Category Archives: Designmatters

Art Center Earthquake Project Showcased at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

LA HAS FAULTS, PHASE 1 (Sean Donahue, Graduate Media Design Faculty)

The L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook and the short film Preparedness Now, developed at Art Center as part of The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready project, will be showcased in Cooper-Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial, opening Friday. Art Center students, faculty, alumni and artists, in partnership with leading scientists and community experts, generated new research and visual communication tools about seismic safety as part of this Designmatters-led project. The project has become a national and international example of the power of design thinking applied to disaster preparedness.

“When we initiated the research phase for Get Ready, we were coping with the aftermath and systemic disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina, and seeking to understand how we could use the art and design expertise of our community as a catalyst for resiliency in our own backyard,” said Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters, the College’s social impact educational initiative. “We wanted to provoke a conversation about preparedness and rally public attention around it. Today, we look back at this project that has engaged so many of our students, faculty, alumni and a multidisciplinary consortia of partners nationally through Designmatters with a great sense of accomplishment. The conversation we started keeps resonating with the same sense of urgency and relevance as before.”

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Happy 100 Years, OAS!

Today marks 100 years since the founding of the Organization of American States. The milestone will be celebrated with a series of events in Washington, D.C. Art Center students developed work that will be prominently featured in the celebration over the course of two funded TDS/Designmatters projects led by the Graphic Design Department last year.

Congratulations and thanks to faculty member Simon Johnston, who led the TDS that developed a new identity for the Museum of the Americas of OAS, implemented on their website. Thanks to Gloria Kondrup, Brian Boyl and Jonas Mayabb, who led the centennial rebranding TDS. A new logotype, as well various elements of the student work, have been implemented by OAS on their website. Also, a big thank you to Jonas Mayabb, who worked closely with his team, Elisa Ruffino and our OAS partners after the studio’s conclusion to create the final version of the public service announcement for the centennial. Watch it below:

PSA: Common Values on Common Ground from OAS Video on Vimeo.

Es Tiempo Wins I.D. Award

Great news: Es Tiempo, a cervical cancer awareness campaign which resulted from a Designmatters transdisciplinary studio has won Best of Category in the Student Division of I.D.’s 2010 Annual Design Review. The project was among more than 400 entries.

The project, a collaboration between Designmatters, USC’s Keck School of Medicine and USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, took place last summer and was led by the College’s Advertising Department, including lead faculty Elena Salij and Maria Moon. Es Tiempo is a broad-based communications and outreach campaign encouraging Latinas to seek out early cervical cancer screening.

A warm congratulations to the student team behind Es Tiempo: Phillip An (Illustration), Mark Brinn (Graphic Design), Chris Lack (Graphic Design), Tracy Hung (Graphic Design), Haelee Kang (Graphic Design), Lucia Loiso (Photography and Imaging) and Camille Ontiveros (Fine Art).

Read more about Es Tiempo at the project’s website, and be sure to check out this great write-up by DesignObserver.

Images for Human Rights: Student Voices Panel and Reception

Images for Human Rights: Student Voices, a provocative exhibition exploring perspectives of Art Center students on the issues of freedom and human rights, is on display at the Skirball Cultural Center through Sunday. The exhibition features more than a dozen large-scale, illustrated posters created by Art Center students as part of a Designmatters project. A panel discussion featuring students, curators and special guests will be held tomorrow, March 3, from 3 to 8 pm at the Skirball. For more information, call 626.396.2310.

Read our previous post about the project here.

Students Tackle Human Rights Issues

Images for Human Rights: Student Voices, a provocative exhibition exploring perspectives of Art Center students on the issues of freedom and human rights, is on display at the Skirball Cultural Center. The exhibition features more than a dozen large-scale, illustrated posters created by Art Center students as part of a Designmatters project.

The exhibition was designed in 2008 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris in 1948. The historic document arose out of the tragedies of World War II and is modeled after the United States Constitution.

Images for Human Rights: Student Voices displays fresh interpretations of the declaration’s many principles, encouraging viewers to reflect upon its continuing significance. Taking such declarations as “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude” (Article 4), “No one shall be subjected to torture” (Article 5), or “Everyone has the right to education” (Article 26), the artists were challenged to represent these assertions through visual images. Each poster is accompanied by the text of the article(s) that inspired it, as well as insightful commentary by the student.

The exhibit runs through March 7. Read more about the project at the Desigmatters website.

Images for Human Rights: Student Voices
The Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049

(Pictured: Everybody by Christopher Kosek)

It’s All Good: Designmatters Brings Innovative Guests to Campus

A major component to the mission of Art Center’s Designmatters Department, which invites students from all disciplines to address humanitarian and social challenges, is to lead “an ongoing exploration of design as a positive force in society.”

Part of this exploration takes place in the field—Designmatters has organized dozens of projects, including the recent Safe Agua Chile, in which students developed systems for storing, transporting and conserving water in impoverished Chilean neighborhoods—but another part happens right here on campus.

Special events give students the chance to meet provocative and inspirational individuals who are using design to make a real difference.

Two recent Designmatters-sponsored events at Hillside Campus did just that.

On January 28, Designmatters and Acting Chief Academic Officer Nik Hafermaas presented “Leading Change for Social Impact: Perspectives from Prominent Innovators,” a forum moderated by Adlai Wertman, professor at the USC Marshall School of Business.

The panelists for the evening event in the Ahmanson Auditorium included Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters, who highlighted several recent departmental projects; Rhys Newman, head of strategic projects at Nokia Design, who explained how he uses his company’s extraordinary global reach to push environmental initiatives; and Jonathan Greenblatt, founder of Ethos Water and the open-source All for Good volunteering website, who discussed the business models behind his ventures and the power of the Web to effect social change.

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Design Revolution Road Show Rolls Onto Campus Monday

Monday promises to be quite an exciting day at Hillside Campus, thanks to the Design Revolution Road Show. The traveling exhibition, book tour, lecture and workshop series is bringing “product design that empowers” to more than 30 design universities and high schools across the nation. A Project H Design initiative, the road show features a biodiesel-powered truck and Airstream trailer filled with tangible examples of humanitarian industrial design solutions (also showcased in the book Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People).

The all-day exhibition, presented at Art Center in collaboration with Designmatters, Alumni Relations and GOOD, will feature a lecture by Emily Pilloton, founder and executive director of Project H Design. The airstream trailer will be parked in front of the main entrance at Hillside Campus, open for viewing from noon until 10 pm. An evening reception will be held starting at 6 pm. You don’t want to miss this!

Design Revolution Road Show
Monday, February 8
Art Center’s Hillside Campus

Open exhibition times: Noon-10 pm
Evening reception: 6-10 pm

Leading Change for Social Impact Forum Tomorrow

Don’t miss tomorrow night’s forum: Leading Change for Social Impact: Perspectives from Prominent Innovators. Moderated by USC professor Adlai Wertman, the event will feature Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters; Jonathan Greenblatt, social entrepreneur and founder of All for Good and Ethos Water; and Rhys Newman, head of design strategic projects at Nokia Design and former Art Center faculty member.

The forum will be held tomorrow night, Jan. 28, from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Ahmanson Auditorium.

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Through Clean Water

Fast Company has a great article about the Safe Agua Chile project, a collaboration between Designmatters and NGO Un Techo Para Mi Pais. The project, which we’ve highlighted in this blog, challenged 12 Art Center students and three faculty members to work directly with impoverished communities in Santiago, Chile, developing new tools and methods of storing, utilizing, transporting and conserving water.

Check out the great article at Fast Company, as well as the project’s official blog. Desigmnatters Director Mariana Amatullo also writes about the project in the latest post on the Designmatters blog. Great and inspiring work, everyone!

Designmatters at the Aspen Design Summit

Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters, is back from the Aspen Design Summit and has posted a report on the Designmatters blog.

All 64 Summit participants were divided into six groups that were challenged to develop strategies for dealing with diverse challenges.

Amatullo writes: “I was thrilled to be assigned to the UNICEF projects and to reunite with a previous Designmatters’s partner, Christopher Fabian (head of the Innovation unit at UNICEF), and to understand more about the logistics and needs behind UNICEF’s current deployment of resources to reach underserved children and young girls.”

Read more about her experiences at the Designmatters blog.