Category Archives: Advertising

Creativity 101: Harnessing the power of students’ imaginations

Photographs by Chris Hatcher, PHOT '05

Photographs by Chris Hatcher, PHOT ’05

In 30 minutes, visualize your creative process and recreate it using an 8-and-a-half-by-11 sheet of paper.

This is the first assignment in Creative Strategies, a popular undergraduate Product Design course taught by instructor Fridolin “Frido” Beisert PROD 98, INDU 08, faculty director of Art Center’s Product Design Department.

All 14 students accept the challenge. Walking to the front of the classroom, they each select a single sheet of colored construction paper and take a seat along the row of bare metal tables. As a digital timer, projected onto the wall, starts ticking, the students immediately start cutting, tearing, folding and drawing.

Continue reading →

Finalist in Ron Howard’s Project Imaginat10n experiences Art Center flashbacks. The good kind.

Kalman Apple's "A Day in the Country"

Kalman Apple’s “A Day in the Country”

Go Back to Art School in your head.  You can see it right? Germanic block letters tattooed between the shoulder blades, or etched in a delicate script on the hip or across the belly. I’m a little old fashioned that way, so I’ve kept it simply as a personal mantra. Whenever I’ve been stumped or creatively blocked, I invoke the mantra to help me get away from the mediocre solutions I’m hoping to avoid.

Recently, the meaning of that phrase came back to me-­‐ and this time from an unlikely place. In this instance, I was up against a seemingly impossible deadline to finish a film. I started shooting on a Wednesday for a project due by 6 AM on the following Tuesday. The deadline was for a contest Canon USA was sponsoring to promote its latest DSLR camera.

The contest was to be judged by Ron Howard and his daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard. You probably remember him best as a child star, brilliant director or the guy who introduces the magic of movies on the tram ride at Universal Studios. When I first heard about Project Imaginat10n, it sounded very much like an Art Center class assignment. Take ten still images, each representing an aspect of storytelling and create a 1-10 minute film inspired by those images. The genesis of this contest comes from a statement Ron Howard made years ago, “We’re all creative.” And to prove it, Canon has stepped up to provide the forum.

Continue reading →

LA Shorts Fest to screen alumni and current student films

Official Selection LA Shorts Fest

Art Center’s graduate Film department will be well represented in the program of this year’s LA Shorts Fest, which runs from September 5-12 at Laemmle Noho 7 theaters. Current student, Ellen Houlihan and recent grad, Carlo Olivares Paganoni, learned this week that each of their MFA thesis projects — “Joan’s Day Out” and “Cardboard Camera” respectively — has been accepted into the prestigious festival, which also serves to qualify all its selections for Oscar and BAFTA contention. In other words, LA Shorts provides a uniquely powerful showcase for exposing up-and-coming filmmakers to industry power players.

Houlihan and Paganoni’s films represent the broad spectrum of work produced by Art Center Film students. “Joan’s Day Out,” which screens Monday, September 9, follows a grandmother (played by Sally Kellerman) who becomes a fugitive from her assisted living facility. While “Cardboard Camera,” which unspools on Sunday, September 8, features a 10-year-old boy who makes his cinematic dreams come true with few resources beyond his imagination and ingenuity. What follows are the filmmakers’ reflections on the ideas and inspiration animating their films and the challenges involved in bringing them to the screen.

Continue reading →

Art Center in the News, July 2013

ad agency_glo1mtc4.2-1

Alumnus Jim Root, art director at Cramer-Kasselt, was featured in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

From fuel efficiency standards changing the look of your car to top ranked film schools, from Gibson Guitartown to backyard beehive designs – here’s where you can catch up on any Art Center news you may have missed with our latest media roundup.

The Hollywood Reporter, “The Hollywood Reporter Unveils the Top 25 Film Schools of 2013” July 31, 2013: Art Center moves up from #23 to #15 in  annual film school ranking.

The New York Times, “Carlab Mixes Natural Gas and Gasoline for More Efficient Vehicle”  July 9, 2013: Transportation Design instructor Eric Noble featured throughout the Wheels blog about rethinking the size of the natural gas tank.

Continue reading →

Video toolbox: Branding = storytelling + what people want

Moving Brands comes to Art Center (short cut) from Art Center College of Design on Vimeo.

Jim Bull reflects with some pride on the terror and exhilaration he felt taking a flying leap into the competitive creative marketplace, equipped with little more than a newly minted design degree, towering student loans and an audacious desire to reinvent the way thoughtful design can turn brands into cultural icons. Parachute definitely not included.

In the years since, Bull and his partners have turned Moving Brands into a global creative juggernaut at the leading edge of design innovation. Moving brands has built its reputation on combining a tech-savvy early adoption mindset with a very analogue approach to “designing and producing emotive experience” for a broad array of clients, including Nokia, Stella McCartney and HP.

Bull visited Art Center earlier this summer to shed some light on the most current best practices in the world of branding. The resulting lecture became an intensive clinic in concise storytelling, design thinking and developing a professional foothold in today’s rapidly evolving creative economy. Because Bull’s talk was jam-packed with vital information for anyone who makes regular stops at the crossroads of imagination and innovation, we created the above highlight reel to clue you in on the tricks of the branding trade.

 

Creative Footnotes: Graphic Design student re-imagines Hawaiian Airlines for the iphone generation

box

Graphic Design student, Oliver Lo, created the following rebranding campaign for Hawaiian Airlines as part of a class project. When he posted his materials on Behance, the digital crowd went wild for this casually elegant design, evocative of the tropics without relying on dated island tropes (think: Hawaiian Tropic‘s burnt orange and bikinis). Here, Oliver kicks off a series of posts in which Art Center students unveil the creative process and ideas animating their work. 

With this rebrand, Hawaiian Airlines establishes itself as a destination carrier that elevates leisure travel to an experience of sophistication, hospitality, premium quality and fun. To reflect this transformation, the airline shortens its name and condenses its logo into a simple wordmark.

Continue reading →

“Graphic Design USA” Names Faculty and Alumni Among Most Influential Professionals in Advertising

Art Center's Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Art Center’s Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith. Photo: Chuck Spangler

This year, Graphic Design USA turns 50 years old. To celebrate the occasion the magazine has asked its readers to name the most influential graphic designers, art directors, corporate design departments and more of the past 50 years.

The publication plans to unveil the results of its 50th Anniversary Survey throughout the year. Not surprisingly, several Art Center faculty and alumni have made the list so far.

For this post, we’ll focus on Art Center alumni from the world of advertising in the survey, which includes Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith ADVT 81 listed among the “Most Influential Art Directors of the Last 50 Years.”

“I’m honored to be included in that group,” said Goldsmith of making the list, a space he shares with fellow alumni David Peterson GRPK 88 and Tracy Wong ADVT 84. “I know most of them, and have worked with many of them during my career.”

Continue reading →

Film Alumnus Directs Most Watched Commercial

Dove Real Beauty Sketches, directed by John X. Carey, sets new record

Viewed more than 114 million times and counting, it became the most watched Internet commercial of all time in less than a month online, the New York Daily News reports. This week it surpassed the previous record holder, the Evian Roller Babies, notes Mashable.

What makes the three-minute video, directed by Art Center College of Design film alumnus John X. Carey for Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, so compelling?

A woman walks behind a curtain, where a forensic artist draws her based on her description of herself. What she doesn’t know is that another person will come in later and describe her as well. When the two sketches are placed side by side, there’s an obvious difference between how these women perceive themselves and how others perceive them. And when the forensic artist asks, “Are you more beautiful than you think?” the video captures their emotional responses.

In the end, they’re all beautiful.

Continue reading →

Art Center Students Win Big at College Emmy Awards

Art Center students were honored with five College Emmys at the 34th Annual College Television Awards.

Lizbeth Chappell, Tim Hendrix, Ellen Houlihan, Josue Lopez, Kathleen Lorden, Filippo Nesci, Carlo Olivares Paganoni and Justin Wells all walked away with College Emmys in hand at the awards gala on April 25, 2013.

Art Center swept the Commercial Category, with wins in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place for Lorden (Kia Soul “Funeral”), Chappell and Lopez (“Uncomfortable Situations”) and Houlihan (“Todd Glass for GLSEN”). Lorden accepted her award for First Place in the Commercial Category and thanked her professors, classmates, cast, crews, parents and husband.

In the Alternative Category, Nesci and Hendrix received 3rd Place for their “KOAN Sound – 80′s Fitness” music video. Paganoni and Wells accepted the 2nd Place award in the Children’s Program Category for their short film Cardboard Camera.

On the Thank You cam, award winners got the opportunity to express their gratitude to everyone who helped their projects become a reality, from their families and supportive donors to Art Center teachers. Chappell thanked her crew for all their hard work, as did Nesci and Hedrix, while Paganoni thanked his mom, ”who came with all her friends from Mexico to cook for the shoot.”

The College Television Awards is a national competition that recognizes excellences in college student produced video, digital and film work, with entries from hundreds of colleges and universities every year. Winners receive cash award, the opportunity to network with top television executives and recognition within the industry. Entries are judged online by members of the Television Academy who work professionally in each respective discipline, and awards are based on excellence in overall production.

You can watch all the clips from the show at the Emmys Foundation website.

Congratulations to all Art Center award-winning filmmakers!

 

20 Art Center Students Win 2013 ADDY® Awards

Congratulations to the 20 Art Center students and recent alumni who won ADDY® Awards in the 2013 competition! Students received their awards at the ADDY® Gala on March 14 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.

Art Center student winners from the 2013 ADDY Awards

Many of the Gold and Silver ADDY winners produced their projects in Film/Sell, a 14-week class where Film and Advertising majors collaborate on spec ads for their reels. During the class, students go through tons of ideas before landing a concept they can take into production.

“We help them point out what works and what doesn’t, and how their concept plays into the overall brand identity of the product they’re promoting,” said Chris Gehl, who teaches Film/Sell alongside Clio award-winner Nir Bashan. “Our intention with Film/Sell is to create a class that we would have liked when we were students,” said Gehl. “It’s my favorite class to teach, and it is the first time in 20 years that a class like this has existed.”

Sponsored by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY® Awards recognize excellence in the art of advertising, graphic design, web design, illustration and photography. The AAF Student ADDY® Awards Competition is designed specifically for college students.

Continue reading →