Category Archives: General Interest

Art Center Students Rack Up Core77 Design Awards

Core77 Award RibbonFollowing a week of rolling announcements, Art Center is happy to congratulate the teams behind six noteworthy projects selected as Student Winners in the 2012 Core77 Design Awards, which celebrate the richness of the design profession and the brilliance of its practitioners. Among the award winners, our Product Design students’ solutions for medical devices and uniforms are valued in the Equipment and Soft Goods categories, Designmatters’ Safe Agua projects were recognized for their Social Impact, and a collaboration between Grad ID and the Drucker School is noted in the area of Strategy & Research.

CATEGORY: Equipment
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: Andrew Kim
PROJECT: Pal IV Pump System
JURY COMMENTS: Not only does this design pay attention to people’s physical need, but also their psychological needs in their most painful period.

CATEGORY: Equipment
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: James Cha
PROJECT: Syncro – Post-surgical knee rehabilitation device
JURY COMMENTS: Unlike many professional medical devices with a cold, mechanical form, this design is very user friendly with its organic form and inviting user interface, which encourage patients to use it with joy.

Syncro

Core77 award winner "Syncro," a post-surgical knee rehabilitation device, was designed by Art Center student James Cha.

CATEGORY: Social Impact
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: Kimberly Chow and Carlos Vides
PROJECT: Safe Agua: Balde a Balde
CLIENT: Innovation Center, Un Techo Para Mi Pais
JURY COMMENTS: This product shows that even relatively humble designs can make a big difference to people’s lives.

CATEGORY: Social Impact
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You
PROJECT: Safe Agua: GiraDora
CLIENT: Innovation Center, Un Techo Para Mi Pais
JURY COMMENTS: So much going for it – a great concept that works on all the required levels to be a success.

CATEGORY: Soft Goods
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: Leonardo Ochoa
PROJECT: Allayant – A shirt with built-in back support for paramedics
JURY COMMENTS: We really loved how [far] the Allayant reached. This was a big undertaking. It is rare to see such an innovative solution that is so well aesthetically resolved in a student project.

CATEGORY: Strategy & Research
DESIGNER/TEAM NAME: Art Center College of Design Grad ID and the Drucker Graduate School of Management
PROJECT: KPCC+
CLIENT: Southern California Public Radio
JURY COMMENTS: The KPCC+ strategy is notable because of the breadth of analysis that was done to increase listenership. They did a good job of targeting, understanding and designing for a complex and changing market and technology. Excellent process and project!

In addition to winning an award for KPCC+, the video testimonial submitted to Core77 as part of the entry process was showcased on the award site for being particularly informative.

The winners of each category will receive the C77DA trophy, and all honorees will be published in the Awards Gallery, on Core77 and in the awards publication. The recognition will culminate with a special event in New York City this fall.

Launched in 1995, Core77 publishes articles, discussion forums, resources, book reviews and event calendars in service to a global audience of design professionals, corporations, students, enthusiasts and fans. They host hundreds of thousands of online portfolios, provide job listings through a distinguished network of leading design site partners and maintain a database of thousands of design firms, schools, vendors and services. And offline, Core77 produces myriad design competitions, lecture series, parties, portfolio reviews and exhibitions.

Calling All Eccentric Types: Andrew Byrom, Gloria Kondrup and Heather van Haaften to Speak at 3×3

"Letter-Box-Kite" by Andrew Byrom.

Each term, Art Center’s Graphic Design department hosts a 3×3, an event in which three local professionals speak on a particular topic.

Tomorrow night’s 3×3, “Eccentric Types,” brings graphic designer Andrew Byrom, Archetype Press director Gloria Kondrup, and creative director Heather van Haaften to the LA Times Auditorium for a stimulating discussion on the wild possibilites of typefaces.

Here’s everything you need to know:

3×3: Eccentric Types

Thursday, June 28th, 7:30pm
Los Angeles Times Media Center (LAT)
Art Center College of Design, Hillside Campus
1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, CA 91103

Andrew Byrom, Graphic Designer, Typeface Designer and Professor
Andrew Byrom is a UK born graphic designer and typeface designer, based in LA. His clients include The New York Times, Penguin Books, The Architecture and Design Museum and Sagmeister Inc. His experimental typography has been featured in numerous design publications including Print Magazine +81, and Creative Review, and has been honored by the AIGA and the TDC.

Byrom is also a Professor at CSULB and has taught at UCLA Extension, Northern Illinois University, as well as Luton University and Central Saint Matrins in the UK. He has given presentations about his approach to design throughout Europe, Asia and the US – including the AIGA Y-Conference, ATypI, TypeCon, The Type Directors Club, Kuala Lumpur Design Week, and TEDx UCLA.

Gloria Kondrup, Archetype Press Director and Professor
Gloria Kondrup has a BA in Fine Art and Art History, and an MFA in Design. Her design interests straddle both 15th and 21st-century technologies and includes an expertise in branding, packaging, and letterpress printing. She currently has the best job in the world. Since 2003, Professor Kondrup has been the Director of Archetype Press at Art Center College of Design, where students enhance their ability to understand the relationship of language and typography, and to explore the creative benefits of an analog technology in the digital landscape. She maintains a consultancy in branding and pursues an interest in language and limited edition fine art books. Her work is in private and institutional collections including AIGA, The Sackner Archives of Concrete and Visual Poetry, The Getty and The Smithsonian.

Heather van Haaften, Creative Director
Heather van Haaften traveled continents in search of unusual typefaces, discontinued letterforms, and illegible ligatures. Her Midwest family printing business served reason to escape the realm of computerized typesetting and discovered the world’s first printed book, the Gutenberg Bible, set in Blackletter metal type. She has worked for Capitol Records and Paramount Television, and resided six years in Germany redesigning three European TV networks before returning to America to redesign HSN, an American cable network. Most recently as Interactive Creative Director, she lead award winning creative teams who delivered 1,500 custom online retail strategies to Fortune 100 companies and connected the brands with the world’s biggest online retailers, Walmart.com, Dell.com, CVS.com to name a few. Her areas of expertise include creative and interactive development, digital content, broadcast design, video production and entertainment graphics.

Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Design from Otis Parsons School of Design. Not a widow, nor an orphan, she eloped in 1995 to Sedona Arizona with Nikolaus Kraemer, a German movie producer. A mother of two bilingual cats, she loves licorice, yoga and Breaking Bad.

Student Cinematographer Nominated for Prestigious Industry Award [Update: He Wins!]

[UPDATE: And the winner is… Art Center filmmaker Ryan McDonald who won the top prize at the ASC award ceremony over the weekend. Congratulations! He’s currently shooting a project with Art Center alum Domenic Moen documenting the work of Inclusion Films, an organization that teaches filming to young adults with developmental disabilities.]

Art Center filmmaker Ryan McDonald was nominated for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Andrew Laszlo Student Heritage Award.

A still from Aexis

Recognized by the organization as an emerging talent with the vision and skillset to use lighting and composition to convey moods, McDonald is nominated in the fiction category for his cinematography on fellow film student Eric Chang’s directing project Aexis.

“My work is typically in the context of rushed schedules, limited crew, and a Subaru’s worth of equipment – so I guess you could say my specialty at the moment is doing a lot with a little; this film was no exception, said McDonald, an undergraduate.

“I enjoyed shooting Aexis because Eric gave me near total freedom in crafting the look for the film and finding the shots that worked best for the scenes. There are so many hard working DP’s out there who do great work, so I’m honored to be recognized by the ASC; even if it means I have to go out of my way to buy some business attire for the ceremony.”

Watch a trailer for Aexis.

Check out McDonald’s demo reel.

Visit his website.

Read the official announcement from the ASC website:

ASC Names 2012 Student Heritage Awards Nominees

The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) has chosen seven student filmmakers from six U.S. film schools as nominees in the 2012 ASC Andrew Laszlo Student Heritage Awards. A ceremony announcing the winners in each category will be held June 16. The awards are designed to showcase the artistic abilities of the next generation of filmmakers, with a focus on their cinematography skills.

The nominees are (listed alphabetically by film title in each category):

Graduate

  • Josephine and the Roach by Damian Horan, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts
  • Narcocorrido by Benjamin Kitchens, American Film Institute
  • The Bullet Catcher by John Walstad MacDonald, Chapman University

Undergraduate

  • Aexis by H.R. McDonald, Art Center College of Design
  • The Drop by Nicholas Wiesnet, Chapman University
  • Reclamation by Adam Lee, Loyola Marymount University
  • Language of the Unheard by Travis LaBella, Northwestern University*

(*one nominee chosen; also winner for the category)

Each year, the ASC Heritage Award is rededicated in memory of an individual who advanced the art and craft of cinematography. A Hungarian native, Andrew Laszlo, ASC was a talented cinematographer whose film and television career spanned 50-plus years, amassing such credits as You¹re a Big Boy Now, The Night They Raided Minsky¹s, The Out of Towners, The Owl and the Pussycat, The Warriors, Southern Comfort, First Blood, Streets of Fire, Innerspace, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. He earned Emmy nominations for his work on Shogun and The Man Without a Country. Laszlo dedicated many years to teaching future directors of photography at workshops, seminars and schools around the world, and authored several books, including It’s A Wrap, a compilation of his experiences on movie sets around the world.

To reach this stage, professors at film schools recommended one student for each category from their school, who then submitted their film for judging. A Blue Ribbon panel of ASC members judged the 40-plus entries and narrowed it to this field. That same panel will select the winners.

The ASC Heritage Award was inaugurated for the purpose of encouraging filmmakers to pursue careers in cinematography.

“It’s a competitive industry but these emerging talents have shown they have the vision and skillset to use lighting and composition to convey moods,” says Isidore Mankofsky, ASC, chairman of the ASC Education Committee. “We hope this recognition encourages them to follow their dreams.”

Past ASC Heritage Award winners have gone on to prolific careers, such as Lisa Marie Wiegand (Necessary Roughness, Dollhouse, Adventures of Power), Lukas Ettlin (The Lincoln Lawyer, Battle Los Angeles), Masanobu Takayanagi (Warrior, The Grey), and Nelson Cragg (Homeland, CSI), among many others.

Thought Leaders Gather at Art Center to Discuss Design for Social Impact

As part of Design Week 2012, Art Center and Dwell Magazine will jointly host a dialogue on how innovative design can influence social change. The event will begin with a keynote address by John Peterson, Founder and President of Public Architecture. A panel discussion, moderated by Michael Sylvester, Managing Director, Dwell on Design, will follow. Panelists include Frances Anderton, Host, DnA: Design and Architecture on KCRW and L.A. Editor, Dwell Magazine; Mariana Amatullo, Vice President, Designmatters and recipient of the 2012 Dell Outstanding Leadership in Social Innovation Education Award and David Mocarski, Chair, Environmental Design.

The event will be held Saturday, June 16 from 6-8 pm at Art Center’s Hillside Campus. Seating is limited; please contact events@artcenter.edu if you are interested in attending.

Art Center is proud to be an official partner of the West Coast’s largest design event, Dwell on Design, which boasts three days of the best and brightest products, services and thought leaders in modern design. Dwell on Design will be held from June 22 – 24 at the L.A. Convention Center.

As the only educational institution named a Silver Sponsor, Art Center will make a significant impact during the event. The College will occupy 1,000 square feet of exhibition space showing representative student and alumni work in Product and Environmental Design; lead a series of creative design activities on the show floor; and showcase student, faculty and alumni presentations on three separate stages at the event.

Dwell on Design runs from June 22- June 24 at the LA Convention Center.  Students can register for free.

Metro Expo Line Opens This Weekend, Alumnus Ronald J. Llanos’ Work Featured at Expo/Western Station

An illustration by alumnus Ronald J. Llanos; his work has been installed at the Expo/Western station.

The much-anticipated Metro Expo Line opens this weekend and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is celebrating by throwing a party. From 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29, everybody can ride the new light rail line connecting the Westside to Downtown L.A. for free.

And while Metro is touting that it will only take 30 minutes to travel between Culver City and Downtown, they’re encouraging everybody to make multiple stops this Saturday to partake in a number of celebrations–Latino jazz band Double Gee Ninenet at the 7th St./Metro Center Station are one of many offerings–from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m..

Alumnus Ronald J. Llanos.

And on both days, riders should be sure to disembark frequently as each station features new commissioned permanent work by a different local artist, including Tom LaDuke, Samuel Rodriguez and Jessica McCoy. Near and dear to our hearts at Art Center is the Expo/Western Station, which features Ephemeral Views: A Visual Essay by Fine Art alumnus and Art Center at Night and Saturday High instructor Ronald J. Llanos.

More than four years in the works, Ephemeral Views consists of 24 mosaic panels, each one 8′ x 3′, that feature Llanos’ trademark translucent watercolor impressions of the vibrant characters that make up the everyday street life of the greater Los Angeles area. For some behind-the-scenes snippets of what to expect to see at Expo/Western, check out Llanos’ blog here and here.

“You might call me a ‘visual journalist’ or an ‘urban realist.’ My images are inspired by people, and by places I travel to or frequent,” reads Llanos artist’s statement on the Expo Line website. “I feel that if I search within myself for that which I find interesting about the places and people of those areas, I might be able to communicate with people across time.”

For more on this weekend’s Expo Line grand opening festivities, visit Metro’s website.

Illustrations by Ronald J. Llanos; his work captures the vibrant street life of the L.A. region.

Los Angeles Times’ Art Critic Christopher Knight Raves About History of Space Photography Exhibition

infrared photograph of Helix Nebula

An infrared photograph of Helix Nebula in deep space, part of "The History of Space Photography" at Art Center College. (Art Center College of Design / September 21, 2011)

May 1 “Space Stories” Reception and Tour Open to Public

“Spectacular” is how Los Angeles Times’ Art Critic Christopher Knight describes some of the pictures in the Williamson Gallery exhibition “The History of Space Photography” on campus through May 6.

To create the dazzling collection of images, guest curator Jay Belloli worked with several consultants from the nearby Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), founded at Caltech and affiliated with NASA. The exhibit features 150 noteworthy images, most from the last 50 years of space exploration plus video projections of various celestial animations.

“The sheer grandeur of these scientific images, the awe inspiring beauty of them, is what reminds us of art,” says Williamson Gallery Director Stephen Nowlin who is featured in an NBC TV news story about the show. Also featured in the piece is Dr. Randii Wessen, a JPL space scientist and an advisor to Belloli who will also be available at the May 1 event.

williamsongallery.net

Spring 2012 Graduation Events

Students completing final projects in the Technical Skills Center.

The creative energy around campus is reaching a fever pitch as the College prepares for its series of Spring graduation events.

Wednesday, April 18
Join us from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. for 4 HOURS SOLID, an annual event at South Campus featuring the work and ideas of Grad Art, Broadcast Cinema and Grad Media Design. This year’s event also includes a preview of our new graduate programs in Environmental Design and Transportation Design. Enjoy four jam-packed hours of performances, demos, thesis work, screenings, discussions, Admissions Q&A, food trucks and music. Free and open to the public. More info.

Thursday, April 19
If you’re lucky enough to be on the invite list for Graduation Show Preview, you’ll get a sneak peak at the work of the next generation of artists and designers. Held from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. at Hillside Campus, the preview gives potential employers, alumni, donors and industry professionals an opportunity to preview the Graduation Show and meet our graduating students.

Immediately following the preview, all guests are invited to a reception hosted by Alumni Relations to welcome our graduating students into the alumni family.

Saturday, April 21
Join us at Hillside Campus from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. as we celebrate the accomplishments of our newest graduating class, present the Art Center Student Leadership Award to Product Design student Kenji Huang, and award an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters to designer and artist April Greiman.

Can’t join us for the graduation ceremony? Watch our live online webcast.

After the ceremony, Graduation Show opens to the public from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. so everyone can enjoy the work of our newest Art Center graduates.

Let the celebration of our creative community begin!

Below: Scream at the Dot by graduating Graphic Design student and Spring 2012 Valedictorian Aldis Ozoliņŝ.

EcoCouncil Throws a Spring Food Garden Party to Introduce Art Center’s New Executive Chef

Art Center Executive Chef Chris Haydostian (center) with EcoCouncil co-presidents Jenn Kuca (left) and Erik Molano (right). Photo: Chuck Spangler

Guest blog post by EcoCouncil co-presidents Erik Molano and Jenn Kuca

This past Friday, Sodexo collaborated with EcoCouncil to unite the campus community for a cooking demonstration at our Art Center Food Garden. Sodexo has been working with us consistently over the past few years to support student-led sustainability efforts, as well as campus-wide environmental responsibility initiatives.

Now that the weather has been warming up, we thought EcoCouncil should take the opportunity to get students, faculty and administration out in the fresh, open air. The new Food Garden was the perfect choice to discuss our event’s theme: garden-fresh food and easy-to-prepare snacks.

Chef Chris Haydostian and his English Pea Pureé. Photo: Chuck Spangler.

Due to Sodexo’s commitment to global sustainability in it’s Better Tomorrow Plan, we felt more than excited to introduce Christopher Haydostian, Art Center’s new eco-conscious executive chef.

Haydostian opened his talk with an overview of Sodexo’s partnership with local food suppliers and use of sustainably-sourced seafood, which many students and staff were unaware of. He also provided a little history about his journey to Art Center, including his work in the world of gourmet food, and his alma mater Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, our neighbor here in Pasadena.

Haydostian showed EcoCouncil and our guests how to make an English Pea Pureé that was served on garlic baguette slices and topped with roasted red peppers and feta cheese. All guests were able to sample the food right after his demonstration, and the recipe is now available on the Sodexo @ Art Center Facebook page.

EcoCouncil advisor Heidrun Mumper-Drumm and other EcoCouncil members showed guests around the garden and provided a seed giveaway, so that everyone could get in on the gardening action. The Spring Food Garden Party was not only fun, but it was collaborative, informational and, most importantly, delicious.

The Spring Food Garden Party in full effect. Photo: Pei Liew

Art Center’s Graduate Programs Top U.S. News & World Report’s Latest Graduate School Rankings

Graduate student work will be on display at 4 Hours Solid on April 18. Photo: Four Eyes Photography.

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual Best Grad Schools rankings, and we’re proud to report that Art Center made quite a splash in its Fine Arts Schools list.

The College’s Graduate Industrial Design program ranked number two in the “Industrial Design” category; Graduate Media Design ranked number seven in “Graphic Design;” and Graduate Art ranked number 18 in “Fine Arts.”

According to U.S. News, these rankings were based on the result of a peer assesment survey—art school deans and other top art school academics were asked to nominate up to 10 programs noted for their excellence in each specialty, with the schools receiving the most nominations being listed.

Curious to learn more about Art Center’s graduate programs?

On April 18, the College will host 4 Hours Solid, its annual event at South Campus that showcases the work produced by its Broadcast Cinema, Graduate Art and Graduate Media Design departments. This year’s event will also include a preview of Art Center’s new graduate programs in Environmental Design and Transportation Design.

4 Hours Solid
Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 6–10 p.m.
Art Center College of Design, South Campus
950 South Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105

Designing Experiences, Systems and Solutions: Art Center’s New Interaction Design Program

Nikolai Cornell MDP 04 with his Infiniti Interactive Mirrors. Faculty member Phil van Allen consulted on this project.

With recent forecasts predicting that Apple will sell as many as 66 million units of their latest iteration of the iPad this year, its safe to say that what the Cupertino company dubbed as the “post-PC era” is quickly becoming a reality. But the shift from personal computers to tablets is just one aspect of a digital interactive future still being written.

This coming Fall Term, as part of the College’s Create Change initiative, Art Center will launch a new undergraduate Interaction Design degree program, in which students—whether designing a mobile app or a gestural interface for an exhibition—will learn to think deeply about the user’s experience, apply technology creatively and invent new approaches to interaction and design.

We recently sat down with Interaction Design founding faculty members Brian Boyl (Graphic Design, Integrated Studies, Product Design), Philip van Allen (Graduate Media Design) and Jeffrey Higashi (Product Design), who have been busy establishing the framework for the Department’s curriculum in anticipation of the arrival of the new department’s chair. An international search is now underway and an announcement is expected in June.

Dotted Line: Can you describe the academic interaction design landscape and how Art Center’s new program will stand out?

Art Center faculty Brian Boyl. Photo: Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design.

Brian Boyl: There are several graduate programs in interaction design in the United States—Illinois Institute of Technology, New York Univeristy and Carnegie Mellon to name a few—but there aren’t a lot of accredited undergraduate programs. We’d be one of the first undergraduate programs to be launched and absolutely the first to be launched in Southern California. That’s exciting. What we’re doing is looking at the core strengths of Art Center. We think the best move in creating this program is to make sure it strongly integrates with our other departments and channels their strengths.

Phil van Allen: Interaction design is by its very nature collaborative, so the idea is to build a strong program that stands on its own but that also has a kind of permeability. For example, we’ve discussed that students in Interaction Design will take Graphic Design and Product Design courses, because those two disciplines are very central to interaction design. Our students will need to have an exceptional foundation of disciplines to be exceptional interaction designers. And then there’s the core of interaction design itself, which they will have to become experts in.

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