First term Illustration student Sherry Wang spent two years pursuing a degree in business before she found her true calling. A trip to Beijing changed everything.
“While idly browsing art galleries in Beijing, I met the manager of Primo Marella, Michela Sena,” explains Wang.
“We spoke of my interest in illustration, and I showed her my portfolio. She was very encouraging and suggested I attend art school. I applied to Art Center just days after returning home to L.A. I will always remember what Michela told me: ‘Anybody can do business, but not just anyone can do art. Art is a true talent, a gift.’”
Read more about Sherry and her first five weeks at Art Center in this greatinterview.
Art Center has been awarded $75,000 by the Surdna Foundation in support of a transdisciplinary Designmatters studio in which students will create a design for a Teen Art Park for underserved youth in Pasadena and Altadena. The park is a project launched by the Flintridge Center in collaboration with a number of community partners, including Art Center.
“We are grateful for this generous gift from the Surdna Foundation,” says Art Center President Lorne Buchman. “The foundation has been a wonderful supporter of the College, and previously awarded grants in support of our Public Programs.”
The two-part studio, held in conjunction with the Flintridge Center, will take place next year over Spring and Summer terms, and will be led by Environmental Design Chair David Mocarski and core faculty member James Meraz. The studio, made up of 16 Art Center students from all disciplines, will work with as many as 150 youth from these underserved areas to create the design for the park.
A woman in the campamento tests the Relava kitchen workstation prototype.
From the article: “For the teachers and students in the Environmental and Product Design departments at Art Center College of Design who signed up for the Safe Agua project in Chile, the first engagement with the problem was very close to home. An ‘empathy exercise’ at Art Center’s Pasadena, California, campus, before a two-week field trip to Chile, forced the 15-member team to experience what it’s like to limit their daily water intake to one 5-gallon bucket, and laid the groundwork for understanding the challenges faced by the slum families.”
Three of the projects from this studio—the Ducha Halo portable shower, ReLava kitchen workstation and Mila community laundry facility—have already entered the implementation and testing stages.
The following post was written by Vice President and Director of Designmatters Mariana Amatullo for the Designmatters blog.
Art Center’s fall term started for us on the heels of an extraordinary week in Shanghai. Highlights included the opportunity to experience first hand the pageantry and wondrous scale of the 2010 World Expo; a spectacular day at TEDx Shanghai at the invitation of local curator extraordinaire Richard Hsu in which the theme that characterizes this city—fusion—was explored in myriad stimulating ways, meetings at the offices of Continuum and Frog, a window into a bygone China with a visit to the ancient city of Xitang, dinner with local alumni Marcus Lui and Clement Yip, and the presentation of the Safe Agua project at the Expo’s UN Pavilion and at Tongji University in the context of the educational Cumulus Conference Young Creators for Better City, Better Life.
Seeing through educational collaborations that go from the classroom into the world falls squarely within the Designmatters mandate, but even by our exacting standards of “tangible” outcomes, Safe Agua stands in a league of its own given the accelerated curve of implementation of some the solutions proposed by our students, and the depth of ongoing engagement we have with our partners at the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para mi Pais in Santiago and with the communities we are working with.
Shanghai was a global stage that allowed us to showcase the depth of all of the projects components with the Safe Agua exhibition and be there together with the exhibition’s lead team (David Mocarski, Penny Herscovitich, Daniel Gottlieb, K C Cho, Stephanie Stalker, Snow Dong and Ramon Coronado) and two of our partners from Un Techo, Andres Iriondo and Ignacio Gonzalez, to partake in the kudos from peer institutions worldwide.
We are now preparing to share the exhibition with our community at Art Center next spring. Around the same time, the project’s publication Safe Agua, will be hitting bookstores throughout the country, courtesy of DAP. Much to look forward to indeed!
It’s almost time for the ninth annual Car Classic! This year’s theme, Freedom of Motion, celebrates the powerful combination of technology and passion that allows humans to move well beyond our physical abilities. Whether it’s hurtling down the road in a vintage Bugatti, pulling 5G around a corner in a Formula One racecar, hitting 50 mph on a 15-pound Tour de France bike, or winning the 100 meter dash on a pair of prosthetic legs, we continually seek the freedom of moving beyond our physical limitations. This year’s event will focus on the design and technology being used to break free from these limitations.
Keynote speaker will be Transportation Design alumnus Frank Stephenson, design director for McLaren Automotive, who will unveil the new McLaren MP4-12C. Also speaking will be Jeff Zwart, an award-winning automotive photographer and videographer who recently set a new record racing up Pike’s Peak in a Porsche 911 GT3.
An incredible array of more than 100 rare and exotic automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, watercraft and other vehicles will be on display in Art Center’s panoramic Sculpture Garden. Some of the spectacular vehicles already confirmed are a 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, the world’s first production Cobra and an ICON A5 sport aircraft.
Attendees will have the opportunity to tour Art Center’s studio classrooms and rapid prototyping facilities to view the work of tomorrow’s top designers. KABC automotive reporter Dave Kunz and host of Speed Channel’s Car Crazy Barry Meguiar will again emcee the event and awards ceremony. Twelve honors will be presented to vehicles of exceptional design, as judged by a team of design experts.
ENERGY investigates how natural forces shape not only material things, but affect our emotions and intellect.
As part of the Williamson Gallery’s mission, students in Art Center’s Design for Sustainability 2 class will use a section of the gallery as their studio, studying and displaying their exploration of the question, “Where do energy and design intersect?”
ArtNight Pasadena kicks off Pasadena ArtWeekend, a three-day, citywide arts festival.
Here’s a fun story for a rainy afternoon: the incredibly true stories behind automotive logos.
We know that the galloping horse logo was created by Art Center alum Phil Clark, but why do Chevys wear bowties, and does the blue-and-white BMW roundel really symbolize a propeller and sky?
Road & Track gets to the bottom of things: “From Ferrari’s Prancing Horse to Cadillac’s crest, automobile logos appear on everything from steering wheel hubs to giant billboards, and even the lapel pins on the suits of company executives. This kind of flexibility is one of the design elements needed for an effective and strong logo, says Jack Gernsheimer, Creative Director of Partners Design Inc. and author of Designing Logos: The Process of Creating Symbols that Endure.”
Art Center is honored to welcome to campus production designer Scott Chambliss to discuss his craft and more as part of the Art Center Film Department Distinguished Filmmakers Series. Film Department student Matthew Epstein will host a Q&A discussion with Chambliss, who has done production design on hit films including Salt; Mission Impossible III; the TV series Alias, Gideon’s Crossing, Felicity and the upcoming feature Cowboys and Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau and produced by Steven Spielberg.
The event starts at 10 a.m. at the L.A. Times Media Centerand is open to Art Center students, faculty, alumni and staff.
Scott Chambliss Wednesday, October 6, 10 am
Hillside Campus, L.A. Times Media Center
Vice President and Director of Designmatters Mariana Amatullo has a wonderful piece up at Core 77 about design education and designing for positive social change.
Amatullo writes: “Historically, designers have always strived to create positive social change, and many celebrated efforts—think back to the Bauhaus—started in schools.
Design intervention by Gavin Alaoen as part of a Graphic Design studio, Graduate Media Design
Both of those things remain true today. In fact, design education has a larger role than ever to play in challenging the status quo around the wicked problems of a crowded planet. Despite, and perhaps because of, the world being in such turmoil, this is a very exciting time for design and designers. I firmly believe that with an expanded tool kit, designers can be instrumental contributors to a conversation about the future that it is getting increasingly layered and multidisciplinary. If we are ever to reduce or curtail dire societal ills and achieve sustainable development—by definition, prosperity that is globally shared and environmentally sustainable—responsible design needs to be front and center as part of the equation.”
As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Some of the latest:
Alumna and painter Theresa Paden is on a mission to save horses: Ventura County Star
Theresa Paden
Visual effects supervisor and Art Center alum Eric Barba talks about the upcoming sci-fi extravaganza Tron: Legacy: Cnet
Francis Pollara is producer, founder and chief executive of Ladeson Productions—and also still a student at Art Center. La Canada Valley Sun
Broadcast Cinema alum Hilton Carter talks about his new short, Moth, and music video for Baltimore musicians including Blaqstarr: Baltimore Sun
Pasadena Federal Credit Union unveils new 90-square-foot mural, “Building Pasadena,” painted by alumnus Jerry Ortega: Pasadena Star-News
Art Center alumna Denise Assad has done it all: industrial design, transportation design, public relations, advertising and now, baking: Brand X
An electric concept car created by Clemson University students and dubbed “Deep Orange” will be making an appearance at Art Center’s Car Classic (Art Center students collaborated on the design and styling): Fast Company
And speaking of Car Classic, it’s coming up Oct. 17: Car Classic ’10
We know that the 
