Let’s All Eat Cake!

In addition to teaching at Art Center, product and environmental designer Krystina Castella has another rather interesting pursuit: writing cookbooks. Her latest, A World of Cake, has just been released to rave reviews.

Join Castella at a book signing this afternoon to celebrate this tasty new book inspired by the Art Center community. She’ll talk about her book as well as how you can get your own book published, too. Best of all, cake will be served!

Krystina Castella
Thursday, November 4, 1:30 p.m.
Art Center Hillside Campus
Library

Be sure to check out Castella’s great website for the book and the video trailer from the new book below. Are we the only ones getting hungry?

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In Case You Missed It

Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman

As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Some of the latest:

  • Did you know that Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin of Lynda.com met at Art Center?  Socaltech.com
  • Professor Krystina Castella’s yummy new cookbook focuses on cake. Winnipeg Free PressPasadena Star-News visits ENERGY in the Williamson Gallery. Pasadena Star-News
  • Student Tomoko Ogino’s concept for Peet’s Coffee. The Dieline
  • Interview with alum Anders Warming, director of exterior design at BMW.  BMW Blog
  • A review of alum Christopher Russell’s show at Luis de Jesus (runs through November 27). Culture Monster
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Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who will speak on The Seeds of Civic Engagement in Contemporary Urban Communities.

Ball-Rokeach is a communication and sociology professor at USC and principal investigator of the decade-long research program, Metamorphosis: Transforming the Ties that Bind.

The author and editor of six books, her latest, Understanding Ethnic Media: Produces, Consumers and Societies, will be published this year. She served as co-editor of Communication Research from 1992 to 1997, currently is a fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Communication Association.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach
Monday, November 1, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

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Celebrating Autumn, Art Center Style

Yesterday Art Center students, faculty and staff celebrated autumn at the ACSG Hillside Harvest. The event featured a barbecue lunch, pie-eating contest, trunk sale, e-waste recycling drive and more.

Enjoy this slideshow of photos of the fun:

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Graphic Design Department Hosts Upcoming Events

Each term Art Center’s Graphic Design Department brings together three LA-based design professionals to discuss a particular topic of interest to their students. This term, 3×3 will look into the issues surrounding graduate school.

Speakers include Chair of Graduate Media Design Anne Burdick, Art Center professor and alum Ramone Muñoz and Mike Neal, freelance design writer and recent graduate of the School of Visual Arts with an MFA in design criticism.

The group will address:

  • What are the philosophical and creative differences in graduate and undergraduate programs?
  • What are the unique characteristics of the top graduate programs?
  • How have graduates from particular schools shaped our field?
  • How one can best prepare for a graduate education?

It’s a must-attend event for all Art Center Graphic Design students.

3×3: WHY GRAD SCHOOL?
Thursday, Nov. 4, 7:30 pm
Los Angeles Times Media Center

Also next week, the Graphic Design Department is holding an internship preparation workshop for Graphic Design students with faculty member Petrula Vrontikis, a designer, author and educator and creative director and owner of Vrontikis Design Office.

Internship Preparation Workshop
Monday, Nov. 1, 1-2 pm
Boardroom, Hillside Campus

Graphic Design students, don’t miss either of these great events!

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Magonelli: The Long, Strange Trip from Gas Pump to Tank

“You are going to spend your entire career in a wind tunnel.”

Magonelli

This was Lisa Magonelli’s words of advice for those in attendance of her talk for Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series. Magonelli was referring to the accelerating pace of change in the world, and how we are will have to innovate at a pace about three times the speed of the industrial revolution just to keep up. She noted that things are going to change so rapidly that “it will be powerfully disorienting.”

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.

Her talk Monday was a cautionary tale. She spoke about America’s dependence on oil, and how that shapes our communities and lives—as well as the challenges we will face as we move away from oil dependence.

Margonelli on gas pump design: “Gas pumps are now designed to look and feel like ATM machines because studies have shown that we feel warmly towards them. As consumers, we want to feel better about buying gasoline.”

On our dependence on oil: “We are creating this very lasting and complicated relationship with the Middle East.”

Continue reading →

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Lisa Margonelli.

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.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli
Monday, October 25, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

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Celebrating the Creative Spirit Through Scholarships

On Saturday, October 16, the College celebrated its 80th anniversary with a special event raising money for scholarships.

Art Center at 80: Celebrating the Creative Spirit commemo­rated Art Center’s distinguished 80-year history and celebrated the ingenuity and integrity of our many students, alumni and faculty.

The inaugural Creative Spirit Awards were awarded to four extraordinary alumni—industrial designer Yves Béhar, introduced by David De Rothschild; automotive designer Frank Stephenson, introduced by David Gooding; blockbuster filmmaker Zack Snyder, introduced by Graduate Broadcast Cinema Department Chair Robert Peterson; and contemporary artist Pae White, introduced by Jeffrey Deitch.

The funds raised from the event will be used to create named scholarships in recognition of the honored alumni, as well as support general scholarships for students in Art Center’s undergraduate, graduate and Public Programs. This support will enable our students to fully realize their potential, regardless of their financial means.

Enjoy the slideshow of images from the event below.

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