Category Archives: Designmatters

Designmatters co-founder, Mariana Amatullo, adds a voice for socially conscious design to the Executive Board of Cumulus

Mariana Amatullo

Designmatters’ Mariana Amatullo

The intersection of art, design and social impact lies at the future-facing frontier of the design world. This rapidly evolving multidisciplinary field continues to grow in size and stature thanks in no small part to the groundbreaking work of Mariana Amatullo, Vice President of Designmatters at Art Center. Amatullo recently expanded her reach as a leader in the field after being appointed to the Executive Board of Cumulus, the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media.

“As the official Art Center liaison to Cumulus for the last six years,” said Amatullo of her motivation to serve on the Executive Board, “I’ve been able to observe firsthand how effective the organization has been in creating dynamic collaborations among an expanding global network and community of educators and researchers, but also through cooperation with leading industry and key educational and professional networks such as for example, NASAD and AIGA in the US.”

Cumulus, the only global association to serve art and design education universities, has long supported and encouraged the movement to use design principles to advance positive social change. First on the organization’s list of ambitious goals is to support academic institutions of art, design and media in enhancing their contribution to society. Cumulus also works to foster dialogue and collaboration through its academic forum: biannual conferences hosted by member organizations provide a dynamic platform for international exchange, workshops and academic publishing.

Founded in 2000 with its Secretariat headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, at Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture, Cumulus has 198 member institutions in 48 countries. Art Center, which joined Cumulus in 2006, is one of only a dozen U.S. schools granted full membership.

As a member of the Executive Board, Amatullo will help develop policies, plan activities and manage the Association’s business affairs, in addition to implementing decisions made by Cumulus’ General Assembly.

“I am deeply honored to join the Cumulus board and a very dynamic group of international colleagues who share a profound dedication to cross-cultural discourse, innovation and research,” she said.   “Through my service, I will be seeking actionable pathways to advocate for the relevance of art and design education globally.  I am energized since I believe we are at an exciting crossroads in time for our field: we have the opportunity—and responsibility–to position the expertise of our universities as a potent source for new inquiry and agency in our contemporary world.”

Art Center Honors the Memory of a Faculty Member with a Visit to his Children’s School

In 2010, beloved Art Center faculty member Norman Schureman was killed in a tragic act of gun violence. Now, three years later, his sons Milo, 15, and Kian, 12, are students at the Aveson Global Leadership Academy, a public charter school in Altadena. On May 31, a group of Designmatters’ faculty, students and alumni visited the school’s sixth and ninth grade classes to introduce Uncool: The Anti-gun Violence Project — a series of children’s books and the Where’s Daryl? middle school curriculum — dedicated to Norman’s memory.

Children’s book author-illustrator Kin Lok addresses sixth graders in Milo Schureman’s class at the Aveson Global Leadership Academy, with Illustration instructor and “Uncool” project faculty lead David Tillinghast (lower left). Photo by Christy Moision.

Designmatters Director Elisa Ruffino gave Kian’s sixth grade class an overview of the project and explained that artists and designers are creative problem solvers who play a vital and exciting role in social change. “With Designmatters, we like to say that innovation is not about seeing the world as it is, but as it could be,” she said, adding, “We’re thrilled to be carrying on this work in Norman’s honor, in his spirit.”

“Making a book is a lot of work,” Illustration instructor David Tillinghast told the students. He described the many steps it takes, from research, brainstorming and rapid protoyping, to creating the art work, refining the story and transferring the work onto a computer for layout, further refinement and ultimately printing.

Tillinghast then invited two of the Designmatters’ children’s book author-illustrators to speak. As their books were passed around the classroom, Kin Lok (Zoarmax 133’s Big Question) and Juan Marco (My Imagination Book) detailed their creative process and took questions from curious students.

Sixth grade teacher Tom Hyatt, a fan of the books and the project as a whole, noted that Lok’s story is great for teaching about perspective. “The artist is from Earth,” he said, “but he’s writing from the perspective of an alien.”

The College is donating two sets of the four-book series to Aveson, one for each of its campuses, along with the “Where’s Daryl” curriculum package.

Continue reading →

TEDxYouth at Caltech: Brain Food

TEDxYouth served up generous helpings of Brain Food at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Among the cooks in the kitchen: Art Center Trustee Bill Gross; Professor and Director of Sustainability Initiatives Heidrun Mumper-Drumm; and Product Design alumna Mariana Prieto, who completed the Designmatters Concentration in Art and Design for Social Impact.

The day-long event took place January 19, 2013, and 8-minute videos of the talks were recently made available online. If you have an appetite for fresh ideas, watch!

A Perfect Storm of Opportunity: Bill Gross at TEDxYouth@Caltech

Bill Gross is a lifelong entrepreneur who has been starting companies since he was 12 years old. He has personally started more than 100 companies in the last 42 years, of which more than 40 have gone public or been acquired. Gross is the Founder and CEO of Idealab, a “company factory” based in Pasadena, which he started in 1996. Gross is credited with starting the first online business directory company with CitySearch, the first online car retailed with CarsDirect, the first paid search engine with Goto.com/Overture, and the longest-running technology incubator where he has been the creator of all these companies. A graduate of the California Institute of Technology, Gross currently serves on its Board of Trustees. He also serves on the Board of the Art Center College of Design, and more than 20 technology companies in California.

Continue reading →

A Decade That Matters: Leading the Way in Social Innovation

Ten years after its founding, Designmatters is making a difference within and beyond Art Center.

By ALEX CARSWELL

“This University is not maintained…merely to help its graduates have an economic advantage in the life struggle. There is certainly a greater purpose, and I’m sure you recognize it.”

—John F. Kennedy, October 14, 1960, speaking to students at the University of Michigan

Faculty member La Mer Walker consults with students and UN Population Fund partner Christian Delsol.

As he campaigned for the White House, John F. Kennedy challenged America’s younger generation to use their talent not just to better themselves, but also to somehow make a difference in the world. Shortly after taking office in 1961, President Kennedy formed the Peace Corps, a transformational government agency that celebrated America’s core values, galvanized our national will and has facilitated service in support of that “greater purpose” for more than half a century.

Forty years later, Art Center students were surveyed on their desire to have some sort of curricular “Peace Corps-type” opportunity. The overwhelmingly positive response set the wheels in motion for what would soon become Designmatters at Art Center, the College’s innovative social-impact initiative. In addition to the Peace Corps model, the brain trust that conceived and developed Designmatters also had other influences. Erica Clark—then Art Center’s senior vice president of International Initiatives—had investigated a number of socially engaged design programs at European institutions. And here at Art Center, “Community Workshop” was already a popular graphic design class that engaged students in projects with local social-impact objectives.

Continue reading →

Designmatters Welcomes Fellow-in-Residency from Ireland, Sponsored Project Representative from Chile

Dr. Muireann McMahon

Dr. Muireann McMahon, Designmatters Post-Doctoral Fellow-in-Residency. Photo by Alex Aristei.

Art Center welcomes Dr. Muireann McMahon who joins the Designmatters Department as the inaugural Designmatters Post-Doctoral Fellow-in-Residency through August.

McMahon is dedicating her six-month sabbatical, generously funded by the University of Limerick in Ireland, to contribute her teaching and research expertise to a variety of courses and projects during her time at the college.

For the Spring term, McMahon is embedded in the Product Design Sustainability course led by Heidrun Mumper-Drumm and Dice Yamaguchi. Her intent is to gain a close understanding of the transdisciplinary teaching methods and project-based learning that occurs across the college, with a particular focus on studying Designmatters courses, and the collaborative models the department has in place to structure social impact projects that yield real-world outcomes.

We caught up with McMahon during a mid-term presentation by a different group of Designmatters students, collaborating on the Coaniquem project led by Graphic Design faculty member Guillaume Wolf. The in-depth creative proposals they unveiled—for a campaign to raise awareness and funds to prevent and treat childhood burns—belied the short six-week time frame the 12 students had to develop them.

Continue reading →

Art Center student wins Pasadena Armenian genocide memorial competition

Catherine Menard

Catherine Menard. Credit: Image courtesy Art Center College of Design/Alex Aristei

Art Center College of Design and the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee (PASAGMC) on Tuesday jointly announced the winning design concept for a new memorial whose planned dedication in 2015 will coincide with 100th anniversary commemorations of the Armenian Genocide. The concept by Art Center Environmental Design student Catherine Menard was developed in 2012 as part of the College’s social impact design program, Designmatters. The proposed site for the public artwork is Memorial Park in the City of Pasadena.

Menard’s concept was one of 17 submissions the committee received, and one of three finalists chosen by an independent panel of judges in December. The three-judge panel included Stefanos Polyzoides, a principal of Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists; Ruben Amirian, an architect/artist who has served on the design review board and historic commission in Glendale; and Neshan Peroomian, a contractor and prominent Armenian-American community leader.

In all, six Environmental Design students at Art Center developed memorial proposals last fall during an intensive Design Topic Studio class and submitted them to the competition. Two of the students — Menard and her classmate J.D. Clark — were selected as finalists, a particularly impressive achievement in a field of competitors that included many seasoned professionals.

Earlier this month, Board members of PASAGMC voted unanimously to move forward with Menard’s proposal.

Continue reading →

Designmatters UNFPA campaign wins top Spark Award


This past spring, students in a Graphic Design Department-hosted Designmatters studio were challenged to create an integrated campaign for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to advocate for young people’s rights to health, education, protection, respect and participation in decision-making for their future.

Not only did the students meet that challenge with aplomb with “We Are Youth,” their campaign which premiered this past summer at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, but now their work has also won a top honor at the annual Spark Design Awards.

The “We Are Youth” campaign—designed by students Pamela Abolian, Brett Beynon, Kenneth Chan, Andrew Chen, Lisa Chen, Ka Kit Cheong, Daniel Choi, Il Chan Chun, Heather Grates, Crystal Kim, Kevin Lam, Esther Park, Jerod Rivera, Lamson To and Hyunsun Yoo—won the Spark Awards’ highest honor, the Spark!, in the competition’s Communications student category.

Continue reading →

Goodwill and Art Center embrace the upcycle lifestyle

Art Center students, faculty and representatives from Goodwill of Orange County. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Last term, more than a dozen Art Center students in Goodwill: Upcycle Lifestyle—a transdisciplinary Designmatters studio led by the Environmental Design department—spent their summer redesigning the spatial experience for Goodwill of Orange County’s retail stores, with an eye towards social responsibility, environmental awareness and making a positive impact on the community.

The students’ challenge was two-fold:

First, they were assigned to use recycled materials—wood, computer parts, textiles and more, all of which were found in Goodwill’s stores, recycling, salvage and processing areas—to create a visual and tactile experience for shoppers that reflects Goodwill’s reuse and repurpose model. Hence, the name of the course: Upcycle Lifestyle.

Second, the students were tasked with leveraging Goodwill’s community-strengthening programs. Beyond offering guilt-free shopping opportunities (and bargains!) to consumers, the non-profit organization’s stores and donation sites also serve as training grounds to provide supportive work experience and on-the-job training.

Throughout the three-month project, the students gained experience in re-branding, upcycling, budgeting, repurposing, practical design applications and a deeper appreciation of Goodwill’s mission services.

Following multiple visits to Orange County Goodwill stores, the students split into five separate teams, developed concept drawings and materials studies, which culminated in a final in which they presented design boards, models, mock-ups and full-scale constructs to representatives from Goodwill.

How did they do? Visit the project’s page on the Designmatters website to find out.

Related:
Designmatters’ Safe Agua Peru wins Tech Award
WATCH: Art Center President Lorne Buchman talks conscious design
Designmatters Students Create Furniture for India’s Low Income Housing Residents

Designmatters Safe Agua Peru wins Tech Award

Safe Agua Peru projects Balde a Balde, left, and GiraDora.

The Art Center team behind Safe Agua Peru has won a Tech Award for creating cost-effective ways to clean and conserve water in Peru.

Each year, Silicon Valley’s Tech Museum of Innovation honors 12 “techmanitarians,” humanitarian efforts with a tech angle, in six categories, including health, education and sustainable energy.

Selected from more than 1,000 international entrees, the Safe Agua Peru Designmatters project is being honored with the Katherine M. Swanson Young Innovator Award, along with Angaza Design, which allows off-the-grid Africans to pre-pay for clean solar power.

Two cash prizes of $75,000 and $25,000 will be awarded in each category. Winners will be announced Nov. 15 at the 12th annual Tech Awards gala at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

The Designmatters products being recognized are GiraDora, a human-powered washer and spin dryer, and Balde a Balde, a portable faucet that delivers running water from any bucket. Both products were designed with families living in Cerro Verde, a 30,000-person slum surrounding Lima, Peru.

Continue reading →