Author Archives: Mike Winder

Spring 2012 Graduation Events

Students completing final projects in the Technical Skills Center.

The creative energy around campus is reaching a fever pitch as the College prepares for its series of Spring graduation events.

Wednesday, April 18
Join us from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. for 4 HOURS SOLID, an annual event at South Campus featuring the work and ideas of Grad Art, Broadcast Cinema and Grad Media Design. This year’s event also includes a preview of our new graduate programs in Environmental Design and Transportation Design. Enjoy four jam-packed hours of performances, demos, thesis work, screenings, discussions, Admissions Q&A, food trucks and music. Free and open to the public. More info.

Thursday, April 19
If you’re lucky enough to be on the invite list for Graduation Show Preview, you’ll get a sneak peak at the work of the next generation of artists and designers. Held from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. at Hillside Campus, the preview gives potential employers, alumni, donors and industry professionals an opportunity to preview the Graduation Show and meet our graduating students.

Immediately following the preview, all guests are invited to a reception hosted by Alumni Relations to welcome our graduating students into the alumni family.

Saturday, April 21
Join us at Hillside Campus from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. as we celebrate the accomplishments of our newest graduating class, present the Art Center Student Leadership Award to Product Design student Kenji Huang, and award an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters to designer and artist April Greiman.

Can’t join us for the graduation ceremony? Watch our live online webcast.

After the ceremony, Graduation Show opens to the public from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. so everyone can enjoy the work of our newest Art Center graduates.

Let the celebration of our creative community begin!

Below: Scream at the Dot by graduating Graphic Design student and Spring 2012 Valedictorian Aldis Ozoliņŝ.

Get Experienced with Art Center at Night

Students in an Art Center at Night "Intro to Graphic Design" course. Photo: Four Eyes Photography.

Are you experienced in the ways of Art Center at Night?

No? Then you’re in luck because the College is giving you three nights in a row—starting tonight!—to experience first-hand Art Center’s popular continuing studies program.

At Experience Art Center at Night, you can sit in on several ACN courses, observe student presentations and critiques, take a self-guided tour of South Campus, and watch ACN’s instructors in action. Whether you’re seeking to advance your professional career, looking for a new creative outlet, or preparing a portfolio for entry in to Art Center’s full-time degree programs, Art Center at Night has a wide range of courses to fit your needs.

Participating classes:

Monday, April 16, 7–9 p.m.
Digital Design 1; Digital Magazines for iPad; Fashion Illustration; Intro to Environmental Design; Intro to Graphic Design; Intro to Product and Transportation Design; Perspective; Service-Based Products; and Visual Communication and Form Development.

Tuesday, April 17, 7–9 p.m.
Contemporary Letterpress; Introduction to Advertising; Intro to Documentary Film; Intro to Graphic Design; The Next Great Idea; Photo 102: Taking it to the Street; Product Design: Process; Physical Computing with Arduino; and Web Fundamentals.

Wednesday, April 18, 7–9 p.m.
The Art of Storytelling; Editorial Design for the iPad; Essential Typography; Exploring Lighting: Next Step; Graphic Design; Illustration Techniques and Concepts; Intro to Environmental Design; Intro to Package Design; Intro to Product and Transportation Design; Motion Design 1; Printmaking Studio; Product Branding Strategy; and Visual Communication and Form Development.

See you there!

Experience Art Center at Night
April 16–18, 7–9 p.m.
Art Center College of Design
South Campus
950 South Raymond Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91105
artcenter.edu/atnight

Photography Alumnus Retrospective “Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life” Now Open

Self portrait, Manhattan studio, 1950. (c) Pedro E. Guerrero

Pedro E. Geurrero: Photographs of Modern Life, on view now through April 25 at Woodbury University Hollywood Space, is the first extensive exhibition on the West Coast of Pedro E. Guerrero’s PHOT 40 career as one of the most prolific architectural photographers of the 20th Century.

The exhibition, curated by Emily Bills and Anthony Fontenot, highlights the diversity of Guerrero’s subjects taken over seven decades, which included the architecture of Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Edward Durell Stone and Eero Saarinen, and ranged from portraits of architects to to commercial work for House & Garden, Vogue, The New York Times Magazine and Architectural Record.

He is perhaps best known for his close relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright, for whom he served as the architect’s photographer and friend for 20 years. The exhibition will feature Guerrero’s illuminating portraits of the architect, including 12 photographs of Wright’s hands demonstrating the difference between organic and conventional architecture at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

Pedro E. Geurrero: Photographs of Modern Life
Woodbury University Hollywood Space (WUHO)
6518 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028.
Gallery hours: Monday through Thursday, 1-8 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 1-6 p.m.

Spotlight on Transportation Design alumna Michelle Christensen

Transportation Design alumna Michele Christensen inside the 2010 Acura ZDX she designed.

Yes, transportation design is still an industry dominated by males. But things are changing and these days female designers, while still a minority, are no longer a rarity.

One of the more dramatic success stories of recent memory is Transportation Design alumna Michelle Christensen, who graduated from Art Center in 2005. While still a student at the College, Christensen began working on a groundbreaking design that caught the attention of Acura recruiters. Immediately after graduating, she was hired at Acura and became that company’s first female exterior car designer.

She spent the next several years transforming her class project into what eventually became the groundbreaking 2010 Acura ZDX crossover vehicle. “We’ve worked on almost nothing else for three years,” she told The New York Times of the process of bringing the ZDX to life, just as it was preparing to make its debut at the 2009 New York Auto Show. “You have to fight for, and justify, every element.”

What made Christensen interested in designing cars? “Growing up, my interests ranged from sketching prom dresses for friends to wanting to work in a pit crew for a racing team,” Christensen told Marie Claire in 2010. “In junior high I learned about exterior car design; it was the perfect melding of my interests in design, cars, and working with my hands.”

Later that same year, in an episode of the online show Moto-Man that focused exclusively on the ZDX, Christensen told host George Notaras that she first became aware of Art Center and car design as a profession when her dad, at a Bay Area car show, pointed out Art Center alumnus Chip Foose TRAN ’90 in the crowd.

“I asked him who Chip Foose was and he said, ‘He’s a car designer,” said Christensen. ‘And I thought, whoa, pump the brakes, he’s a what? I want to do that!”

EcoCouncil Throws a Spring Food Garden Party to Introduce Art Center’s New Executive Chef

Art Center Executive Chef Chris Haydostian (center) with EcoCouncil co-presidents Jenn Kuca (left) and Erik Molano (right). Photo: Chuck Spangler

Guest blog post by EcoCouncil co-presidents Erik Molano and Jenn Kuca

This past Friday, Sodexo collaborated with EcoCouncil to unite the campus community for a cooking demonstration at our Art Center Food Garden. Sodexo has been working with us consistently over the past few years to support student-led sustainability efforts, as well as campus-wide environmental responsibility initiatives.

Now that the weather has been warming up, we thought EcoCouncil should take the opportunity to get students, faculty and administration out in the fresh, open air. The new Food Garden was the perfect choice to discuss our event’s theme: garden-fresh food and easy-to-prepare snacks.

Chef Chris Haydostian and his English Pea Pureé. Photo: Chuck Spangler.

Due to Sodexo’s commitment to global sustainability in it’s Better Tomorrow Plan, we felt more than excited to introduce Christopher Haydostian, Art Center’s new eco-conscious executive chef.

Haydostian opened his talk with an overview of Sodexo’s partnership with local food suppliers and use of sustainably-sourced seafood, which many students and staff were unaware of. He also provided a little history about his journey to Art Center, including his work in the world of gourmet food, and his alma mater Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, our neighbor here in Pasadena.

Haydostian showed EcoCouncil and our guests how to make an English Pea Pureé that was served on garlic baguette slices and topped with roasted red peppers and feta cheese. All guests were able to sample the food right after his demonstration, and the recipe is now available on the Sodexo @ Art Center Facebook page.

EcoCouncil advisor Heidrun Mumper-Drumm and other EcoCouncil members showed guests around the garden and provided a seed giveaway, so that everyone could get in on the gardening action. The Spring Food Garden Party was not only fun, but it was collaborative, informational and, most importantly, delicious.

The Spring Food Garden Party in full effect. Photo: Pei Liew

Art Center’s Graduate Programs Top U.S. News & World Report’s Latest Graduate School Rankings

Graduate student work will be on display at 4 Hours Solid on April 18. Photo: Four Eyes Photography.

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual Best Grad Schools rankings, and we’re proud to report that Art Center made quite a splash in its Fine Arts Schools list.

The College’s Graduate Industrial Design program ranked number two in the “Industrial Design” category; Graduate Media Design ranked number seven in “Graphic Design;” and Graduate Art ranked number 18 in “Fine Arts.”

According to U.S. News, these rankings were based on the result of a peer assesment survey—art school deans and other top art school academics were asked to nominate up to 10 programs noted for their excellence in each specialty, with the schools receiving the most nominations being listed.

Curious to learn more about Art Center’s graduate programs?

On April 18, the College will host 4 Hours Solid, its annual event at South Campus that showcases the work produced by its Broadcast Cinema, Graduate Art and Graduate Media Design departments. This year’s event will also include a preview of Art Center’s new graduate programs in Environmental Design and Transportation Design.

4 Hours Solid
Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 6–10 p.m.
Art Center College of Design, South Campus
950 South Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105

Designing Experiences, Systems and Solutions: Art Center’s New Interaction Design Program

Nikolai Cornell MDP 04 with his Infiniti Interactive Mirrors. Faculty member Phil van Allen consulted on this project.

With recent forecasts predicting that Apple will sell as many as 66 million units of their latest iteration of the iPad this year, its safe to say that what the Cupertino company dubbed as the “post-PC era” is quickly becoming a reality. But the shift from personal computers to tablets is just one aspect of a digital interactive future still being written.

This coming Fall Term, as part of the College’s Create Change initiative, Art Center will launch a new undergraduate Interaction Design degree program, in which students—whether designing a mobile app or a gestural interface for an exhibition—will learn to think deeply about the user’s experience, apply technology creatively and invent new approaches to interaction and design.

We recently sat down with Interaction Design founding faculty members Brian Boyl (Graphic Design, Integrated Studies, Product Design), Philip van Allen (Graduate Media Design) and Jeffrey Higashi (Product Design), who have been busy establishing the framework for the Department’s curriculum in anticipation of the arrival of the new department’s chair. An international search is now underway and an announcement is expected in June.

Dotted Line: Can you describe the academic interaction design landscape and how Art Center’s new program will stand out?

Art Center faculty Brian Boyl. Photo: Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design.

Brian Boyl: There are several graduate programs in interaction design in the United States—Illinois Institute of Technology, New York Univeristy and Carnegie Mellon to name a few—but there aren’t a lot of accredited undergraduate programs. We’d be one of the first undergraduate programs to be launched and absolutely the first to be launched in Southern California. That’s exciting. What we’re doing is looking at the core strengths of Art Center. We think the best move in creating this program is to make sure it strongly integrates with our other departments and channels their strengths.

Phil van Allen: Interaction design is by its very nature collaborative, so the idea is to build a strong program that stands on its own but that also has a kind of permeability. For example, we’ve discussed that students in Interaction Design will take Graphic Design and Product Design courses, because those two disciplines are very central to interaction design. Our students will need to have an exceptional foundation of disciplines to be exceptional interaction designers. And then there’s the core of interaction design itself, which they will have to become experts in.

Continue reading →

A Special Invitation to “Syd Mead: Progressions” [Updated with image gallery and "2019" video]

"Hypervan-Profile" (2005) by Syd Mead.

Currently on view at the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale, Syd Mead: Progressions is a retrospective that spans more than 50 years of artwork by legendary visual futurist and Art Center alumnus Syd Mead TRAN ’59.

The exhibition—which includes paintings of everything from extraterrestrial vehicles to interplanetary resort destinations—is a spectacular opportunity to get an up-close-and-personal view of Mead’s work and to appreciate his uncanny ability to translate contemporary concepts into believable visions of the future.

To help celebrate Progressions, Art Center College of Design and Forest Lawn are co-hosting a special presentation at Forest Lawn Museum next Thursday, March 8, from 7–10 p.m. Mead will speak about his work at 8 p.m. and a book signing will immediately follow.

If you’re interested in attending, please RSVP to alumni@artcenter.edu.

Forest Lawn Museum is located at 1712 South Glendale Ave., Glendale, CA 91205.

Head past the jump for a gallery of additional images and the featurette “2019: A Future Imagined,” in which Mead reflects upon the nature of creativity and how it drives the future.

Continue reading →

Explore “The History of Space Photography” and the Music of John Cage in Art Center’s Williamson Gallery

The Aurora Austalis, as photographed from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Now open in the Williamson Gallery, the exhibition The History of Space Photography explores the beauty, mystery, science and meaning of images depicting our planet and worlds beyond.

Guest curated by Jay Belloli—the director of gallery programs at the Armory Center for the Arts from 1990 to 2010—the exhibition presents an extraordinary variety of astronomical photographs created since the development of photography, and will feature a number of the most important scientific photographs ever created.

From the earliest black and white documentation of the Moon, solar eclipses, and stars through the most recent color images of the early history of the Universe, The History of Space Photography is the most comprehensive exhibition of its kind ever organized.

Continue reading →

Feeling Social? Art Center Has You Covered.

"Death is Lonely" by alumna Maya Assad ILLU '10.

When it comes to networking, nothing beats good old-fashioned person-to-person communication.

But it’s nice to know that at Art Center, you’re never more than a click away from several online social networks.

Official College pages include:

Of course there are many additional pages created for specific departments and majors.

How do you use online social networks? Which networks would you like to see us embrace? What would you like to see Art Center do in the social realm?

Let us know in the comments below.