Category Archives: Designmatters

Changing the World, One Project at a Time

A Designmatters transdisciplinary studio with a San Diego-based international health and humanitarian aid organization has resulted in a beautiful promotional film created by Art Center students.

The studio, held last summer, focused on rebranding Project Concern International (PCI) for their 50th anniversary.

In August, three Photography and Film students traveled to Zambia with PCI to observe and document their work in the field.

“My goal for the film from the start was to document the people in Zambia, and to show the world what their lives are like,” said Film student John X. Carey, director of the piece.

“It was a difficult first film for me to make, but such an incredible experience.”

In other PCI news, this week the organization launched a new identity stemming from the student work in last summer’s studio.

“There is a different level of engagement when you are working with design students—their enthusiasm and energy are palpable,” PCI’s Shawn Ruggeiro said about the studio. “Their perspective on this project, as well as our organization, was refreshing and inspiring.”

View the piece below, and read more about the Designmatters/PCI 50th Anniversary Project.


Getting Ready for the Superstorm

The ARkStorm scenario, a massive superstorm capable of causing unprecedented damage to California, has gotten a lot of attention following the USGS ARkStorm Summit earlier this month. Art Center and Designmatters served as lead design partner for the summit, and a video made by MDP alumnus Theo Alexopoulos envisioning the event has been circulated far and wide.

From MSNBC’s Cosmic Log: “Experts say such a hurricane-style storm occurred over a 45-day period in 1861-1862, causing severe flooding and turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea. Today, that kind of storm could cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. The video [by Alexopoulos] paints an apocalyptic picture, made worse because ‘the public at large does not comprehend the extreme danger the storm poses.’”

View the video below, and read more:

Not Another Year in Review

The following post was written by Vice President and Director of Designmatters Mariana Amatullo for the Designmatters blog.

As I sit down to write the final blog entry of the year, I am making a conscious decision to resist compiling another trite “year in review” about what we have been up to with Designmatters at Art Center. The truth is that the collective milestones we hit this year are many in number, vast in scope, and often pretty extraordinarily consequential in impact. When I run through a mental log of individual student journeys, staff, faculty and alumni accomplishments, presentations, publications, exhibitions, and project outcomes implemented with our partner organizations, I am quickly overwhelmed and humbled by the sheer power and complexity of it all.

William Ismael, Education for All, detail of poster for UNESCO, 2008

What dwells on, as I look forward to the year to come, are two key and interrelated concepts that were ubiquitous throughout the year, and in turn inform everything we are about: optimism and relevance. As I attempt to anticipate what new opportunities we might embrace, and what challenges we might fence off, these come up again and again.

Optimism–which is an idea so deeply entrenched in the definition of design itself–I always like to refer to Herbert Simon’s profoundly significant framing of design in The Sciences of the Artificial: “devising courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” And relevance–which is a concept so influential when you are striving to drive educational projects that are imbued with both at once a pedagogical and social impact mission.

I was taken by an insightful editorial in a recent issue of The Economist about globalization, titled “The Redistribution of Hope,” that canvassed some of the major forces at work in the world today. It captures how “optimism is on the move—with important consequences for the hopeful and the hopeless” and goes on to expose how much more vital it is turning out to be in emerging economies where it challenges the status quo, rather than in our more cushioned “first world” societies. The piece includes a testimonial by Nandan Nilekani who now heads India’s government technology committee and was the inspiring chairman of Infosys. He comments on the greatest achievement of his company being not that of producing technology but “redefining the boundaries of the possible.”

Here’s to us all having the strength and courage to pursue that impetus of shattering boundaries in 2011.

Certainly for us with Designmatters at the college the stakes are high: we are entering into the tenth year of this College-wide program, we are embarking into the first full year of granting our undergraduate students the option to pursue a course of study for the Designmatters Concentration in Art and Design for Social Impact, and we will welcome the 1st and early cohort of students for the new Media Design Matters Track MA by fall. So here’s also to optimism, full-on!

Art Center Students Help Launch Watts Art?


Watts Art? is a collaborative art project created by Art Center students, Watts House Project and St. John’s United Methodist Church in the historic Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. The goal is to encourage community derived creative projects and to facilitate new artistic commissions at St. John’s. Watts Art? was born from the Designmatters studio Case Studies for Social Change, led by Edgar Arceneaux, Dave Bailey and Alexandra Grant this term.

On Sunday, Dec. 19, the inaugural exhibit of the collaborative project, 34,830 Watts, will be presented at St. John’s near the historic Watts Towers from 3 to 6 p.m. More than 20 local and community artists will show work, a site-specific light work will be unveiled, a dance performance and more are planned for the day. 34,830 Watts aims to highlight the uniqueness and rich cultural legacy of the Watts neighborhood.

Design Activists: Narbeh Dereghishian and Jessica Yeh

The following is a posting from Daily BR!NK. Interview by Lauren Rigney, photographs courtesy of Narbeh and Jessica

Narbeh Dereghishian and Jessica Yeh: Design Activists

There are two things in this world that Art Center Product Design student Narbeh Dereghishian and Environmental Design student Jessica Yeh believe everyone should have access to: A warm shower and wonderful design

By Lauren Rigney for Daily BR!NK

The next time you pick up a product and admire it for its sheer beauty, simplicity or functionality, you can thank people like Jessica Yeh and Narbeh Dereghishian. Students at the Art Center College of Design in California, Jessica and Narbeh love nothing more than improving life through innovation and design.

When they were both offered the opportunity last fall to spend two weeks at a campamento (or slum) in Chile, researching how to design basic tools that would improve the Chileans’ lives, neither realized at that point just how big of a difference they were about to make.

The result of their research and efforts is the Ducha Halo, Spanish for “Halo Shower”: a low-cost, portable tool that makes taking a warm shower as easy as 1, 2, 3 – you heat the container on a grill, pump the handle to pressurize the water, and step on pedal to let the comfort of a nice, warm shower wash over you.

What made you want to go to school for design?
Jessica Yeh: I think it was just something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I made up my mind in middle school that I just had to be a designer (laughs).
Narbeh Dereghishian: I knew I wanted to solve problems.

Why did you want to be part of the class that undertook the assignment of visiting, and designing for, a Chilean slum? That’s not typical homework…
JY: Design is wonderful, and it can be really innovative and have the potential to help people who need simple things. Just to help make their lives a little bit easier, a little bit better and more enjoyable.
ND: Exactly. As for me, I’ve done other projects related to social design, and the one prior to this one was one in Guatemala where I did water filtration for a rural community there. This was right up that alley.

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Upcoming: International Education Week

It’s going to be a fun week on campus for Art Center students, faculty and staff: International Education Week. A joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, the week of events celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange.

Photo © Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

All week, the cafeteria will serve a variety of international cuisines, there will be a display of multilingual art and design books in the library, and there will be information available about the Designmatters Department. International Education Week is sponsored by the Center for the Student Experience, Designmatters, Illustration Department, FOOD, the Armory Center for the Arts, Continental Art Supply Store and the Japanese American National Museum.

International Education Week events:

Monday, November 15
Global IQ Quiz
CSE Lounge, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Enjoy international coffee, tea, snacks and music, then test your global knowledge by taking a short 15-question Global IQ Quiz and enter to win a prize.

Tuesday, November 16
London Ancient Modern: The Mix
Faculty Dining Room,1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Would you like to study in London next spring? Learn more about this annual trip led by Illustration Department Chair Ann Field. While you’re there, try your hand at flag painting, enjoy a British afternoon tea service, and meet Paul Smith’s L.A. team and more at this event hosted by the Illustration Department.

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Art Center Media Minute

Some recent media coverage featuring Art Center, our faculty, students and alumni:

Safe Agua Wins Top Spark Award

The following post was written by Product Design alumnus Will Tang, Product Design student KC Cho and Environmental Design student Stephanie Stalker for the Designmatters blog.

Last October, our class of 12 students was still busily refining concepts, building mockups, and preparing for midterm presentations for Safe Agua, a sponsored project focused on addressing water issues in the campamentos, or slums, of Santiago, Chile.

Since then, six projects were developed including a shower solution, dishwashing station and community laundromat being field-tested by Un Techo para Chile.

A year later, on October 17, KC Cho made the long drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco to submit Safe Agua for the 2010 Spark Awards, an International Design Competition.

With guidance from Mariana Amatullo, Karen Hofmann, and David Mocarski, Liliana and KC worked diligently to complete the application process. Along with the oversized poster, the Safe Agua documentary by Elizabeth Bayne, Harry Gota by the Ming Tai’s motion team and the Safe Agua book by Lisa Wagner’s graphic team were delivered the next morning to the site of the Spark Awards at the Autodesk office on One Market Street.

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Get Ready to Shake, Rattle and Roll

Today at 10:21 a.m., millions of people across California will drop, cover and hold on as part of the 2010 California ShakeOut.

ShakeOut—formerly the Great Southern California ShakeOut—was launched in 2008. The Designmatters project, The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready, was launched in conjunction with the event. An integral part of the acclaimed project was a PSA directed by Art Center alumnus Theo Alexopoulos.

The short film, Preparedness Now, was commissioned by the USGS Multi-Hazard Demonstration Project to depict the physical, social and economic consequences of a massive earthquake. In 2010, Preparedness Now was one of three components of project recognized for groundbreaking design by inclusion in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum-Smithsonian National Design Triennial exhibition, Why Design Now?

In honor of today’s ShakeOut, enjoy the film below:

Surdna Foundation Grant to Build Teen Art Park

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.