students relived the era of punk through an Illustration Department workshop, Punk Is Not a Fashion Statement, organized by former Illustration Chair Phil Hays. The workshop focused on journalistic illustration, with various punk scenes acted out as students recorded them via drawings and paintings.

In addition to the workshop, students heard lectures on the history and significance of punk from a wide variety of speakers including Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols.

Do you remember this Summer of Punk at Art Center? We want to hear your memories!

To visit Art Center’s Archives or to donate materials, contact Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig at 626.396.2208 or robert.dirig@artcenter.edu.

© Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

Exploring Vinyl Cover Art with Graham Moore

Don’t miss Friday’s opening of Remix, featuring work by Saturday High and Art Center at Night faculty member Graham Moore.

A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song made from an original version—but the term also is used for any alterations of media. A remix in literature, for example, is an alternative version of a text. William Burroughs used the cut-up technique to remix language in the ’60s.

Using glue, scissors and collage-style techniques, Moore’s body of work embodies the love for the technique of collage and vinyl cover art. The rhythm, movement, and the vibrant use of color, shape, texture, imagery and typography serves as a tribute to graphic designers and artists from a bygone era.

A portion of all sales will support scholarships for Art Center’s Public Programs.

The exhibit, which is on display through Sept. 27, is sponsored by Archetype Press and Archetype Press Director and professor Gloria Kondrup.

For more information, email gloria.kondrup@artcenter.edu.

Remix: Work by Graham Moore
Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 16, 7-10 p.m.
Art Center South Campus

Mariana Amatullo on Cerro Verde

The following post is from the Designmatters blog.

Art Center students talk with community members as water truck arrives

Designmatters Vice President Mariana Amatullo reflects on her time spent in Cerro Verde,  a community on the outskirts of Lima, Peru where Art Center students have been conducting field research in collaboration with the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para Mi Pais, as part of the Safe Agua Peru project.

I am just back from Lima and time in the field with the extraordinary team of students and faculty who are leading the Safe Agua Peru project.

Safe Agua Peru marks our second collaboration with the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para Mi Pais and builds upon the lessons we have learned working together in Chile in 2009. At the helm of this transdisicplinary studio are once again Dan Gottlieb and Penny Herscovitch (Environmental Design) and Liliana Becerra (Product Design). Julka Almquist from our Humanities and Design Sciences Department rounds up the faculty team.

With the support of an NCIIA Sustainable Vision Grant, the team is charged to delve deep into the very systemic issues around water poverty that affect this community of about 85 families who are served by Un Techo Para Mi Pais Peru in Cerro Verde, Pamplona Alto, in the district of San Juan de Miraflores.

We are anticipating that the rigorous and participatory research framework of the studio, coupled with privileged access to the community thanks to Techo will yield outcomes that can make a lasting impact.

Continue reading →

Ideas that Stick: Meet Saturday High Student Lana Vong

Saturday High student Lana Vong

Every one of us has stared in frustration at a poorly designed product and boldly declared, “I could design something better than this!”

But how many of us actually get to work on doing just that?

This past summer, San Gabriel High School junior Lana Vong took Introduction to Product Design through Saturday High—Art Center College of Design’s program that helps high school students become better artists, designers and thinkers—and created the concept for Stikitti, a cat-shaped foam sticker maker.

“Lana’s foam sticker maker project is a classic example of how product designers have the power to improve the things they love to do,” says instructor Jeffrey B. Jones. “On the first day of class, I simply asked her what she liked to do. She pulled out one of her foam stickers and said, ‘Well, I like to make these.’ I asked her how she could improve the way kids make stickers, and the rest was history.”

We caught up with Vong to learn more about the story behind Stikitti.

Dotted Line: How did you find out about Saturday High?
Lana Vong: I joined my high school’s art club, and the club’s president was going to enter Art Center’s Graphic Design program this year after graduation. I was interested in product design so I started asking her for advice and she suggested Saturday High.

Dotted Line: How long have you been interested in product design?
Vong: For about a year. Joining the art club made me more open to creative careers, and I thought product design was a good balance between creative and critical thinking.

An image from Vong's class presentation

An image from Vong's class presentation

Dotted Line: Tell us about your Introduction to Product Design course.
Vong: Our instructor, Jeffrey Jones, had us do one major project throughout the course. There were three stages to it. The first stage was the research stage, where we planned out our project based on the idea we had in mind. Next was the exploration stage, which is where we started drawing and testing out different ways to approach the project. And the last stage was the refinement stage and the making of the final product.

Dotted Line: Had you ever been involved in a similar three-step creative process?
Vong: No, it was all new to me. When I first heard of Introduction to Product Design, I thought we’d be learning about marker techniques. But we ended up focusing more on the thinking and reasoning behind our products. It was almost like solving a math problem. I really liked it.

Continue reading →

Save the Date: Car Classic ’11

Photo by Lara Warren

Join top vehicle designers, automotive companies, collectors and enthusiasts as Art Center explores the continuing global influence Southern California has on transportation design at Car Classic ’11.

With more than 20 advanced automotive design studios located here, as well as companies leading the charge in new mobility and alternative energy, SoCal continues to shape the how, what and where of mobility on a tremendous scale.

This year, as Art Center begins expanding its curriculum to further impact the evolution of the automotive industry and the broader field of transportation, we look at the innovative cars, bikes, planes, boats, materials and design tools influenced by our boundless culture.

Tickets are now on sale. Don’t miss it!

Car Classic ’11: California Design: Influencing Change
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Art Center College of Design Hillside Campus

Alum Faculty on the Future of Painting

Transportation Design alumnus and Illustration Department faculty member Nick Pugh recently gave a wonderful talk at TEDx in Long Beach on the future of painting. Pugh’s work in the entertainment industry focuses on the development and realization of new projects, created in collaboration with producers, directors and studios. Since graduating from Art Center College in 1990, Pugh has also worked closely with visual effects studio Rhythm and Hues on numerous feature films, commercials and video games. He teaches Originality in Design and Digital Landscape Painting at Art Center, and will launch a new class in the fall on developing and pitching movie ideas.

Check out Pugh’s talk below.

Yves Béhar Receives INDEX Award


Great news: Art Center Product Design alumnus and Creative Spirit award winner Yves Béhar has received a 2011 INDEX: Awards for See Better to Learn Better, a program that distributed free eyeglasses to children in Mexico. In 2007 he won one for his design of the XO laptop for the One Laptop Per Child organization.

Mediabistro’s UnBeige reports:

Béhar plans to use the 2011 award purse of €100,000 (approximately $144,000) to fund the next phase of See Well to Learn Well. The project will expand into the U.S. this fall, beginning with the San Francisco Bay Area. Since its launch in 2010, See Better to Learn Better has given free eye exams to 500,000 children in Mexico and has supplied 358,000 of them with glasses. An additional 240,000 kids and 20,000 adults are expected to receive glasses during the 2011-2012 school year.

Congrats, Yves!

Verbien: See Better to Learn Better from INDEX: Design to Improve Life on Vimeo.