Category Archives: Events

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.

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Art Center to host first all faculty-focused summit

Art Center College of Design will host its first faculty-organized, all-faculty conference Saturday, Oct. 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the South Campus Wind Tunnel Gallery.

Faculty Commons, designed for adjunct and full-time faculty, will include free workshops, panels and guest speakers to discuss the complex issues related to teaching at Art Center.

Topics for debate will include available campus resources, practical classroom approaches and how to best educate artists and designers in the 21st Century.

The event will also include a 30-minute lunchtime tour of Art Center’s newly purchased Post Office Building, located next to South Campus.

In the afternoon, attendees can attend one of four workshops. Sujects include creating learning communities, the blurring disciplines at Art Center and in the workplace, technology pitfalls in the classroom and the educator’s role at Art Center.

The event will conclude with a rooftop faculty appreciation party at 5 p.m.

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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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‘Little Miss Sunshine’ directors talk filmmaking from script to screen

From left: Instructor Lee Rosenbaum, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton. Photo: Chuck Spangler

“Little Miss Sunshine” directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris spent Wednesday afternoon with Art Center College of Design students recounting their 30-year career, which spans directing the first round of music videos in the early 1980s to the 2012 feature film “Ruby Sparks.”

The husband-and-wife directing duo kicked off the conversation on the Hillside campus with advice for students getting their foot in the door.

“Right now you guys are really cheap to hire and that’s a great entry into the business,” said Dayton, wearing jeans, jacket and his signature fedora.

“Lie, cheat, steal, do whatever you can to get your movies made,” Faris added, quoting her former UCLA professor, renowned filmmaker Shirley Clarke.

The pair made their directorial debut with the R.E.M. music video “Wolves Lower” in 1982 when MTV was first launching.

“There was this new form of filmmaking, and there were no experts and no money,” said Faris, donning a blue button up paired with yellow sneakers.

The couple went on to direct videos for ’90s grunge darlings Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins.

Dayton and Faris shared cinematic secrets behind the 1996 Smashing Pumpkins video for “1979,” including putting cameras in unusual places: inside a Ziploc bag and tossed into a pool and strapped inside a rolling tractor tire.

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‘Pages’ opening reception part of ArtNight Pasadena

Mark Twain's notes on "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Credit: The Huntington Library

Art Center College of Design will host on Friday, Oct. 12 from 6 to 10 p.m. an opening reception for the upcoming “Pages” exhibition as part of ArtNight Pasadena, an evening of free art, music and entertainment across the city.

“Pages” will open Saturday, Oct. 13 and run through Jan. 13 at the Art Center’s Williamson Gallery.

Eighteen months in the making, the exhibition features on array of objects, books and papers that honor the page’s seminal role in the progression of culture and knowledge.

Works on view will include Albert Einstein’s 1896 high school certificate; Mark Twain’s handwritten revisions to “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the short story that brought him international attention; as well as Suvan Geer’s 1999 piece “Loose Ends,” an open book altered with human hair.

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Piaggio asks students to envision mobility in 2022

A Vespa LXV-150, one of the many vehicles Piaggio brought on campus for students to study. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Did you happen to notice a swarm of motorcycles earlier this term at Hillside Campus?

The reason for the two-wheeled gathering was Piaggio–the fourth largest producer of scooters, motorcylces and compact commercial vehicles in the world–is sponsoring a Transportation Design project this term titled Envisioning Personal Mobility in 2022. As part of the course they brought a variety of their current vehicles for students to study up close.

In the course, the Italian vehicle maker–whose brands include Piaggio, Vespa, Aprilia and Moto Guzzi–has challenged Art Center students to envision how young people, between the ages of 18 and 25, will move around 10 years from now.

Questions Piaggio has posed to the students include: In 2022 will people have the same buying power they have now? Will they be able to afford personal mobility? Will they have jobs that change more frequently?

Piaggio, which plans on opening a design center in Pasadena, hopes that the students creations both inspire its employees and provides them with insight into opportunities of important areas of growth where the company should be engaged a decade from now.

And with Car Classic ’12 right around the corner, we’re reminded of an interview we did with Art Center alumnus Miguel Galluzi TRANS ’86, Vice President of Design at the Piaggio Group, for Car Classic ’09: By Air, Land & Sea.

The full profile is included after the break.

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WATCH: Art Center President Lorne Buchman talks conscious design

Bill Gross, CEO, Idealab in conversation with Lorne Buchman, President, Art Center College of Design from Ted Habte-Gabr on Vimeo.

What defines innovation? Art Center College of Design President Lorne Buchman and Idealab CEO and Art Center Trustee Bill Gross describe it through frugal, real-world projects that make the planet a better place.

During a recent Live Talks Business Forum, Buchman and Gross discussed works-in-progress highlighting Gross’ Idealab, a Pasadena-based think tank for startups.

Through Idealab, Gross created WorldHaus, which manufactures eco-friendly, modular housing in more rural parts of India starting at $2,000.

Gross said his for-profit company has the goal of adding 200 homes in India this year and increasing that number to 1 million houses by decade’s end.

Buchman talked about Art Center’s Designmatters program, which allows students to design for communities in developing countries including India.

Just a warning: The 50-minute video has some static, but the ideas are solid.

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L.A. artists turn Carmageddon into Artmageddon

With the second coming of Carmageddon set for Saturday and Sunday, a grass-roots effort has been timed to offer Angelenos a reprieve from the freeways.

More than 100 artists, arts organizations, advocacy groups and community partners have teamed up to launch Artmageddon, a two-day event featuring art and performance through 16 neighborhoods in Los Angeles County.

With the tagline “Less Car. More Art,” the group recently launched Artmageddonla.com, an online database that allows users to search thousands of nearby events and offers directions by foot, bike and train.

The events — which include visual, performing and media arts — aren’t necessarily themed for Carmageddon 2, but some galleries and museums will extend hours or host special receptions.

So far, nearly 20 events will be spread out across Pasadena this weekend. Here are a few highlights from different corners of arts and culture.

WATCH: Should art be profitable? Shepard Fairey says yes


Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey recently visited Art Center to discuss the art of profiting off his pieces — something critics have accused him of doing too well.

Fairey narrated a 22-minute show focused mostly on his personal rather than commercial works, including his first “Obey” sticker of Andre the Giant, as part of the Graphic Design Department’s 3×3 lecture series featuring Creative Entrepreneurs.

The stencil with Andre’s weight and height Fairey created after his freshman year of college is a far cry from the Obey propaganda-style street art (and fashion line) that was to come.

“I was making posters of things I cared about, criticizing capitalism while selling stuff to people,” he said. “Scrutizing capitalism is the less hypocritical way of putting it.”

Fairey, who says he’s a proponent of socially conscious capitalism, shared his career low points, including a screen printing business that went belly up and his much publicized and legally contested “Hope” poster of Barack Obama.

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Art Center gears up for Car Classic ’12

Top transportation designers, car collectors and auto enthusiasts merge minds Sunday, Oct. 21 at the annual Art Center Car Classic.

Held at the Hillside campus, this year’s theme “Inspired Design” will showcase a highly curated field of rare automobiles, surprising classics and innovative vehicles from the 1930s to present that served as inspirations for Art Center alums around the world.

Special guests include Ron Hill, Art Center alum and former Chair of the Transportation Design Department, who counts Corvettes, Camaros and Cadillacs among his designs.

Auto aficionados Dave Kunz, KABC automotive reporter; Barry Meguiar, host of Speed Channel’s Motor Trend; and Ed Justice Jr., co-host of Motor Trend radio, will serve as emcees.

Impromptu interviews with transportation designers and car collectors called “Stories Behind the Design” will be broadcast during the event. Patrons can also tour Art Center’s design studios, rapid prototyping facilities and galleries.

The event is free for students, faculty, staff; $35 for their guests; and $35 for alumni. General admission is $55 online, $65 at the door.

Art Center Car Classic
When: Sunday, Oct. 21, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Art Center College of Design, Hillside Campus, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena
Info: artcenter.edu/carclassic

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