Category Archives: General Interest

The Tale of the Google 5

Do you remember earlier this year when Google ran an ad during the Super Bowl? Here it is below. Take a quick look—we’ll wait:

OK. What is interesting about this ad—despite the fact that it is for a company whose CEO once called advertising  “the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America”—is that it was created by a group of advertising and design students dubbed the “Google 5.” Recent Art Center Media Design program graduate Jonathan Jarvis was one of five chosen from a pool of 400 applications.

The Google 5: Tristan Smith, J. Smith, Anthony Cafaro, Michael Chang, Johnathan Jarvis

From AdAge: “The 5 program is an experiment launched last year by the Google Creative Lab and its executive creative director, Robert Wong. The company sent a call out to 12 schools searching for interesting talent who would work inside the Creative Lab for a year and then be sent out unto the industry. So, with the Google 5, the company gets new creative blood and the industry gets young talent that is schooled in Google, and, by extension, the post-digital/new advertising way—tech-forward, open-source, collaborative and smart.”

The 5 worked on a wide range of projects, from the Nexus phone to Hulu ads to the Google Christmas card. Their year-long tenure ended in June.  But the new Google 5 have arrived—and it includes Chris Lauritzen, a designer/”wild card” from Art Center ‘s Media Design program.

We can’t wait to see what they produce. They’re already tackling projects including Google search, Google TV and the Chrome browser.

Read more in this fascinating story at AdAge: Meet the Google 5, the Team Behind ‘Parisian Love’ Super Bowl Spot

Alumnus Jorge Pardo Named MacArthur Fellow

A hearty congratulations to Fine Art alumnus and installation artist Jorge Pardo, who has been named a 2010 MacArthur fellow, and recipient of the MacArthur ‘genius’ award.

Pardo, as the other 22 recipients, recently learned through a surprise phone call from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that he will receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. MacArthur fellowships come without stipulations and reporting requirements, allowing fellows unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create and explore.

The Los Angeles-based Pardo’s projects include his personal home and LACMA’s pre-Columbian gallery exhibition hall.

Congrats, Jorge! Read more:

Big Picture Lecture Series Kicks Off Today

It’s the start of the term and that means one thing: a new Big Picture Lecture series. The Toyota Motor Corporation Endowed Lecture Series brings visionary thinkers from around the world to campus to discuss the cultural and political currents shaping art and design.

The series kicks off today at 1 pm in the Ahmanson Auditorium at Hillside Campus. All lectures are free and open to the public. Coming up for Fall Term:

September 27: Joann Kuchera-Morin, Composing in N-Dimensions
Joann Kuchera-Morin is a composer, professor and researcher in multi-modal media systems, content and facilities design. The culmination of Kuchera-Morin’s research efforts is the one-of-a-kind Allosphere Research Facility—of which Kuchera-Morin serves as director—at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of the University of California’s multi-million dollar sponsored research program, the Digital Media Innovation Program, of which Kuchera-Morin served as chief scientist from 1998 to 2003.

October 4: Hershel Parker, My 50 Years with the Confidence-Man
Hershel Parker is the author of Herman Melville, A Biography; Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons and Reading Billy Budd, among others. Professor emeritus of English at the University of Delaware, Parker co-edited the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick and served as editor of the Norton Critical Edition of The Confidence Man. He is associate general editor of the Northwestern-Newberry edition of The Writings of Herman Melville.

October 25: Lisa Margonelli, Designing for Cognitive Dissonance: The Weird Relationship Between Gas Pumps and US Energy Policy
Lisa Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank , published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

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What a Great Event: The Art Center Summit

We live tweeted yesterday from the Art Center Summit —what a wonderful experience! This year’s Summit, Projects and Partnerships in Sustainable Design, highlighted our association with the Opportunity Green Business Conference, taking place September 22 through 24 at L.A. Center Studios.

Yesterday’s Summit included the workshops Beyond the Peanut: Using Life Cycle Assessment to Develop Goals and Strategies led by Art Center’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives and Associate Professor Heidrun Mumper-Drumm, and Using Cross-Pollination for Business Innovation by Associate Professor Frido Beisert. Main stage presentation Product Design in the Sustainable Era, led by Taschen editor Julius Wiedemann, featured a panel of Art Center students discussing their work that was included in the Taschen book of the same name and that were on display at the event.

A very special thank you to everyone involved in making this year’s Summit happen,including student panelists Daniel Huang, Mark Huang, Sharon Levy, Magdalena Paluch and John Phillips; student exhibit curators Jessie Kawata, Arthur Leung, Brandon Lowry, Christine Nakashiba and Magdalena Paluch; and the many Art Center students who volunteered at the exhibit.

Check out our tweets from the event, and enjoy this slideshow below. Stay tuned to The Dotted Line—we’ll bring you more photos and a recap soon.

The Summit is Here!

It’s not too late to attend the fourth Art Center Summit, Projects and Partnerships in Sustainable Design. This year’s event will highlight our association with the Opportunity Green Business Conference at L.A. Center Studios, today through Friday.

Tomorrow will feature breakout sessions Beyond the Peanut: Using Life Cycle Assessment to Develop Goals and Strategies and Creative Strategies: Sustainability by Design and the main stage presentation, Product Design in the Sustainable Era, will be held tomorrow afternoon. There will also be an exhibit of student work, featuring art and design addressing environmental, social and economic sustainability, on view throughout the conference.

Learn more at the Summit website. See you there!

Analog Technology in the Digital Landscape: Archetype Press at 21

A Q&A with Professor Gloria Kondrup, Archetype Press Director


Gloria Kondrup

How did Art Center’s Archetype Press come about?
Archetype Press was founded in 1989 with more than 2,500 drawers of rare American and European foundry type, wood type and ornaments from the collection of Los Angeles typographer and printer Vernon Simpson.

The support from Art Center’s then-president David Brown, the financial backing of five patrons, and the hard work of the founding Archetype Press Director Vance Studley was crucial to its creation. Before coming to its current home at South Campus, Archetype was located on Mills Place in Pasadena. This was before the retail revival of Old Pasadena—most of Colorado Boulevard was boarded up, and finding parking was never a concern.

What role have you played in relation to Archetype?
I discovered Archetype Press and letterpress printing in 1992 as a graduate student at Art Center. Although my design background was in branding and packaging, I found the letterpress experience authentic and tactile. After graduation, I purchased my own presses and established a design studio that straddled both 15th and 21st century technologies.

In 2003, I was given the opportunity to become director of Archetype. In one sense, I view my responsibility as stewardship for the preservation of language and of a cultural artifact while enhancing students’ ability to understand the relationship of language and imagery.

People are often surprised that Art Center teaches students to use this “outdated technology.” What is your response to that?
Archetype continues the tradition of an older—but not outdated—technology. While letterpress is steeped in tradition, Archetype is not nostalgic.

As an experimental typographic workshop, students don’t just study the prototypes of digital letterforms, but are exposed to a sensual graphic experience that is both felt and seen as type is inked and pressed into a piece of paper. They are getting ink underneath their fingernails, not merely replacing ink cartridges in color printers. They are being challenged to expand beyond the margins of the computer screen, engaging in a design discourse that can question the uses of newer technologies.

Without question, digital technologies are the preferred way for the efficient exchange and dissemination of information. But digital technology has also allowed letterpress printing to change and explore new ways of combining image and text.

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Reflecting Back at 80: Alumni Relations

Annual meeting of Society of Art Center Alumni at the Sportsmen's Lodge in North Hollywood (1963)

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

Art Center’s alumni have always been an important part of the College, but the Office of Alumni Relations wasn’t formed until the ’60s—and it looked much different than it does today.


Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society of Art Center Alumni, known as the "Fall Roundup" because of the Western theme (1969)

The Society of Art Center Alumni was formed and incorporated in 1960. While support for the Society was provided by the College, it was a separate organization with a budget based in annual dues.

The aim of the Society was to form a network of alumni by creating alumni directories, distributing newsletters, organizing regional chapters and planning exhibitions.

One particular goal was for alumni to be more active with Art Center and help support and strengthen the curriculum and policies.

During the ’70s, the Society’s most important activity was a juried exhibit of alumni work for which they produced a catalog. During this era, the annual meeting was an opportunity to showcase the alumni work created during the previous year.

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Save the Date: Art Center’s 80th Anniversary Weekend

We’re celebrating 80 years of excellence in art and design education at Art Center. Following the inauguration of our fifth president in April, and a community-wide Day of Service in June, the College continues its celebration with a special 80th Anniversary Weekend.

On Saturday, October 16, Art Center will honor four prominent alumni—industrial designer Yves Béhar, car designer Frank Stephenson, contemporary artist Pae White and blockbuster filmmaker Zack Snyder—with the Creative Spirit award at a gala to raise scholarships for students in Art Center’s undergraduate, graduate and public programs. The following day, Sunday, October 17, is Art Center’s beloved Car Classic. This year’s theme, Freedom of Motion, celebrates the powerful combination of technology and passion that allows humans to move well beyond their own physical abilities.

For more information about the gala, call 626.396.2338. Tickets and details about Car Classic are available at artcenter.edu/carclassic.

Register Today for the Art Center Summit

It’s almost here: The fourth Art Center Summit, Projects and Partnerships in Sustainable Design, will be held September 22 through 24. This year’s event will highlight our association with the Opportunity Green Business Conference at L.A. Center Studios.

Even better news: Previous Art Center Summit participants and attendees, as well as Art Center alumni, students  and friends, are eligible for special discounted rates.

Don’t delay — learn more about this year’s event, and register today.