Yearly Archives: 2011

Film Students Receive Honors

Our undergrad and graduate film students have been busy—several have garnered awards and recognition for their work recently.

Two Film students won Young Director Awards at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival: Y-C Tom Lee for his AIDS public service announcement and John X. Carey for his Voices From the Field documentary.

The Association of Independent Commercial Producers held their annual AICP Awards Show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on June 7. Numerous film schools across the country competed in the Best Student Commercial category, and seven of the 10 national finalists were current Art Center film students. Undergraduate film major Ian Kammer won the highest honor— Best Student Commercial—with his North Face: Hibernation spot.

Other Art Center student winners included:

Undergraduate Film:
Gevorg Karensky: Adidas – Impossible Is Nothing
Y-C Tom Lee: Gatorade
Ted Marcus: Laphroaig Scotch Whiskey – Winter Revel

Graduate Broadcast Cinema:
Erik Anderson: Red Bull — Small Can of Big Whoop-Ass
Paul Linkogle: Band-Aid – Beginnings
Michael Lutter: Roaring Lion Energy Drink (shown above)

Congrats on these well-deserved honors!

Dwell on Design, June 24-26

Art Center is proud to serve as a promotional partner for Dwell on Design, the West Coast’s largest design event.

Established by the editors of Dwell magazine, the three-day event returns to the Los Angeles Convention June 24 through 26. This year, Dwell on Design focuses on conceptual design and international talent, featuring two special exhibits by international design curators designboom, a new awards program recognizing outstanding international design, and a live art performance fresh from the Venice Bienniale show.

Dwell is offering Art Center students, alumni, faculty and staff special deals on tickets–including free exhibition tickets for students. For more information, visit http://dod.dwell.com/tickets.

For more information, including a complete schedule of events, exhibition details, guest speakers and more, check out the Dwell on Design website at dwellondesign.com.

Inspired Purpose

The following post written by Mariana Amatullo is reprinted from the Designmatters blog.

On my plane ride back from D.C. to LA last week, I kept marveling about yet another first for us at Art Center: the opportunity to have a public showcase for our collaboration with the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para Mi Pais at the atrium lobby of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

L to R: Matias Rojas, Mariana Amatullo, Penny Herscovitch, Dan Gottlieb, KC Cho, Julian Urgarte, Carolina Carrsco Barrera, Ana Maria Silva

This was the third venue for the exhibition.  Originally conceived for the Shanghai Cumulus Conference and World Expo “Better Cities, Better Life,” back in September 2010, this expanded version of the show came on the heels of a very successful display at the Royal College of Art for the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design Include 2011, their biannual conference about universal design, which this year was presided by Bill Moggridge and took a close look at design for social innovation.

Through the leadership of the Environmental Design Department, the Safe Agua Exhibition demonstrates the power of design and storytelling at their best.  Thanks to the vision of Department Chair David Mocarski and that of Penny Herscovitch and Dan Gottlieb (who are also the Environmental Design Lead Faculty of the Safe Agua project, the exhibition recreates the simple wooden framework of the media aguas, the transitional homes that the volunteers of Un Techo build throughout the 19 countries of Latin America where they are seeking to eradicate slums and make quality of life more dignified for the 200 million plus individuals throughout the continent who live at the base of the pyramid.

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Walking in the Consumer’s Shoes: Product Design Alum’s Urshuz is All About Customization

Grant Delgatty's Urshuz line of shoes allow consumers to mix and match a shoe's uppers and soles

Never heard of Urshuz? You will soon enough.

Perhaps you’ve read about Art Center Product Design alumnus and faculty member Grant Delgatty’s entry, the Soleman Redemption, into last month’s Red Bull Soapbox Race in downtown L.A. The vehicle Delgatty drove—which could shed its layers to transform from a shoe, to a sandal, to a sole—was essentially a moving advertisement for his new line of footwear, Urshuz, whose main hook is that consumers can mix and match shoe uppers and soles into a variety of material and color combinations.

Urshuz (pronounced “yer shoes”) are currently available for purchase at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, DNA Footwear in Brooklyn, ShoeLab in Quebec and a number of other retail locations. And next month, Delgatty’s line hits the big time when the customizable shoes will be available at Urban Outfitters stores nationwide.

We sat down with Delgatty—whose history in the footwear industry includes stints designing for K-Swiss, heading up design at DVS Shoes and holding the position of Vans’ director of design for seven years—to get to the very sole of Urshuz.

Dotted Line: How did Urshuz come about?
Grant Delgatty: I’ve been in the footwear industry for a long time, and one of the growing trends I’ve observed is that consumers want to express themselves and they want to feel connected to their products. I set out to develop a method in which a consumer could become more involved in the design process of their footwear.

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Postcards from Switzerland

Art Center returned to Europe for a reunion of alumni of our former Vevey campus June 3 and 4 in Vevey, Switzerland.

Some 300 guests enjoyed events including a reception, conference and party. President Lorne Buchman was on hand to share the College’s new strategic plan with the group as well.

“It was an awesome weekend,” says alumnus Marc Henry of Geneva, Switzerland. “What made this special was seeing friends that I had not seen since leaving Art Center.”

“Having this connection with everyone, and with one’s own past, is important,” says alum Jonas Blanking, managing and creative director of Sweden’s Boblbee. “It was such a great time.”

Enjoy the slideshow of images from the weekend below.

Cyberpunk vs. Rock Critic


Retromania. Gothic high-tech. Favela chic. Steampunk. Collective intelligence. Revival cults. Frankenstein mash-ups. Hauntology. The shock of the old: past, present and future in the first decade of the 21st-first century.

Thursday night, Art Center’s “Visionary in Residence” Bruce Sterling plays host to music critic and blogger Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash and Bring the Noise. The evening’s goal: to confront the implications of Simon’s latest book, Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past.

Cyberpunk vs. Rock Critic: Bruce Sterling and Simon Reynolds
Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.
L.A. Times Media Center
Hillside Campus

You Can Create Change

Last year, the Art Center community came together to envision the College’s future and to design a plan to achieve it. Create Change, Art Center’s five-year strategic plan, came out of that process.

Create Change contains a bold educational agenda for the next five years built on three major themes:

The Conservatory Spirit reflects the intense, specialized and practical career preparation that is the hallmark of an Art Center education.

Convening Diverse Communities & Disciplines centers on broad access and the growth of intercultural and cross-disciplinary dialogues and programs.

New Spaces for Learning calls for providing our students with a superior educational environment by renovating and expanding our physical facilities and developing online learning opportunities.

We are already starting to implement the plan, and we invite you to join us. Your support—for scholarship, the Art Center Fund or seed funding for initiatives—strengthens our programs, creates opportunities for our students and ensures the College’s continuing leadership.

Together we created this plan, and together we’ll make it a reality. Help us create change today.

Alum’s Folding E-Bike: Will It Change Your Commute?

Many of us have been in the situation—you want to commute to work, but your local transit solutions don’t quite connect you from your home to office. There are a couple of miles between the stop and your destination. Who has time for a two-mile hike when you’re in a hurry?

Gabriel Wartofsky's Folding E-Bike

You give up and just get in your car and drive there.

Transportation Design alum Gabriel Wartofsky has a solution to this common problem: the folding electric bicycle. This sustainable personal mobility solution—which has the potential to help shape the future of commuting—is part of a system Wartofsky designed while a student at Art Center.

This lightweight folding e-bike, manufactured from recycled aluminum by smelters using hydro power in the U.S., is only a part of an integrated system that requires integration with futuristic thinking bus, rail and auto transportation manufacturers—many of whom are lead by Art Center alumni.

Director of Advanced Mobility Research at Art Center Geoff Wardle—the first advisory board member for Wartofsky’s newly formed Conscious Commuter Corporation—says that his product is the secret to solving the first- and last-mile commute problem.

Wartofsky’s folding e-bike is currently in prototype development, and a prototype is planned for display at an upcoming Transportation Design event at Art Center in September. He’s currently looking for strategic, go-to-market relationships with auto, rail and bus manufacturers—any businesses or individuals interested in assisting with the project can connect with him at gabriel.wartofsky@consciouscommuter.com.