NPR’s Sonari Glinton interviews Art Center’s Geoff Wardle. Photo: Teri Bond
Art Center students, faculty, staff and alumni have been making news while making their mark at on the art and design worlds. For those who may have missed a headline or two, we curated this handy highlight reel of our recent media clips:
“Our time at Art Center is all about pushing limits and taking chances, but a lot of us lose that creative fire when our personal visions butt up against professional realities. In many ways our book RE:INVENT was a reclamation of the risk-taking spirit we had when we were back in school. Art Center alum,” says Derick Tsai (Transportation and Entertainment Design, ’05), who found his own unique creative voice (and heaps of critical and professional success) by thrusting himself out of the security of his thriving design studio and into the wilds of his own imagination. Here he tells the story of how he forged his path to personal and professional fulfillment.
Between the time demands of paying the bills and spending time with our friends and family, it seems like our passion projects never get off the ground. And this is a shame because it’s those passion projects that are often the truest expression of our personal vision and have the potential to elevate us to the next level. It’s pretty easy to get started but at a certain point, questions and doubts inevitably creep into our minds.
”What’s going to become of this?”
“Will anyone care?”
“Will this be worth anything?”
That last one’s the killer.
That thought has stopped me in my tracks more times than I’d like to admit. And I’m guessing it has stopped many of you as well. So I want to share with you how a personal project of mine eventually developed into a critically and financially successful book, lucrative client work and a TEDx Talk for Livestream audience of over 30,000 people.
Art Center may not be the most socially vibrant college environment. And the school’s notorious make-or-die work ethic can make for a very sleep-deprived (sometimes hygenically challenged) student population. But ACCD and its students are nothing if not interesting.
Alumnus and instructor Grant Delgatty with Jordan Crook of TechCrunch at CES
UPDATE: Surprising many in the crowdfunding space, the Art Center alum/instructor team behind the URB-E personal mobility device today launched a campaign on Indiegogo. Since making a splash at CES, the team has secured an impressive wave of exposure about the compact e-scooter. The invention was selected as the official mobility device of the American Pavilion at the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival and will assist the crew of an ocean research vessel in a Discovery Channel doc.
The group of Art Center alums behind the URB-E electric scooter didn’t make anyone’s list of newfangled gadgets most likely to ignite a media brushfire at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Team URB-E entered the preeminent tech convention unannounced and exited the event basking in the glow of a media love fest any celebrity would envy. The upshot? Chutzpah + a great idea + a well-executed product = a perfect set-up for URB-E’s Feb. 1 Indiegogo campaign launch.
As the longest running venue for contemporary, modern, historic and traditional art in the U.S., the L.A. Art Show has connected collectors with established and emerging artists for nearly 20 years. Looking to build on that reputation, the organizers asked Red Truck Gallery owner Noah Antieau to curate a collection of work within the show to break down barriers, buck convention and create a new vocabulary. In turn, Antieau asked Aaron Smith, Art Center alumnus and Associate Chair of Illustration, to assemble a collection of work by Art Center’s Illustration alumni. The result is an Art Center installation entitled New Eye, which will join a selection of innovative galleries to form “Littletopia,” on display January 15-19 at LA Convention Center.
“Littletopia and the L.A. Art Show are a perfect fit for the Illustration Department,” Smith says. “We’re always looking to connect students and recent alumni with galleries and savvy collectors who understand the importance of investing in emerging artists. And the show offers us as a unique platform to offer those collectors a curated view of some of Art Center’s most brilliant Illustration/Fine Art alumni.”
So how is “Littletopia” creating a new vocabulary? Smith notes that, “the innovative, skillful and imaginative work of our alums is rooted in traditional and modern art forms; but our illustration perspective isn’t afraid to break down barriers or buck convention every now and then.”
Illustration alums whose work will be on display, include Erin Burrell, Ryan Cho, David Cook, Ben Sanders, Fleurette West and Julie Yeo, joined by current upper-term Illustration student Jane Lee (see their work in the above slideshow).
The term ‘New Eye,’ is borrowed from the diverse tracks of study available within Art Center’s Illustration program, which encompasses Illustration Design, Entertainment Arts, Motion Illustration and Fine Art Painting — with later forming the basis for the work at L.A. Art Show. “It’s a term that our students and alumni respond well to,” explains Smith, “and it really summarizes the fresh perspective coming out of the Illustration Department.”
In addition to the New Eye exhibit, many other Art Center alums will also have their work on view, including Mark Todd, Esther Pearl Watson, Aron Wisenfeld, Ray Turner and Aaron Smith himself.
Let us know some of your favorite works from the show and who else you bump into from Art Center.
The mighty kauri tree
If you’ve always thought Imagineers—the creative elite who design immersive entertainment experiences for Disney theme parks and resorts—needed engineering or movie industry backgrounds, think again. In 2013, the annual ImagiNations Design Competition, established in 1992, was swept by a team of four Art Center Illustration majors: upper-term students Jennifer Cho and Sunmin Inn, and recent graduates Angela Li ILLU 12 and Sophie McNally ILLU 12. All on the Entertainment Arts track and already good friends, they collaborated on the project that won First Place and Best in Show in this prestigious competition designed to promote diversity and inspire curiosity about cities around the world.
Monotype’s donation of fonts expands student designers’ toolbox
Not every act of philanthropy to Art Center involves writing a check. It should come as no surprise that friends and alumni of this artistic mecca are naturally predisposed to get creative with their giving. Sometimes gifts come in the form of goods and services. Computer software, fonts and even lighting are some of the in-kind commitments made to the College that are powerfully shaping the Art Center experience.
A recent sizeable gift of 3D design software and training services from Autodesk is providing Art Center students with hands-on experience using the same technology preferred by professionals in industry. The software is currently installed on Art Center’s 500 Macintosh and Windows personal computers and accessible to all undergraduate and graduate students. The donation benefits designers in every program, particularly those in the departments of Environmental Design, Film, Product Design and Transportation Design.
We came. We saw. We influenced change as we learned to create.
Beginning last October, we enlisted four Art Center students to lead the charge in a week-long homepage takeover of the recently relaunched Myspace. The first-wave social network had reinvented itself as a community and breeding ground for artists and creative types of all stripes to exchange work, feedback and inspiration in the digital sphere. In other words, Myspace had become a sandbox custom-built for Art Center students and alums. And, as is our way, we came ready to play.
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation’s second largest public school system, has joined forces with Art Center’s renowned social impact department, Designmatters, to implement Designmatters’ cutting-edge health curriculum, Where’s Daryl? Designed to get teens and tweens talking about gun violence in an effort to prevent it, the middle school classroom toolkit is part of Uncool: The Anti-Gun Violence Project, an award-winning program supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and dedicated to the memory of Norman Schureman (Product Design ’85), a beloved Art Center instructor who lost his life to gun violence in 2010.
This week, Art Center welcomes new students to a week of orientation activities organized by the College’s Center for the Student Experience.
“New student orientation is the moment in which students’ first impressions and experiences are made,” says interim Dean of Students, Kendra Stanifer. “The orientation helps students to create connections to the College and to each other that will build the community they live in for the next 3 to 4 years.”
Here’s the lineup of activities designed to immerse new students in Art Center culture and maximize their experience here, both in and out of the classroom.
