Don’t miss your chance to meet Jennifer Golub, Executive Director of Content at Let There Be Dragons today at 1:00 p.m. in the Boardroom as part of the Office of Career Development’s Career Chats series.
What exactly is Let There Be Dragons? In case you haven’t seen the pink posters scattered across campus, here’s how the creative firm describes itself:
“Let There Be Dragons is a new content dream machine. The name Let There Be Dragons comes from 16th century cartography — unknown areas and uncharted waters were labeled with the phrase, ‘There Be Dragons.’ We say, ‘Bring it.’ LTBD embraces the unknown and uses it to craft new ways to tell brand stories and connect with new audiences. Led by creative thinkers and craftspeople, we bring new content and forms of creativity to the world from new games, apps, films, shows, books, memes and more.”
Organized by the Office of Career Development, Career Chats: Insights into Creative Professions (formerly the Business Dialogue Series) provide Art Center students with an exclusive opportunity to meet industry leaders in a variety of fields. At these informal presentations, students can identify potential job markets, gain insight into specific fields and solicit career advice from visiting guests, all in the intimate setting of Art Center’s Boardroom. Career Chats take place Tuesdays, 1–2 p.m. during Weeks 3–7 of every term.
Upcoming Career Chats this term include:
February 7 — OISHII: Ismael Obregon, Creative Director and Daniel Walkup, Director of Operations.
February 14 — RTT: Parker Fredlund, Director, Professional Solutions
February 21 — Diana Koenigsberg, Photographer
February 28 –EAST WEST LITERARY AGENCY: Deborah Warren, Agent/Managing Partner
For additional information, please visit the Career Chats page on Art Center’s website.
Alumnus Jonathan Jarvis GMD '09 speaking to the Fall 2011 graduates. Photo: John Dlugolecki.
At last month’s Fall 2011 graduation ceremony, Graduate Media Design alumnus Jonathan Jarvis GMD ’09 received Art Center’s prestigious Young Alumni Innovator Award for his innovative professional and creative work.
While at Art Center, Jarvis made a splash with The Crisis of Credit Visualized, a video he created which entertainingly explained the nuts and bolts behind the economic crisis of 2008 using easy-to-understand language and engaging imagery. The video became an Internet sensation and has been viewed millions of times since Jarvis first placed it online.
Just one week after graduating, Jarvis was hired by Google’s Creative Lab unit as one of the original Google Five. Currently a designer for the company, he has worked on several high profile projects for the search giant, including Androidify, the YouTube Symphony and a Google-powered love story that ran during the Super Bowl.
In addition to receiving the Young Alumni Innovator Award, Jarvis also delivered the evening’s commencement address to the Fall 2011 graduates, during which he elaborated both on The Crisis of Credit Visualized and what he took away from his Art Center experience. Here are highlights from his speech:
On lessons learned at Art Center:
“As you think about the road ahead, you’ll no doubt feel many things. I remember when I graduated from the Master’s program here a little less than three years ago, I was sitting where all of you are today, thinking about that road. I’ve been asked to tell you my story today, and how circumstances allowed me a brief glimpse of that road before I was ready to walk it. At least I thought that I wasn’t ready to walk it. But my time at Art Center had done something to me, something that made me ready. I can’t tell you exactly how it happened, or precisely when it occurred, but it did. I’m sure of it. The challenges you faced here, both personal and academic, and the ideas that you saturated in, have had a deep impact on you, deeper than you realize right now. You may not see it now, but it might manifest in an unconscious manner, like a muscle memory you’ve forgotten you developed. Something inside of you has changed, and you’ve grown more than you’ve recognized.”
On what inspired The Crisis of Credit Visualized:
“I had some studio space down at South Campus that I called the bunker because it had no windows and really thick concrete walls. I was sitting in the bunker, listening to NPR and I heard that Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest banks in the country, had just gone bankrupt. I also heard the term “subprime mortgage” for the 500th time, and I still didn’t know what that meant. So instead of working on my master’s thesis, I thought that it was the perfect time to learn what a subprime mortgage was. And I quickly discovered that to learn what a subprime mortgage was, you need to learn what a prime mortgage is. And to learn what that is, you need to understand defaulting and bankruptcy and so on. And while I was learning about all of this, a strange thing happened to me. I became fascinated.”
On the power of design:
“I started reading and watching everything available about the credit crisis. And surprisingly, for something that was so relevant, there was no basic introduction for someone who wasn’t versed in finance. Then I had this realization that, as a designer, I had the ability to turn around and explain everything I just learned to someone who, just like myself a few weeks ago, didn’t know anything about finance. And this was an amazing feeling. It was the first time that I personally realized the power of design. And it was also my first realization that what I had been learning in school was actually applicable to the world at large.”
On going viral:
“In my sixth and final term and I wanted to make a short film about the credit crisis in a very simple way. So I said to myself that I would work really hard for one week, crank the video out, it would be out of my system, and I would move on. About four weeks later, it was starting to shape up, but it was still far from what I felt was ready. I had already sunk almost half of the semester into making this film and I had to do something quick, so I threw together a website. I put the film on it, and I called it The Crisis of Credit. I sent it to my professors, some friends and a few blogs. Surprisingly they watched it. And they started watching it a lot. And then more people watched it, and started to share it. Before I knew it, it had been viewed millions of times. And I couldn’t believe it. The response was far bigger than anything I had ever imagined. Back when ‘viral’ was still a cool word, my film was going viral. And it was all because I had made something I just wanted to watch myself when I started this process.”
On glimpsing life after school:
“I suddenly started getting lots of email and my phone would ring with unidentified numbers. I was getting a lot of attention, and I loved it at first. And then everybody wanted to know what my agenda was. They wanted to know my design philosophy. What did I plan to do next? Everyone started making demands on my time. I was forced to talk to the world outside of school and to find myself as a designer before I felt ready to define myself to anybody. Even myself. I couldn’t handle it. But somehow, I did. That muscle memory kicked in. I somehow responded to all the emails. I somehow answered all the questions. And somehow said what I wanted to do without sounding completely stupid.”
A research sketch by Jarvis for his "Crisis of Credit Visualized" video.
On the next move:
“The next thing I knew I was at the finish line. It was graduation day and I thought, wait a second, what’s going on? Wasn’t everything supposed to be sorted out by now? Wasn’t I supposed to have a job? Wasn’t the next move supposed to be clear? I just managed to get through this crazy situation and I thought that meant that I was ready. But I was sitting there, and I certainly didn’t feel ready. I spent most of graduation day wondering when do you feel ready? And it was about a week later and I was on the phone with a man named Andy [Berndt] from Google. He’d seen the video and he was telling me about a new group that he was putting together in New York to find new ways to use Google and YouTube and Chrome. I told him it sounded fascinating, but that I wasn’t sure that I was ready. And then I immediately thought to myself, what are you doing? You just told a prospective employer that you don’t feel ready for the job! And then he said to me, ‘Nobody ever feels ready. But if the spaceship lands in your backyard and the door opens, you get in.’ So I got in.”
On not being ready:
“Over the past three years I’ve been on a team that’s found ways to use YouTube to let people anywhere in the world audition to play with the London Symphony Orchestra, that’s used only Google Search to tell a love story during the Super Bowl, and that’s visually redesigned all of Google. I’m on a team that every day asks me to do things that I don’t feel ready to do. And all of you will be asked to do the same. Because you are going to go on to do things that have never been done before. On your road ahead, you will build new types of products that have never been built before. You will work in industries that did not even exist when you started here. One of you may even go on to create an entirely new industry. And you’re never going to be ready for that.”
Art Center Alumni Awards, which provide the College an opportunity to publicly recognize the talent, service and design influence of our alumni, were also bestowed uponLou DanzigerADVT ’48 for a lifetime of professional and creative achievement andWendy McNaughton FINE ’99 for realized humanitarian design impact. See all the award winners and the Fall 2011 graduation ceremony in it’s entirety here.
Grad Art Faculty Member Seeks Bodies to be Part of Performance Art Event This Sunday
Grad Art core faculty Lita Albuquerque is creating a large scale performance for the Pacific Standard Time Public Art and Performance Festival and is looking for students, faculty and alumni from the Art Center community to sign up to participate this coming Sunday, January 22nd at noon at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Outlook in Culver City.
As described on the Pacific Standard Time website, Spine of the Earth 2012 is taking place this Sunday and is a recreation of Albuquerque’s 1980 Spine of the Earth, where the artist created a land based work at the bed of the El Mirage Dry Lake. The piece created a giant “geometric pattern over six-hundred feet in diameter” and turned the Earth into a artist’s canvas. In Albuquerque’s recreation twenty two years later, she won’t be painting the earth but will be making a “performative sculpture” that requires at least five hundred people.
As part of the open call to artists, designers and the general public, Albuquerque is looking for students, faculty and alumni from the Art Center community to participate in the performance. Sign up is easy at spineoftheearth2012.com. According to the site, participants will be involved in a very simple walking based movement (choreographed by LA-based choreographers WIFE) and will receive a signed, limited-edition artifact of the performance.
Kyle Fitzpatrick, who blogged about the upcoming event, wrote that he received the following details after signing up to participate:
The event is this Sunday between 12PM and 2PM. If you are participating, you need to be on site no later than 8AM.
This actually will not be in the desert (phew), but in Baldwin Hills Scene Overlook in Culver City, between Jefferson and La Cienega.
All participants will be involved in a very simple walking-based movement that will take place outdoors
What will you be wearing? A red jump suit! You should wear dark clothing and “comfortable walking shoes” in neutral colors to go underneath, though. You’ll also be keeping your red jumpsuit, which Lita will be signing as a thank you for participating.
Don’t bring your kids: all participants must be 16 and over.
Bring food money, as they will have food trucks there for eating. You’ll also be getting free coconut water!
Earlier this year, Art Center College of Design launched Create Change, our strategic plan for becoming the preeminent college of art and design in the 21st century.
With Fall graduation events set for tomorrow and the winter break nearly upon us, we felt it was the perfect time to sit down with Art Center College of Design President Lorne M. Buchman to hear his thoughts on the past year, get an update on the strategic plan and find out what’s in store for the coming year.
Dotted Line: Looking back at the past year, what are your first thoughts?
Lorne M. Buchman: I’d like to begin by expressing how deeply gratified I am by all that we’ve accomplished. This has been a banner year for Art Center. We’ve seen record enrollment of talented and gifted students, we launched our strategic plan and we are set to begin new degree programs in Fall 2012. We’re closing in on the purchase of the post office property adjacent to South Campus, a facility for which we’ve raised significant funds to purchase. We’ve built the Board and we’ve recruited some dynamic new faculty. We are connecting with alumni the world over. We’ve offered some fabulous new courses and we’ve made significant strides in acquiring new technology and equipment for our students. I could go on and on. It’s been remarkable. And all of this doesn’t happen by accident. The driving force of our success is the focused and diligent work of our trustees, faculty and staff. We should recognize with much gratitude the quality of this extraordinary community.
More questions with President Lorne M. Buchman after the jump.
Feeling groovy at Woodstock, a recreation of the West Canyon Concert of 1976. Photo: ACSG.
As mentioned last week, Art Center Student Government (ACSG) recently organized a half-day music festival that recreated the West Canyon Concert, a Woodstock-inspired event that took place on Art Center’s Hillside Campus 35 years ago.
For the recreation, dubbed “Woodstock,” students in the Sculpture Garden grooved to tunes by six musical acts, all featuring at least one Art Center student per lineup. Performers included: bossa nova headliner Sister Rogers, featuring Environmental Design student Carlos Vides on keyboard; The Big Bidnis Experience, aka Advertising student Andrew Kapamajian; Baba Ghanoush, featuring Graphic Design students Michelle Cho and Danny Park; EJ and the Fooldogs, featuring Advertising students Agustin Sanchez and Sean Thomas; and Marmamen, featuring students Alex Nassour (Advertising), Jom Rivers (Fine Art), Graphic Design alumnus and faculty member Ryan D’Orazi and one of the event’s main organizers, ACSG President Erik Molano (Graphic Design).
“This year Student Government really wanted to bring new experiences to campus,” said Molano, who pointed out that busy Art Center students might not always have the time or resources to go to a music festival. “Bringing a festival on campus was both a good way to utilize a space that often goes unused and a great opportunity to bring the community together.”
Given the success of the event, can students expect another concert? Before 2046?
“Well, I’m graduating next term, so I’ll be gone,” said Molano. “But it would be nice if they did a music festival once a year. Maybe based around different themes. I’m hoping the legacy continues.”
Edward A. "Tink" Adams working on a drawing in class, circa 1936. Photo: Irene Vermeers PHOT '37.
The posters around campus announcing No Teachers! No Grades! may seem like a cruel joke, wishful thinking or both during finals week. But in reality what they’re advertising is an exhibition titled No Teachers! No Grades!: Art Center on Seventh Street, 1936-1946, curated by Art Center Archives‘ Robert Dirig and on view in the Library until December 17.
Students able to pull themselves away from their final projects for a few minutes will be rewarded with a rare look at items from the first chapter of Art Center’s history, when it was located on Seventh Street in Los Angeles’ Westlake District. Objects on view include: a 1941 catalogue for Art Center Center School, as it was then called; a number of photographs taken at the Seventh Street campus (including the image above); founder Edward A. “Tink” Adams’ business card, circa 1936; and a Caltech flyer announcing aircraft production illustration courses, which were offered at Art Center during World War II when the College ceased normal operations to assist in the war effort.
As for the exhibition title, the text on display in the Library explains, “The early catalogs boast, ‘No teachers! No grades!’ signifying that Art Center is not a typical school. That proclamation was not to say that it was effortless for students. From many accounts students were thrown out of the school if their work did not meet the Art Center standard.”
Next week is the last week of the Fall 2011 term, which means the current stress level on campus is higher than usual. But if you’re “freaking out,” just remember, man, to take it easy. You know, like The Beatles said, ”turn off your mind, relax and float downstream?”
Okay, perhaps that’s not the best academic advice, but a similar thought did fuel two Art Center student-led events held nearly 35 years apart.
Earlier this term, Art Center Student Government (ACSG) organized a Woodstock-inspired concert featuring musical performances by Art Center students. During the event, students lounged in the Sculpture Garden atop orange blankets, enjoyed cotton candy and grooved to music by bands like Sister Rogers. But what they may have not realized is that they were also participating in a recreation.
In December of 1976, Art Center students organized the West Canyon Concert, a Woodstock-inspired event that allowed students to take a break from their rigorous studies. When Fine Art student John Dewey saw a photo from that event in the Art Center Archives, he shared the idea with ACSG President Erik Molano and the seed to bring back the spirit of that collaborative event was planted.
“We have a lot of musical creative talent here at school,” said Erik Molano on why recreating the West Canyon Concert made sense. “And ‘mellowing out’ is definitely something that Art Center students are looking for.”
We’ll share some more thoughts and pictures on the 2011 event next week, but for now, enjoy a selection of images from the original West Canyon Concert.
Additional images, courtesy of Robert Dirig in the Art Center Archives, after the jump.
After taking Introduction to Product and Transportation Design at Art Center at Night (ACN), Galicia decided to pursue design as a career.
The only problem? He lived in Ontario, the courses he needed were in Pasadena and he had no car.
We sat down recently with Galicia to get his full story; here’s what he told us:
“Where I went to high school in Rancho Cucamonga, everybody seemed to get a brand new car as soon as they turned 16. But not me. Ever since I was a little boy I loved cars and dreamed of one day designing cars. But I never had the means to own a car, so I took the bus everywhere.
“After high school and some community college classes, I signed up for Art Center at Night’s Introduction to Product and Transportation Design with Rimon Ghobrial. Rimon was a great instructor, and when he learned what I wanted to do with my life, he suggested I also enroll at Pasadena City College (PCC) to take classes with Stan Kong and Albert Yu, both Art Center alumni. I knew I had to take those classes, but I was worried about transportation. I didn’t have a car, so how was I going to get there? I enrolled at PCC and eventually figured it out, but the solution was ridiculous.
Environmental Design student Belle Shang will present her BeWild winter accessories at Design Runway.
This Friday, Art Center College of Design will hold its annual Design Runway show at the College’s Hillside Campus. The show, which is free and open to the public, focuses on how industrial design and visual art students are expressing themselves through apparel design.
“This is a runway show unlike any other,” said Design Runway instructor Justine Parish of the event which marks the culmination of the course of the same name. “Apparel design at Art Center is less about fashion than it is an outlet for students from all departments to explore a new medium for their creativity. As a result, we have Product Design students creating performance sportswear for space travel, Illustration students creating jewelry, Transportation Design students creating high fashion shoes and everything in between.”
This Sunday Art Center presents Car Classic, the College’s 11th annual celebration of the best in automotive design. The event will feature an incredible array of more than 100 rare automobiles and innovative vehicles on display in Art Center’s panoramic Sculpture Garden.
The theme for this year’s event is “California Design: Influencing Change,” meaning that in addition to enjoying all the classic cars on display—including a 1968 Peter Brock Triumph TR 250 K; a 1942 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Berlinetta Aero Dynamica; and a 1932 Doane Spencer Hot Rod—visitors to Car Classic will learn about the continuing global influence that Southern California has on transportation design.
Why Southern California? As home to more than 20 advanced automotive design studios, as well as forward-thinking companies that are leading the way in new mobility and alternative energy, the region continues to shape the how, what and where of transportation on a large scale.
Also leading the way is Art Center’s curriculum, which is expanding to further impact the evolution of the automotive industry and the broader field of transportation with a new Graduate Transportation Design program launching in Fall 2012. To coincide with this evolutionary growth, attendees to this year’s Car Classic will be treated to innovative designs for cars, bikes, planes, boats, materials and design tools influenced by Southern California culture.
Don’t miss your chance to meet Jennifer Golub, Executive Director of Content at Let There Be Dragons today at 1:00 p.m. in the Boardroom as part of the Office of Career Development’s Career Chats series.
