The July issue of Bulletin, Art Center’s monthly e-newsletter, has arrived!
This month’s issue features a q&a with two students who are making it their mission to design for sustainability.
You’ll also find the latest on Art Center news, happenings and events.
You can read it here, and if you’re not receiving it, be sure to sign up for our mailing list.
Photo by Dice Yamaguchi
The scope of design is rapidly expanding in leaps and bounds. Today’s designers feel a responsibility to address environmental, social and economic needs with their work more than ever before. In light of the changes taking place in recent years, Art Center has been developing a comprehensive design curriculum and its importance has been underscored in the school’s five-year strategic plan.
Art Center students Jessie Kawata and Yan Kramsky are co-presidents of the student-run group EcoCouncil, which has been largely responsible for helping green the College and introduce sustainable initiatives throughout the campus and curriculum.
The two were featured keynote speakers at last week’s California Higher Education Sustainability Conference. Together, they led the final presentation of the conference, sharing their perspectives on sustainable design and reflections on the event. Earlier in the conference, Vice President of Designmatters Mariana Amatullo participated in a panel discussion moderated by Associate Professor and Director of Sustainability Initiatives Heidrun Mumper-Drumm titled Embedding Sustainability into Existing Curriculum.
Kawata and Kramsky took some time out of their busy schedules—they graduate next month!—to talk with Dotted Line about EcoCouncil, comprehensive design and what they hope people took away from their presentation.
Dotted Line: Just what is the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference?
Photo by Dice Yamaguchi
Jessie Kawata: Students, educators, staff and administrators from community colleges, four-year colleges, public and private schools come together to talk about sustainability and various Climate Action Plan (CAP) initiatives in higher education. It was held in Long Beach.
We were one of the few private colleges to attend, and we were the only featured speakers from a private school—not to mention Art Center was the only art and design college present. So it was a real honor for both of us to be involved.
Dotted Line: How did the opportunity for you two to be keynote speakers come about?
Yan Kramsky: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm suggested that we apply. It’s funny, we didn’t realize we were applying to be keynote speakers, just workshop speakers, so we were surprised and honored to be selected as keynotes.
We have experience with sustainability initiatives from a grassroots perspective through our work with EcoCouncil, and I think we are the types of students that they were looking for, who could share our specific experiences.
Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig
Art Center’s most recent Viewbook has received rave reviews, winning an Art Directors Club Silver Award and now a Gold Award in the 2011 CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Circle of Excellence Award. Congrats to the Design Office and Marketing and Communications team for these well-deserved honors!
Here in the College Archives, we recently began a project scanning all Art Center catalogs and viewbooks, starting back to the first one published in 1937.
Enjoy this slideshow of images, and let us know if you have any that aren’t included here. We seem to have a gap between 1965-67 and 1972-74. Stay tuned for an announcement for when they are available online!
To visit the Archives, or to donate materials, contact Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig at 626.396.2208 or robert.dirig@artcenter.edu.
You’ve been warned and now it’s almost here—Carmageddon, or the weekend the 405 closure gridlocked the entire Los Angeles metro area.
While the 405 is nowhere near Art Center—it’s 30 miles west!—we’ll likely be feeling the pinch here as well. The L.A. Times predicts that Carmageddon will affect Pasadena and Downtown, too.
Here’s a mini-survival guide for the Art Center community:
Of course, the entire ordeal might be over-hyped. Leave your weekend suggestions in the comments!
More on what is shaping up to be a traffic event of epic proportions:
A convergence of circumstances—energy security, climate change, air quality concerns—have led to a rapid push toward sustainable transportation. California and Québec have led the charge, researching and proposing solutions from their respective corners of North America.
These solutions and ideas will be presented at Forward Motion: Advancing Mobility in California & Québec.
This half-day symposium, organized by Art Center College of Design and the Québec Delegation in Los Angeles and in partnership with the Université de Montréal, will examine the impact on vehicle and infrastructure design in light of the roadmaps laid out by each particular region.
Expert panelists will compare and contrast Québec and California’s initiatives for the promotion of electric vehicles and public transit, and examine the new technologies and advanced materials that are rapidly driving North America forward.
Save the date today for this one-of-a-kind event. We’ll bring you more information as it becomes available, so stay tuned.
Please join us as we celebrate the life of Don Kubly, alumnus and Art Center President Emeritus, on Saturday, July 30, at 5 p.m. in the Ahmanson Auditorium at Hillside Campus. A reception will be held following in the student dining room.
RSVP to events@artcenter.edu or 626.396.2386. Those unable to attend the celebration can view the program live online at artcenter.edu/webcast.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Kubly Family Scholarship. Visit artcenter.edu/giving or contact Senior Director of Development Wayne Herron at 626.396.2437 or wayne.herron@artcenter.edu for more information.
Don Kubly Memorial Celebration
Saturday, July 30, 5 p.m.
Ahmanson Auditorium
Hillside Campus
The latest issue of DOT is online, and print versions are hitting mailboxes now!
This issue focuses on Art Center’s new strategic plan, Create Change and includes President Lorne Buchman’s reflections on the strategic plan, essays by faculty and planning committee members on the plan’s different aspects, and profiles on students who’ve realized their creative visions thanks to scholarships.
In October, we’ll debut a reimagined print magazine and online presence, so stay tuned. To be notified via email when the next issue is published, sign up for our mailing list.
Guest post by Alumni Relations Director Kristine Bowne
Art Center Europe opened in 1986 with 39 students from 13 countries. During the 10 years of its operation, more than 500 students graduated from the European campus. Art Center returned to Europe for a reunion of alumni, faculty and staff of that campus June 3 and 4 in Vevey, Switzerland. The reunion was hosted by Art Center and Nestlé, and organized by Alumni Relations and former ACE staff member and consultant Claire Halmos. It was an amazing weekend for everyone involved.
Friday, June 3
Friday night we welcomed more than 250 ACE alumni, former faculty and staff at Café Vè in Vevey. The event was packed with friends and alumni from 18 different countries—many of whom hadn’t seen each other in 20 years!
Saturday, June 4
The next day at noon we met at the field adjacent to former Art Center Europe campus, La Tour de Peliz. Some 200 alumni, former faculty and friends shared ACE memories, lots of laughs and champagne provided by former Art Center Europe Trustee Heinrich Baumann Sterner. Later that afternoon we walked through the field to assemble in the CESSEV auditorium, the former location of ACE graduation ceremonies. There Art Center President Lorne Buchman shared the College’s new strategic plan, which outlines the school’s future over the next five years.
Cadence by Seth Astle
Today the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the winners of the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) program—a celebration of design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts.
We’re excited and honored to report that Art Center topped this year’s list of college wins with six student and professional awards. In total, Art Center has won 59 IDEAs since 1991—more than any other school, and in the top 10 of any other institution, corporate or educational.
This year’s winners:
Product Design
Grad ID
Design Strategy & Management (professional category)
Art Center also had many finalists:
Congratulations to all the students, faculty, and staff for your hard work and for a job well done! Co.Design has a nice gallery of the winners on their site.
Last year we told you about the amazing collaboration between Venice-based Blik and Art Center Illustration alumnus Patrick Hruby.
We’re excited to announce that Blik has just launched a new wall graphic designed by Hruby. The graphic, Imaginary Castle, is the same design that Hruby created for his final project at Art Center, on display in the Student Gallery last year.
Hruby first paired up with Blik in 2010 when he was a graduating student and Art Center’s Spring 2010 valedictorian. Earlier in the year, Blik had mentored Hruby’s fellow Art Center peers in the Advanced Illustration Studio class.
This serendipitous connection led Hruby to turn to Blik to manufacture his final project, Imagine Something Beautiful.
Each year, the Art Center gives the wall in the main school entranceway to one star student to display their final project during Graduation Show. Hruby’s project was selected for the space in spring 2010, and he approached Blik to help execute his vision and overcome the challenge of placing the design on the school’s grad wall. The transformation of Hruby’s illustration into a wall graphic was easy as Imaginary Castle was always conceived as a wall decal.
“I wanted to create a magical place that was large enough to make you feel as if you were there,” Hruby says. “Imaginary Castle pays respects to my Eastern European heritage and grandparents. I’ve always been fascinated with that design aesthetic and wanted to try my hand at it.”
The punchy colors add dimension to the large-scale design, making the decal “pop-off” the wall and appeal to children’s vivid imaginations and fairy tale sensibilities.
“We were captivated by Patrick’s style,” says Blik co-founder Scott Flora. “Imaginary Castle is a vibrant cityscape reminiscent of Mary Blair’s It’s a Small World. With its interesting shapes and modern aesthetic, we envision Imaginary Castle transporting kids into a color-filled playground. Keep your eye on Patrick, he is definitely an illustrator to watch.” Imaginary Castle is available in two sizes: a 36-inch wide wall decal and a 6-foot wide wall decal at Blik.