Category Archives: News

A letter to Jeffrey Hoffman on his last day as Dean of Students at Art Center

Jeff HoffmanHey Jeff,

It’s Tyler. This letter is hard to write. On your last day as our Dean of Students, I’ve collected a few thoughts about the impact you’ve had on my life, the life of students and how much you’ll be missed by everyone.

When I first heard about you in the hallway most every person who mentioned you would remark, “Jeff? He’s great.” In the past few years I have seen how true this is, and how it doesn’t go far enough. Jeff, you’re wonderful. You’re compassionate and fair, steadfast and kind. The positive change you have made in the lives of students and everyone at Art Center has made a momentous difference and will not be forgotten.

Your energy inspires. Seeing the dedicated attention that you give every issue that comes across your desk and the grace and diligence with which you handle things big and small motivates me to be the kind of leader I have been so privileged to see you exemplify. The work you have done to ensure students’ health and happiness through the CSE has changed the school’s culture. The policy changes you have pushed for — being student-centered and seeing the learning opportunities at every step — modeled the generosity that we needed and continue to aspire towards as an institution. Your initiatives with the Council on Diversity and Inclusion and the environment you helped create have made for a truly safe space where everyone is heard, appreciated and empowered to act.

Continue reading →

Veterans enlist at Art Center to influence hearts and minds through art and design

COURAGE_FEATURE_HERO

Art Center’s reputation, culture and even the school’s site in Pasadena have been shaped by the military veterans who have come through its doors. From the post-World War II student population burst, sparked by the GI Bill, that led the College to move from its Seventh Street location to the larger Third Street campus, to many notable alumni and faculty, Art Center’s history has been enriched by individuals who honorably served their country.

Today, servicemen and servicewomen—whose discipline and desire to make a positive impact align closely with the College’s educational mission—continue to distinguish themselves as students and alumni.

Continue reading →

Social impact bat mitzvah: Alum’s daughter raises funds for Art Center scholarships

Hannah Megery creates a painting for each bat mitzvah scholarship donor

Hannah Megery creates a painting for each bat mitzvah scholarship donor

This is a story about how even a 13-year-old can, with a little creativity, make a big difference in the lives of others.

Eighth-grader Hannah Megery had yet to choose her mitzvah (Hebrew for worthy deed) project for her upcoming bat mitzvah when her mother decided to take her and her sister Madeline on a tour of Art Center. The girls’ father, John Megery (ADVT ’95), had recently and unexpectedly passed away, and mother, Laurie, wanted them to see the school their father had attended and loved so much.

Continue reading →

The brains behind the muscle (cars): Stingray designers to be honored at Car Classic

Behold the Tom Peters-designed Stingray

Behold the Tom Peters-designed Stingray

Ranked #1 on Automobile Magazine’s “100 Coolest Cars” list, the 1963-1967 Sting Ray designed by Art Center alumnus Peter Brock set the standard for all sports and muscle cars to follow. That achievement in design, performance and pure chrome and steel sex appeal has been near impossible to meet, which Chevrolet all but conceded to when they retired the Sting Ray name in 1976.

Now, 50 years after the original Sting Ray first hit the road, Chevrolet’s parent company, General Motors, is reviving the brand and launching a car worthy of the (now slightly altered) name. Meet the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. You might say it takes a certain sensibility to capture the visceral appeal of that first Sting Ray and reinvent it for the 21st century. So it seems only natural that—just like the original—the 2014 Stingray would be designed by an Art Center alum.

Art Center will celebrate this transportation design legacy at its annual Car Classic on Sunday, October 27, where the College will present alumnus Tom Peters (TRANS ’80) with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his many design accomplishments with General Motors, including his work for Chevrolet and Corvette, and his leadership role in breathing new life into the legendary Stingray.

Continue reading →

Myspace takeover 2.0: New videos track students’ creative progress and problems

Art Center invades Myspace homepage

Art Center invades Myspace homepage

Update: Our quartet of students leading our Myspace occupation has produced a new batch of posts — three videos and one written narrative. Visit our Myspace profile for the latest news on how these artists and designers are devising solutions to the roadblocks and detours they encounter en route to their destination: creating something of lasting value that didn’t exist before.

Space. Whether it comes in the form of a blank canvas, an empty sound stage, a blinking cursor on a computer screen or a room of one’s own — space itself has always been fundamental to the act of creation. Art Center has long provided that space for its community of compulsively creative forward-thinking doers and makers, united by a desire to disrupt the status quo with explosive feats of imagination and artistry.

At its most basic level, it’s an invitation to create, explore and invent. And put simply, artists need their space. This was the operative principle behind the supernova success of Myspace, the 1.0 generation social network that became a hub where music lovers connected to their favorite bands. Ten years later, Myspace has reinvented itself, beginning with its June 2013 relaunch, as a social network “purpose-built to empower an infinitely expanding creative community.” The new Myspace has been designed around 21st Century creators’ needs to “connect, make, discover, collaborate, promote and expand.”

And what better place to seed that artistic ecosystem than the hothouse of creativity that is Art Center? So, for the next week, Art Center’s unique approach to bringing audacious ideas to fruition will receive unprecedented exposure as it stages an occupation of the MySpace homepage, which has a massive global reach of 35 million users.

Continue reading →

The sacred and the mundane: Lynn Aldrich’s witty spin on consumerism

In her quest to transform the known into something curious and unexpected, Los Angeles-based artist Lynn Aldrich makes a habit of scouring hardware stores such as Home Depot for materials she re-fabricates into colorful new constructions reflecting playfully on domestic architecture.

“By making these sorts of archaic physical objects that one has to walk around in reality and be near to experience,” says Aldrich, “I’m attempting to call attention to your physicality in a world that is more and more in a cloud of information.” Out of Ink, In the Dark might at first glance be mistaken for an assemblage of pads of the digital era, instruments of that very cloud. Instead, it’s a classic Aldrich “object,” as sly as it is seductive. Made of old-school ink pads, the piece sold the same day we caught up with the artist while she was installing a two-decade retrospective exhibition of her work, Lynn Aldrich: Un/Common Objects, on view through January 2014 at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery. The San Francisco gallery where Out of Ink was on display called to tell her that an East Coast collector had just purchased it.

The exhibition opens Friday, October 11 in celebration of ArtNight Pasadena. The opening night reception on Thursday, October 17, from 7 to 9 p.m., is free and open to the public. RSVP by sending a note to events@artcenter.edu.

Guest co-curators of Un/Common Objects are Christina Valentine, faculty member at Art Center College of Design and G. James Daichendt, Ed.D. associate dean and professor of art history at Azusa Pacific University.

Continue reading →

Inside the extended-play version of the Microsoft Surface DesignStorm video

 

Earlier this month, we posted a teaser trailer capturing highlights from a DesignStorm in which students conceived innovative uses for click-on attachments (code name: Blades) to Microsoft’s Surface tablet. The three-day session consisted of a group of students from the College’s various design departments facilitated by Graphic Design faculty member Gerardo Herrera along with Product Design instructor, Todd Masilko and Jeff Higashi, who teaches both Graphic and Product Design.

DesignStorms are Art Center’s trademarked immersive workshops which pair  expert faculty with select upper-term design students with sponsors to form multidisciplinary teams. Over the course of the collaboration, the teams apply an intensive design methodology to identify opportunities for deeper exploration and innovation.

Continue reading →

Innovations in lunch: The ultimate South Campus dining guide

lucky-boys-sign-2

It’s hard to overstate the excitement that greeted the announcement that a fleet of food trucks would be adding Art Center’s South Campus complex to its rotation of regular stops. Clusters of giddy staffers congregated around 8×10 flyers, speculating over which roach coaches– Holy Aioli? Kogi?  – would become the go-to lunch option within walking distance of 950 Raymond Avenue. Unfortunately, this culinary convoy was soon diverted away from South Campus, when turnout wasn’t big enough to justify a stop on the trucks’ lunch route.

On paper, this might have seemed a devastating blow to staffers as well as students tired of foraging for tasty eats in an industrial wasteland. South Campus sits at the heart of Pasadena’s Innovation Corridor, a name that may be more aspirational than descriptive of a neighborhood that houses a semi-functional power plant and a row of hulking industrial monuments to the last century’s love affair with molded concrete and steel. In other words, this is not exactly the kind of neighborhood where one might expect to find an operating vending machine, let alone a reasonably priced handcrafted meal.

Continue reading →

Art Center in the news, August – September 2013

Mego Lin and Jon Jon Augustavo on the set of “Same Love.” Photo by Craig Nisperos.

Art Center students, faculty, alumni and staff have been busy racking up awards, giving interviews and making news. Here is a selection of some recent coverage.

MTV.com, “Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Smash Hip-Hop Competition With VMA Knockout”
Two music videos directed by Art Center alum Jon Jon Agustavo with cinematography by Grad Film student Mego Lin earned some shiny Moonmen awards at the 2013 Video Music Awards.

SciArt in America
October issue featuring ACCD faculty Lita Albuquerque’s Stellar Suspension (from OBSERVE, Williamson Gallery, 2008) on the cover and a 4-page interview with Williamson Gallery director Stephen Nowlin.

Continue reading →

LEAP Day 3: Tools and takeaways to activate social innovation career tracks

by Wendy McNaughton

by Wendy McNaughton

This is the third in our three-part Dotted Line series covering “The New Professional Frontier in Design for Social Innovation: LEAP Symposium,” hosted by Art Center College of Design Sept. 19–21, 2013.

Overheard (Random quotes from the day)

  • “Fire it up.”
  • “This has been like a wonderful summer camp.”
  • “I can’t tell you how in awe I am of the amazing, creative people I have met.”
  • “You fired every synapse in my brain, especially those that have been dormant for the last three or four years.”
  • “The conversation has really progressed since I joined this field in 2009 and it’s been like amazing to be a part of this.”
  • “I love the word designer.  It’s sexy, it’s powerful and it’s dynamic just like me and that’s what’s important.”
Mind-blowing Ideation session at LEAP. Photograph by Terry Bond

Mind-blowing Ideation session at LEAP. Photograph by Teri Bond

Practical tools, next steps and taking action were the focus of the third and final day of the LEAP Symposium presented by Designmatters, the College’s social impact department. A key aim expressed by many attendees was to bring the valuable new tools they gained during the confab back to their home base organizations to help establish solid career pathways for young design talent and clarify the direct link between great design and success.

The last day was choreographed in three parts. First, working groups who had self-organized in to small thematic clusters, spent a few hours finalizing proposals that were later displayed on giant poster boards all around the student dining room, taking a page from grade school science fairs. Then, a spokesperson for each project pitched it to the larger group.

Continue reading →