Art Center’s Media Design Program is ringing in the season with Cheers, a student work-in-progress show featuring thesis projects, concept year individual projects and development year installations.
The show takes place next Friday, December 16, 4:30-6:30 p.m. in South Campus‘ Wind Tunnel Gallery. No RSVP is necessary; just be prepared to “see, eat, drink and be merry.”
Interested in learning more? Read previous stories on Art Center’s Media Design Program.
Attention Art Center students, faculty and staff:
The City of Pasadena has issued a Wind Advisory and Red Flag Alert, cautioning individuals to stay home. The roads leading to Hillside Campus are inaccessible due to fallen trees and debris and the Hillside Campus is closed until further notice.
For additional information, visit the City of Pasadena’s website.
UPDATE: South Campus is not officially closed, but some roads are impassable and the City advises staying home until the wind situation improves.
UPDATE 2: Hillside Campus will reopen tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m., and South Campus will resume operations at 8:00 a.m. We will continue to monitor weather and safety conditions throughout the night and alert the Art Center community if the situation changes. We appreciate your understanding.
Haring's mural at Art Center. Photo: Steven A. Heller / Art Center College of Design
Today is World AIDS Day, an opportunity for people across the globe to unite in the fight against HIV/AIDS and to remember those who have died from the epidemic.
In 1989, artist and social activist Keith Haring visited Art Center to paint an interior mural which still hangs at Hillside Campus.
Painted over the course of two days and created in conjunction with the second annual World AIDS Day (then called AIDS Awareness Day) and as part of the first ever Day Without Art, the mural stands as a permanent memorial to members of the art community who have died of AIDS and serves as a symbol of hope and compassion.
“When AIDS became a reality in terms of my life, it started becoming a subject in my paintings,” Haring was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article about the painting of the mural. “The more it affected my life the more it affected my work.”
Haring passed away two months later from AIDS-related complications.
This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the first reported case of AIDS in the United States. Since 1981 more than 25 million people globally have died from AIDS and more than 33 million individuals today are living with HIV/AIDS.
Want to get involved? Learn the basics of HIV/AIDS and take action!
This holiday season, Art Center College of Design gives thanks for your continuing support as we help students learn to create, influence change.
Hand-crafted turkey by Art Center’s Design Office.
In March of this year, Art Center President Lorne Buchman announced Create Change, a strategic plan that lays the groundwork for Art Center not only to retain its competitive edge, but to become the foremost art and design college of the 21st century.
Among several initiatives, the plan recognizes the need for Art Center to create new programs that anticipate the future trajectory of our practices, which in turn will complement and enhance our existing programs. Faculty and College leaders conducted research on emerging markets, evaluated student demand, business feasibility and curricular relevance of several proposed new programs. Three of those programs will launch in Fall 2012:
Interaction Design (B.S.)
Whether designing a mobile app or a gestural interface for an exhibition, a new consumer electronics product or a rich informational website, Interaction Design students at Art Center learn to think deeply about the user’s experience, apply technology creatively and invent new approaches to interaction and design.
http://www.artcenter.edu/ixd
Environmental Design (M.S.)
The new Graduate Program in Environmental Design considers the relationship between individuals, materials, space and emotion, challenging students to design spatial experiences from the first moment of encounter to the last moment of interaction. Tracks in Spatial Experience and Furniture and Fixture Design enable students to specialize and obtain advanced knowledge on theory and practice.
http://www.artcenter.edu/gradenvl
Transportation Design (M.S.)
The new Graduate Transportation Design program will help change the thinking of the automotive industry and the wider field of transportation and personal mobility. Through two tracks—Vehicle Design and Transportation Systems—students will create inspired vehicles and transportation systems that will impact the world.
http://www.artcenter.edu/gradtrans
Graduate Media Design (M.F.A.) is also launching the new Media Design Matters track, which allows students to work at the intersection of social issues, media infrastructure and communication technology in a real-world context. The track is run in collaboration with Designmatters, Art Center’s social impact department.
http://artcenter.edu/mdp
Each of these new offerings will attract to Art Center a diverse new group of students who will learn to create and influence change in our world.
Applications are now being accepted for Fall; we encourage students, faculty and staff to refer those who are interested in learning more to the links provided here and to Admissions.
Alumnus Horace Bristol's Rescued Airmen Smoking Aboard the PBY" (1944)
Today is Veterans Day, a day our nation sets aside to honor its veterans for their patriotism, their service and the sacrifices they made–and continue to make–to protect our freedoms.
Art Center’s history is rich with students, staff and faculty who served their country through military service. In fact, the College’s student population grew significantly due to the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, a piece of legislation that honored veterans by helping to pay the costs for them to attend colleges and universities. The growth was dramatic enough to require Art Center to move from its modest 7th Street Campus to its larger 3rd Street Campus in 1947.
Today, as we have throughout the College’s history, we continue to educate women and men who have served at home and abroad. As our veterans continue to return from their tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and other points across the globe, we are grateful for the rich contributions they make to our lives, both on and off campus.
Artist/designer Mike Perry in his studio
Don’t miss a special presentation by artist and designer Mike Perry tonight, Thurs. Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the LA Times Auditorium.
Perry will also host a drawing workshop on Saturday, November 12 from noon to 4 p.m. in the Faculty Dining Room. To RSVP, email danielle.ferrer@artcenter.edu.
About Perry, from his website:
Working in a variety of mediums, including—but not limited to—books, magazines, newspapers, clothing, drawing, painting, and illustration, Perry is compelled by the ways in which the hand-drawn informs and deepens contemporary visual culture.
Perry works regularly for a number of editorial and commercial clients including Apple, The New York Times, Dwell, Target, Urban Outfitters, eMusic and Nike.
Most days, Perry can be found working away in his Brooklyn-based studio, ceaselessly mixing colors, pulling prints, building sculptures and exercising his belief in the transformative power of making things.
Graphic Design student Paul Hope
Congratulations to Graphic Design student Paul Hoppe for winning a prestigious Adobe Design Achievement Award in the Application Development category for “Exploratorium: Generative Identity,” a brand identity generation system he designed for San Francisco’s Exploratorium museum in Brad Bartlett’s Type 4: Transmedia course.
“The [Exploratorium] wanted their identity to reflect the ever-changing nature of the world around us, and simultaneously encourage us to explore our dynamic world,” wrote Bartlett in his project description.”The project allows for infinite variation of the brand mark. No two logo iterations are exactly alike. Supporting elements such as alphabet, texture, and background, can also be generated for use across the design spectrum, including print, web, motion, and interactive design.”
Read more about Hoppe and his project here.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., at his letterpress in Gordo, Ala.
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., a letterpress printer and bookbuilder based in Gordo, Ala. and the subject of the recent documentary Proceed and Be Bold, will be in Pasadena today and tomorrow (November 4–5) for a two-day residency at Art Center College of Design in conjunction with Archetype Press, the 120 Group, and the Southern California Chapter of the American Printing History Association.
While at Art Center, Kennedy will conduct a series of letterpress workshops for Art Center students and APHA members, and give a free talk on Saturday, November 5 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at South Campus’ Public Programs Gallery, which is open to the public.
About Amos Kennedy, Jr.: At 40 years of age, unsatisfied with his comfortable, middle-class life, Kennedy abandoned the traditional American Dream to follow his own. He traded in his computer for a printing press and his white collar for a pair of overalls. Kennedy is now a self-proclaimed “humble negro printer” whose letterpress work raises emotionally charged questions about race and individuality.
See the trailer for Proceed and Be Bold after the jump.
"Day of the Dead" poster by Graphic Design student Tracy Hung.
If you’ve been to the Cafe, seen the flags along the Bridge, or heard thunderous taiko drumming on campus this week, then you’ve probably guessed that this is International Education Week.
International Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide.
As part of the festivities, the Center for the Student Experience (CSE) has organized several special free events for the Art Center community to enjoy, including a celebration of the Mexican holiday El Día de los Muertos on Wednesday, Nov. 2.
Students can stop by the Cafe, the Bridge and CSE (Suite 200B) on Wednesday to learn more about the holiday in which death becomes something not to be feared, but to be embraced.
The Library also has a Day of the Dead exhibition currently on display—showcasing its Día de los Muertos collection as well as sugar, paper mache and ceramic skulls—and is holding a reception with light refreshments on Wednesday from 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Head past the jump for a list of remaining International Education Week events.