Category Archives: Alumni Relations

Art Center announces Alumni Award winners

Art Center is proud to announce the Alumni Award winners in the categories of lifetime achievement, outstanding service and young innovator. The annual honors allow Art Center to publicly recognize the talent, service and design influence of our alumni. Awards will be presented at the Fall Graduation ceremony Dec. 15 at 4 p.m.

Bruce Burdick ENVL 61: Lifetime Achievement Alumni Award

Bruce Burdick at Art Center in 1961

Bruce Burdick’s credits include designs for Charles and Ray Eames, John Follis and Herb Rosenthal. The flexible office furniture Burdick designed for Herman Miller was named Time magazine’s the Best of 1981 for Industrial Design.

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Tesla snags top Motor Trend, Popular Science honors

Tesla Motors’ Model S sedan might be the best thing on four wheels.

Designed by Art Center alum Franz von Holzhausen, the battery-powered sedan this week was named Motor Trend magazine’s 2013 car of the year and topped the Popular Science “Best of What’s New” list.

The family-size sedan beat out some high-power competition — BMW’s new 3-Series, Honda’s revamped Accord and Toyota’s 2013 Lexus GS — to become the first electric car to earn the Motor Trend honor.

“It is a testament not only to the luxury sedan and electric car segment, but to American engineering overall,” said Edward Loh, editor-in-chief of Motor Trend. “To be the first car in the 64-year history of the award to be powered by something other than gasoline must mean it is very special.”

Popular Science gave the Model S the grand prize ahead of on- and off-wheel innovations in the auto category – from Ferrari’s fastest car, the 730-horsepower F12 Berlinetta, to MyLink, which integrates a smartphone into the dashboard.

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Yahoo! names Tesla Model S car of the year

Yahoo! Autos tested 100 vehicles — from the amped-up Ford Shelby GT500 to the pared-down Toyota Prius C — and named the Tesla Model S their 2013 car of the year.

Art Center alum Franz von Holzhausen and a team of 11 spent eight months designing the Model S, an electric luxury sedan styled somewhere between a Jaguar XJ and an Audi A7.

Bucking the electric car stereotype, the $50,000-and-up Model S goes form zero to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds and seats seven with room for groceries. Designers took a page from the aviation industry adding 17-inch center-console screen with connectivity to the Web, navigation and the car’s systems.

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GM design chief, alum Wayne Cherry receives lifetime award

Wayne Cherry (inset) and the Cadillac Sixteen

General Motors design chief and Art Center College of Design alum Wayne Cherry will receive high design honors a decade after retirement.

Cherry will be awarded the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology’s 2013 Lifetime Design Achievement Award at the EyesOn Design show in June.

Cherry joined GM in 1962 after graduating from Art Center, and his 41-year career with the carmaker yielded such classics as the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado and the 1967 Chevrolet Camaro. He also oversaw the creation of Pontiac Solstice, Chevrolet Corvettes and Hummer H2 while serving as vice president of design from 1992 to 2003.

But perhaps the most legendary design during his tenure was never built: the Cadillac Sixteen, a 2003 concept car with a 16-cylinder engine and more than 1,000 horsepower (a sedan has 150).

Despite rumors (and hopes) of a limited production, the ultra-luxury, four-door sedan was shelved in favor of the Cadillac XTS. But the Sixteen has resurfaced on screen, including in Adam Sandler’s 2006 comedy “Flick” and, more recently, in the 2011 film “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman.

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Asking ‘Imagine If?’: Interaction Design at Art Center

Alumnus Ian Sands PROD 95 in Microsoft's prototyping lab, testing a TouchWall.

This Fall term, Art Center took another step in its evolution and launched an Interaction Design (IxD) degree program headed up by user experience pioneer Maggie Hendrie.

Now, wait a minute, you might be thinking, hasn’t the College been teaching interaction design for years? After all, Art Center has alumni working at Google, Microsoft, Samsung and virtually every company exploring the boundaries of interactivity.

The answer to that, of course, is yes, Art Center has indeed been preparing its graduates to enter the field of interaction design for the better part of two decades.

“Art Center has a long history of maintaining the dynamic between the development of a craft and the application of it, and interaction design is an applied craft,” Hendrie recently told The Dotted Line. “Also, Art Center is already outstanding in the very fields in which interaction is applied: environments, interfaces, products, automotives, social projects and systems.”

Take for example alumnus Ian Sands, the co-founder of vision and strategy firm Intentional Futures, who graduated from the College in 1995 with a degree in Product Design.

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Alum Henrik Fisker makes electric cars cool

Fisker Karma and Henrik Fisker

Electric cars have their criticisms: failing batteries, lack of plug-ins and egg-shaped designs.

Design veteran and Art Center alum Henrik Fisker — who worked on the BMW Z8 roadster and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage — recently told the Wall Street Journal there’s not a “huge” market for electric cars.

Interestingly, Fisker has also spent the past seven years designing one.

Since leaving Aston Martin in 2005, the Danish-born designer raised more than $1.2 billion to start his own company. Fisker Automotive last year launched its only product, the aptly named Fisker Karma, the world’s first luxury, electric, extended-range vehicle at a price tag of $100,000.

About 1,500 Karma models have sold in the U.S. and Europe (high-profile customers include Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber) and the company has plans to expand into Dubai and China.

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Alums compete for potential $25,000 prize in Lexus Ignition Project

From left: Conscious Commuter and SpnKiX M

A pair of alums’ bike-like designs are competing to win up to $25,000 as part of the Lexus Ignition Project.

Conscious Commuter, co-founded by Gabriel Wartofsky, and spnKiX, co-founded by Peter Treadway, are finalists in the online contest. Users can vote via Facebook to determine which start-up project best blends “high-tech and high-style” and wins the funding.

Conscious Commuter — part bike, part scooter — is crafted from lightweight carbon fiber and features an electric motor with speeds of up to 20 mph.

SpnKiX M — a folding electric scooter — let’s riders sit or stand while traveling up to 15 mph, and has room for a basket and perhaps another passenger, at least according to the product’s video.

Users can cast their votes once per day Oct. 15 to 21.

The monthlong contest started Sept. 24 and pits a pair of similar products against each other each week with the fan favorite winning $25,000 to move into production.

Prior winners include UrbanFidelity Speakers, which mix artwork with eco-wood construction, and SolarPOP, a solar-powered charger for smart phones and tablets.

Which scooter would you buy? Vote here.

Star illustrators, Bob Peak’s son discuss design evolution

From left: Aaron Smith, Tom Peak, Paul Rogers and Josh Cochran

A pair of star illustrators and Art Center alums Paul Rogers and Josh Cochran, as well as Tom Peak, son of late, legendary illustrator Bob Peak, swapped stories of how broke beginnings turned into landing major ad and editorial campaigns.

“I was eating Ramen, and my girlfriend was buying gas,” Cochran said of his early days as an illustrator.

“I had a plan to make $500 a month … and my girlfriend worked in a restaurant, so I thought I’d be good with food,” added Art Center faculty member Rogers.

The hour-long discussion, moderated by faculty member Aaron Smith, took place Tuesday evening at the Hillside campus, and was capped off with a book signing and drinks.

Peak kicked off the conversation by revealing his father’s first paying gig as an artist. “At 17, he lied about his age and joined the Navy, and during his downtime, he drew portraits” for a fee, he said.

In the 1940s, Bob Peak attended Art Center where he studied illustration while working as the school’s cook, groundskeeper and janitor. “My mother was an art student, and she and my dad met in the cafeteria while he was busing trays,” Peak said.

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Designers give for a living at L.A.-based VeryNice

Matthew Manos, the philanthropic founder of VeryNice

It seems nice guys can finish first — even in the competitive world of design. Founded by Art Center alum Matthew Manos, VeryNice has a unique (and successful) business model rooted in social responsibility instead of profit margins.

The design consultancy, which was recently featured in Forbes, donates half of its time for free to nonprofits so volunteering is part of the job instead of an after-hours pursuit.

“Cleaning up a beach is great … but creative people especially want to contribute with the skills they have,” said Manos. “This is a way to do that.”

Manos started the business at the age of 19 with the goal of doing only pro-bono work. But as the startup and bills grew, he found a way for the company to make money while still giving back.

“It’s sort of a joke, but if we take on twice the amount of projects a regular design studio would, we have more bandwidth,” said Manos, who graduated from Art Center’s Media Design Practices program in 2012.

In Conversation: Richard Law, raising the profile of a great college

Art Center President Lorne Buchman, left, and alum Richard Law (Industrial Design ’58)

Art Center alumni are playing a growing role in helping to implement the College’s community-generated strategic plan, Create Change, with philanthropic support across a broad range of areas. Among the most talked about during the past year were gifts totaling $5 million to enable Art Center to acquire a former U.S. Postal Service property in Pasadena. The new property will effectively double the size of South Campus, transforming it from a “satellite” location to a fully-realized campus, with extensive benefits for students and faculty and for local residents.

Richard Law (Industrial Design ’58) is one of the visionary alumni donors who made the purchase possible. He generously offered his thoughts about investing in Art Center at what many are calling a pivotal moment in the College’s history.

Art Center: Can you lead us through your process of making your gift to Art Center? Was it a difficult decision?

Richard Law: It was always important to me to do something with my resources that made a difference in other people’s lives. When I saw the building for purchase, adjacent to the existing South Campus, I thought: This is fabulous. This is what Art Center should be doing. The property, in an urban environment on the edge of Old Pasadena where all the action is, as well as public transit, is a great example of renewing older areas, creating a vital, energetic place.

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