Category Archives: Graphic Design

ArtCenter Premieres Student Self Portrait Video Series

Product Design student Miguel Harry

Product Design student Miguel Harry

ArtCenter has launched a new video series featuring student self portraits, providing a glimpse into the creative journeys of five of our students.

“In their process of researching colleges, most prospective students plan a campus visit, browse the website, or make an appointment with an admissions counselor,” said Kit Baron, senior vice president of Admissions and Enrollment Management for ArtCenter. “While these experiences are valuable and provide a great way to gather information, hearing directly from ArtCenter students to learn about their stories and their lives provides yet another deeper level of sharing. We’re often asked ‘What’s it really like to be an ArtCenter student?’ We hope the stories of these five talented individuals helps answer that common question and provide prospective students with a realistic glimpse into their world.”

Illustration Student Cristina Wilson

Illustration Student Cristina Wilson

The five students were asked to share their creative journeys and reveal personal details such as their early inspiration, decision to attend art school, current projects and long-term goals. All production in the field was completed by the individual students, who were commissioned to spend 12 weeks meeting once a month to workshop their projects, from proposal through final cut, while undertaking the challenging process of capturing their own creative evolution in a professional quality video—all in addition to their demanding studio and academic course load. Light guidance was provided throughout the creative process by a small team of staff from Admissions and Marketing and Communications. The result is a series of video self-portraits that truly capture the student’s intimate voice, motivations and distinctive viewpoints.

Continue reading

Two ArtCenter faculty receive prestigious AIGA Fellow awards

Screen Shot 2017-06-06 at 3.59.05 PM

Alum and Graphic Design faculty member Wayne Hunt of Hunt Design and Humanities and Sciences faculty Errol Gerson have been awarded the prestigious Fellow award for 2017 from AIGA Los Angeles.

The Fellow award program is a means of recognizing designers who have made a significant contribution to raising the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within their local or regional design community as well as in their local AIGA chapter. The areas of education, writing, leadership and reputation, as well as the practice of design are given equal consideration in measuring significant contribution.

The last current ArtCenter faculty member to receive this award was Petrula Vrontikis (2007). Former faculty Agustin Garza was named a Fellow in 2012. This is the first time that two ArtCenter faculty have received this honor in the same year.

They will be honored at a ceremony June 22 at the Millwick in the Arts District in Downtown L.A.

Graphic Design Jesus Jacobo’s Yo Soy ArtCenter connects Latino/a students across disciplines

Yo Soy ArtCenter, the first latino graphic design show at HMCT.

Jesus Jacobo at Yo Soy ArtCenter’s Graphic Design Group Exhibition. Photo: Juan Posada

Student leader. Graphic Designer. Latino.

Jesus Jacobo, graduating this term with honors and a degree in Graphic Design, is all of these things

As a student worker in the Alumni Relations and Career and Professional Development (CPD) office, Jacobo gained exposure to students, alumni and other professionals outside his major of study. He came to recognize the usefulness of making connections beyond his major at the College

And he noticed a lack of community for Latino/a students

Last year he co-founded Yo Soy ArtCenter, a network of Latino/a students across diverse disciplines who share a cultural heritage. The student group recently hosted and curated Yo Soy: Graphic Design Group Exhibition, the first Latino/a graphic design group exhibition at ArtCenter, organized and curated by Michael Rosales, with support from the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography.

We caught up with Jacobo during his final term at the College to find out more about Yo Soy, his favorite ArtCenter projects, and what he’d like to do after graduating.

Continue reading

Video boost: Graphic Design alum Pearlyn Lii traces her path to a prestigious gig with SYPartners

ArtCenter has a reputation for challenging students to meet and exceed their most formidable professional ambitions, often in record time. Case in point: Graphic Design alum Pearlyn Lii, who didn’t miss a beat translating a stand-out undergraduate portfolio into a coveted job in the New York office of the prestigious design studio, SYPartners. The San Francisco-based firm, which describes itself as a “product-creation engine dedicated to helping individuals, teams, and companies be great” (and counts Apple, Facebook, Nike and Target among its clients), first discovered Lii’s unique talents through the series of Student/Space videos chronicling her creative process as she completed a class assignment— a book project about artist Brian Eno.

Continue reading

ArtCenter Alumni Notes: November 2015 through January 2016

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

With the holidays behind us and election season upon us for the foreseeable future, this is the perfect time to divert our attention to the edifying pursuit of creative fulfillment. And what better way to do that than with this extra bulky edition of ArtCenter Alumni Notes.

NEWS

Guy Bove (BS 96 Product Design) was recently featured in a Tatler Magazine Hong Kong article about watch design. Hong Kong Tatler

Edward Eyth (BS 85 Product Design) was on a panel discussion for his concept designer work on Back to the Future Part II as part of the Toyota Mirai premier event. Toyota Newsroom

Continue reading

LACMA celebrates graphic design with a show featuring alums Alvin Lustig and Elaine Lustig Cohen

Alvin Lustig, The Man Who Died, 1947. Book cover published by New Directions. (Image courtesy of LACMA)

Alvin Lustig, The Man Who Died, 1947. Book cover published by New Directions. (Image courtesy of LACMA)

Eye on Design recently and rightly hailed LACMA’s vow to incorporate more graphic design exhibitions into its programming. The museum kicked off this new series of shows with Vitality of New Forms: Designs by Alvin Lustig and Elaine Lustig Cohen, an expansive exhibition, on view through July 4, 2016, featuring 56 works by a pair of influential and innovative designers who also happen to be ArtCenter alums.

The move to celebrate and elevate the work of talented designers is just the latest sign that LA’s signature cultural institution has also become its most dynamic and nimble, further fortifying its growing reputation as a world-class museum and one of LA’s most vital cultural resources.

This decision to feature the work of ArtCenter alums in the inaugural show in this series is a huge endorsement for College’s contribution to the field of design. And as Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination continues to draw crowds and critical raves, LACMA is making a strong statement about ArtCenter’s contribution to our creative landscape, both locally and globally.

 

 

Spring 2016 orientation: Back-to-school pro tips for surviving and thriving at ArtCenter

 

Student orientation

Student orientation

Ah, the first day of school. It’s an initiation fraught with the anxiety of the unknown and flashbacks to the horrors of middle school cafeteria mishaps. Fortunately, ArtCenter has built in a full schedule of activities to provide a soft landing to incoming students and their families.

Orientation Week’s busy agenda features social mixers and in-depth information sessions on everything from campus sustainability to the infamous ArtCenter critique. Students are also matched with Orientation Leaders, who act as guides, companions and resources for the latest insider information on navigating the academic, social and geographic peculiarities of life at ArtCenter

In the spirit of optimizing the orientation week experience for the incoming class of 2016, we’ve compiled the following authoritative collection of pro tips from our Facebook community of current and former students to help ArtCenter newbies avoid rookie mistakes.

Continue reading

World-class design education, delivered digitally: Meet the online learning innovators behind The Skool

Chris Do and Jose Caballer, co-founders of The Skool. ArtCenter photo by Jennie Warren

Chris Do and Jose Caballer, co-founders of The Skool. ArtCenter photo by Jennie Warren

The business of online learning is booming. Just ask lynda.com co-founders, former ArtCenter faculty member Lynda Weinman and alumnus and Trustee Bruce Heavin (BFA 93 Illustration), whose company was acquired this year by LinkedIn for $1.5 billion.

Inspired and mentored by these pioneers, Graphic Design alums Jose Caballer (BFA 96) and Chris Do (BFA 95) represent a new generation of innovative education entrepreneurs. Together the two have co-founded The Skool, an online learning resource for designers.

Continue reading

A Holiday haul of ArtCenter alumni notes delivered to your digital doorstep

Frances Stark, Portrait of the Artist as a Full-on Bird, 2004, Collage on casein on canvas board. 20x24 in. RSC Contemporary, London. Photo by Marcus Leith.

Frances Stark, Portrait of the Artist as a Full-on Bird, 2004, Collage on casein on canvas board. 20×24 in. RSC Contemporary, London. Photo by Marcus Leith.

With the arrival of the holiday season comes a time for hot beverages and brightly-patterned sweaters; for giving and receiving, at work and at home. We’re excited kick off the next six weeks’ worth of non-stop merriment by presenting you with with an early gift in the form of the latest installment of ArtCenter alumni notes, which is teeming with impressive news and accomplishments, from book releases and public engagements to major exhibitions at the Hammer Museum and LACMA.

Continue reading

Every day is Veterans Day for students in Designmatters’ The Healing Trauma Project

Army medics treat a victim of a bombing in Tikrit, Iraq in 2006. Photo: Christopher Stoltz

In this photo by veteran and current ArtCenter student Christopher Stoltz, Army medics treat a victim of a bombing in Tikrit, Iraq in 2006.

“When guest speakers come into the class, they can spot me in the crowd and instantly tell I’m a veteran,” says ArtCenter student and former mass communication specialist for the U.S. Navy Christopher Stoltz of meeting with experts during this term’s Designmatters course The Healing Trauma Project.  “I think they can tell by my cargo shorts,” he adds laughing. “The non-uniform uniform.”

All jokes about conformity aside, one of the main reasons Stoltz signed up for the Graphic Design-hosted transdisciplinary studio is that it dealt with a serious issue—helping veterans learn about a method for treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—and he wanted to represent an actual veteran’s viewpoint.

“I think a lot of people assume the military experience is what you see in movies like American Sniper, very extreme war stories” says Stoltz, who grew up in  Mount Airy, NC and served in the Navy for 14 years in a number of photography-related roles, including being an aerial photographer aboard the U.S.S. Harry Truman, and covering stories in Iraq from a soldier’s point of view for the Navy’s Stars and Stripes news agency. “Not every military job involves carrying a rifle. Some veterans worked desk jobs. I carried cameras the whole time I served. I also carried a rifle, but telling stories and capturing moments was my first priority.”

Continue reading