Category Archives: Alumni Relations

Say Goodbye to the Old Paradigm. Here Comes the Next Generation of Design-Driven Startups

Accelerator

Art Center  and Caltech today announced the launch of The Design Accelerator, an incubator aimed at helping startups grow by merging great design, cutting-edge technology and business strategy to create innovation. The Accelerator initially will be housed within Idealab, which is well known for creating and operating pioneering companies in its own right.

“In today’s economy, artists and designers play a vital role as creative leaders and catalysts for innovation and change,” said Art Center President Lorne M. Buchman. “Integrating technology, design and business, The Design Accelerator creates an opportunity for Art Center and Caltech alumni to expand on what they learned as students and provides a stimulating space for their concepts to become viable businesses.”

The Accelerator is an integral part of Art Center’s 2011–2016 Strategic Plan. Understanding students’ concerns about employment prospects following graduation, The Accelerator fills a critical gap by giving students and alumni the opportunity to develop their concepts into sustainable and commercial ventures—a bridge between academic and professional life.

Fred Farina, Caltech’s chief innovation officer, adds, “We know that making connections across different areas fuels innovation, and that’s why we’re excited about this collaboration. The combination of our complementary but very different perspectives in a startup team promises powerful results.”

The Design Accelerator benefits from its prime location in Pasadena, Calif., which has become a hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurship with vibrant creative, technology and business communities, enriched by the presence of Art Center, Caltech, angel investors and venture capitalists.

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Transgender Portraits Celebrate Courage and Community

Rosenstein_TransFormationalProject

From the series Transformational Project by Jen Rosenstein.

Jen Rosenstein will never forget the first time she met a transgender person. A lesbian and, at the time, a student at Art Center College of Design, Rosenstein was curious. But her curiosity backfired. “I had so many questions for him, and he took it wrong,” says the 2008 Photography and Imaging graduate. “He misunderstood my intention.”

Still, Rosenstein and her new friend Mir kept talking and later he invited her to visit his home in West Hollywood. There she set up an impromptu studio to photograph Mir and some of his friends — the first portraits in what would become the series Transformational Project. “I went back to his house every weekend for several months,” she recalls, “and people were literally lining up to have their portraits taken.”

Five years on, Rosenstein has made nearly 70 portraits of trans men and women in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. The ever-expanding series, “a platform for the trans community to express themselves any way they want,” has been featured by ABC News and presented in a gallery show at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center. On Saturday, June 22, her roving portrait studio returns to LAGLC’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza in Hollywood, and she has put out an open call to the trans community to come and be photographed there.

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Art Center Takes Manhattan During 25th Annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair

As design industry professionals converge in New York this week, Art Center College of Design is prominently featured as part of the 25th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), taking place May 18–21. Attracting more than 26,000 professionals from the worlds of interior design, architecture, retail, manufacturing, distribution and development, ICFF is considered North America’s premier showcase for contemporary design.

Leading the College’s presence at this influential summit is David Mocarski, chair of graduate and undergraduate Environmental Design.

Art Center’s Booth 3016 at the show’s main venue, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, features an exhibition of work by eight students in the College’s Environmental Design program, and presents visitors an opportunity to mingle with the design community and learn more about the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Alumnus Brandon Kim and his work, Solace, will be featured in Booth 1073 at ICFF this year.

Alumnus Brandon Kim and his work, Solace, will be featured in Booth 1073 at ICFF this year.

Additionally, several alumni are represented in the prestigious ICFF Studio, which serves as a platform to match selected designers and their products with potential manufacturers.

It all takes place during NYCxDesign, a city-wide design celebration continuing through May 21 and packed with events and showcases.

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Alum Bruce Osborn photographs tsunami survivors for National Geographic Japan

Bruce OsbornThe March 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine’s Japan edition features Art Center alum Bruce Osborn’s photographs of parents and children in Tohoku, two years after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region, resulting in a nuclear disaster and the deaths and displacement of thousands of residents. The vivid, colorful portraits, taken against the backdrop of affected areas, capture the resilient spirit of those who live there.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Osborn has lived in Japan since 1980. After studying Photography at Art Center College of Design, he worked as the photographer for Phonograph Record Magazine before moving to Japan where he continues to work as a photographer and filmmaker. His Oyako project, which takes its name from the Japanese word for “parent and child,” grew out of a series of photographs he began in 1982 and continues as a popular annual tradition throughout Japan on the fourth Sunday of July.

Art Center full throttle at 83rd International Geneva Motor Show

Automobile enthusiasts from around the globe are gathering in Switzerland for the 83rd International Geneva Motor Show March 7–17, 2013 and Art Center faculty, alumni and staff are circulating among them.

An Art Center alumni event
is set for Wednesday, March 6, 17:00-20:00 
at the C Bar and Lounge, Starling Geneva Airport Hotel.

Alumni and friends are invited to meet up at an informal reception in conjunction with the show. Geoff Wardle, executive director of Graduate Transportation Design, and Cathy Karry, director of the College’s Career and Professional Development office, will be among the faculty and staff in town to connect with alumni who live in, or near Geneva as well as those visiting for the auto show. For more info, please contact Alumni Relations at alumni@artcenter.edu.

Wardle will be meeting with industry and media representatives to discuss Art Center’s new Grad Trans program that offers two tracks for students to pursue:

Geoff Wardle

Geoff Wardle, executive director of Graduate Transportation Design

  1. The Vehicles Track is for those who are intent on entering or returning to the vehicle manufacturing industry who have strong strategic thinking skills and the ability to focus on the bigger issues facing the field relating to its customers and its future business models.
  2. The Systems Track is geared to individuals who have a more varied background plus are interested in a more holistic, systems-thinking approach to innovative transportation solutions from personal mobility in the urban environment through to more sustainable freight transportation, for example.

Wardle will also discuss the development of automated road vehicles, future business models for the industry and generally what the outlook is for the future of the automobile—which, in his opinion, is positive!

– Teri Bond

For more information on the graduate program, visit

http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/admissions/graduate.jsp

http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/programs/graduate/transportation_design/course_of_study.jsp

Art Center gets interactive at SXSW

Art Center tech-heads will have a chance to talk design at the 20th annual SXSW Interactive festival, held March 8 to 12 in Austin, Texas.

The College will host an alumni event March 7 with panelists – including Anne Burdick, Chair of Graduate Media Design Practices, and Maggie Hendrie, Chair of Interaction Design – discussing challenges facing designers in a networked global future.

Additionally, a trio of alumni from the Media Design Practices program will sit on panels: Jayne Vidheecharoen (Shaping the Future of Play Is Serious Work), Carina Ngai (Design for Aging, Your Future-Self) and Jennifer Darmour (The Next Frontier of Interactive: Smart Fashion).

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Alum Leslie Ekker reveals how he designed modern-day ‘Munsters’

Visual Effects Supervisor and alum Leslie Ekker recently earned a Visual Effects Society award nomination for “Mockingbird Lane,” NBC’s reboot of the 1960s classic “The Munsters.”

The pilot, which earned a nom for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program, starred Jerry O’Connell as family patriarch Herman Munster, Portia de Rossi as his wife Lily, and Eddie Izzard as Grandpa. We caught up with Ekker to learn how he helped design modern-day Munsters.

Describe the visual effects your team is being recognized for on “Mockingbird Lane.”

There were 75 visual effects shots for a 40-minute pilot. For example, specially designed particle animations were created to show the appearance and special powers of matriarch Lily Munster (Portia De Rossi), who first arrives in a wooden crate. A languid vapor begins to flow from the chinks in the crate and then flow together to form a nude Lily. Continue reading →

Architectural Digest features artist, alum Pae White

Architectural Digest recently featured mixed-media artist and alum Pae White, whose well-known works include large-scale, site-specific projects.

At the 2010 Whitney Biennial, for example, she debuted a mesmerizing 40-foot-long tapestry with swirling swaths of smoke against a black backdrop. The year prior, her piece “Weaving, Unsung” at the Venice Biennale transformed a 13th-century Isolotto building into a giant birdcage with seed-encrusted chandeliers and a ceiling of colorful string.

“I kind of want to do it all,” White told Architectural Digest of her varied creative endeavors. “It’s a combination of wishing to try everything and being unable to say no.”

Born and raised in Pasadena, she attended Scripps College and later earned an MFA from Art Center.

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Watch Lynn Aldrich install (and illuminate) Un/Common Objects


As a Graduate Art student at Art Center, Lynn Aldrich experienced a creative paradigm shift after realizing “that fine art was something philosophical and critical of the status quo and yet something that could be beautiful and pleasurable and generous to the viewer.” That philosophy has consistently to informed her body of work, constructed from the ephemera of domestic life (from Brillo pads to garden hoses), over the course of her twenty-plus year career as a celebrated sculptor whose work has shown in museums around the world and is featured in the permanent collections of both LACMA and MOCA.

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Alums’ airport installation takes shape from flight

‘Tis the season for travel — and those who find themselves in Atlanta’s International Airport can find an artsy take on flight.

AirFIELD — designed by alums Dan Goods and Jamie Barlow, and graphic design chair Nik Hafermaas — mimics the flight paths of one of the world’s busiest hubs.

The liquid-crystal sculpture suspended from the ceiling is synced to real-time flight data and quietly ripples with each passing plane — up to 2,500 a day.

The installation’s 1,500 discs are connected to 81 circuit boards and a server, and switch from opaque to transparent with an electric charge. Planes traveling short distances create small movements while longer flights cause greater activity in the sculpture.

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