Great news—Art Center’s recruitment and portfolio posters, designed by MDP faculty member Brad Bartlett, have recently received Gold Awards from Graphis.
Congrats, Brad!
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Meet Dr. Penny Florence, New Chair of HDS
Next month, Art Center will welcome Dr. Penny Florence to her new post as Chair of the Humanities and Design Sciences Department. Florence comes to Art Center from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where she led the research programs. Prior to that, Florence was a professor of contemporary arts and director of research at University College Falmouth, U.K., where she inaugurated and led the Ph.D. program.
We recently spoke with Florence about her educational philosophy, goals for the department and her interest in electronic poetry.
What compelled you to move halfway across the globe and join Art Center?
Art Center is a great school, and I have always been impressed with the students, faculty and staff during my visits. But there’s something more—the College feels very dynamic at the moment and I want to contribute to this. HDS is a cross-disciplinary program whose potential interests me a great deal, and I aim to bring my experience to benefit and develop it. It’s so relevant today because jobs change so fast that you can’t just train to do one thing. You have to be able to transfer skills. Thinking across disciplines is really useful in assessing how best to move from one arena into another. That’s a big reason why a background in the humanities and design sciences is valuable for artists and designers. Another is that it enables you to look at the field of art and design in its entirety. This will always be useful, and sometimes essential.
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Art Center Earthquake Project Showcased at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
LA HAS FAULTS, PHASE 1 (Sean Donahue, Graduate Media Design Faculty)
The L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook and the short film Preparedness Now, developed at Art Center as part of The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready project, will be showcased in Cooper-Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial, opening Friday. Art Center students, faculty, alumni and artists, in partnership with leading scientists and community experts, generated new research and visual communication tools about seismic safety as part of this Designmatters-led project. The project has become a national and international example of the power of design thinking applied to disaster preparedness.
“When we initiated the research phase for Get Ready, we were coping with the aftermath and systemic disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina, and seeking to understand how we could use the art and design expertise of our community as a catalyst for resiliency in our own backyard,” said Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters, the College’s social impact educational initiative. “We wanted to provoke a conversation about preparedness and rally public attention around it. Today, we look back at this project that has engaged so many of our students, faculty, alumni and a multidisciplinary consortia of partners nationally through Designmatters with a great sense of accomplishment. The conversation we started keeps resonating with the same sense of urgency and relevance as before.”
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Pasadena Groundbreaking
Check out this new addition to our online videos, courtesy of Archives: silent footage from the groundbreaking for the Pasadena campus in 1974. It’s hard to imagine Hillside Campus looking this way—where are all the trees? And the tent reminds us a little of graduation. Architect Craig Ellwood makes an appearance in the film, as does famed designer Charles Eames. Very cool stuff.
Check it out: Pasadena Groundbreaking
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4 Hours Solid: Intimidating Title, Illuminating Event
Dubbed “the event with the intimidating title” by its organizers, the first annual 4 Hours Solid took place on April 21 at Art Center’s South Campus and marked the first time the College specifically showcased work and ideas from its four graduate programs—Graduate Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design (GradID) and Media Design (MDP).
Over 300 people attended the evening event, which included a panel discussion, exhibitions of recent student theses and work, student film screenings and a reception.
For the students showing their work, the evening provided a welcome opportunity to get feedback on their projects.
MDP student Haemi Yoon, who presented her thesis project that explores the down-time of everyday electronic objects, said she was surprised by the questions visitors asked her. “I thought people wouldn’t understand the project, but they totally got it,” said Yoon. “People asked me, ‘What do you think a future object will look like?’ and ‘Do you think these objects should have personalities?’ It was a great dialogue.” Continue reading
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Meet Steven Butler
Film student Steven Butler is a professional dancer and choreographer in addition to being a full-time Art Center student.
Recently, he worked on a project for a cinematography class where the assignment was to reveal objects in a frame using just one shot. Steven decided to capture a dance performance.
“The idea was to choreograph the camera movements of 10 to 15 dancers to match three minutes of pre-edited music. This meant I had to shoot a three-minute take with no mistakes,” he remembers. “I ran into obstacles with lighting and shadows and most of all, blocking the dancers’ movements off-camera. After about eight takes we got it right.”
Read more about Steven and his experiences at Art Center in this great interview.
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Art Center Joins Designers Accord
We are pleased to announce that Art Center has joined the Designers Accord, a global coalition of designers, educators and business leaders working together to create positive environmental and social impact.
Sustainability is a subject of great concern at Art Center, and we recognize that design has a responsibility to address its many challenges and opportunities. The College believes that design, with its ability to see the big picture and integrate multiple interests, is uniquely capable of creating sustainable systems and solutions.
Over the past five years, Art Center has been introducing a comprehensive design approach recognizing environmental, social and economic interests. Through new courses, research in design process and lifecycle methodology, and active partnerships with other colleges, communities and organizations, this College-wide initiative is slowly transforming how design is taught.
At the same time, Art Center is in the often difficult stage of integrating teaching with doing. Progress with re-making the campus is slow, but steady. Support for sustainable practices comes from all parts of the college community, though students remain the strongest advocates.
Through participation in the designers accord, Art Center hopes to learn from others and share what we know. We want to keep improving in all aspects of what we do. We also hope to inspire and mobilize the ingenuity of our students and faculty towards creating solutions that support human and natural systems, over the long term.
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Archibong Named Student Designer of the Year
Ini Archibong
Environmental Design student Ini Archibong has been named Student Designer of the Year by Stylus and Bernhardt Design. The Stylus + Bernhardt Design American Design Honors are a new annual awards program developed to support the future of American product design. The American Design Honors will provide young designers with both exposure and financial support. Archibong will be honored by Stylus and Bernhardt at the 2010 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York next week.
“A few minutes after meeting Ini, you realize you are in the presence of someone destined to achieve great things,” says President of Bernhardt Design Jerry Helling. “His personal charisma complements his natural design talent—he has the drive, passion and commitment to sustain a long and successful career.”
Born and raised in Pasadena, Archibong began his studies at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He soon realized that he could not ignore his creative passion, opting to focus on fine art and architectural design. He worked for two years at George Architecture in South Pasadena, where he learned the essential skills of the trade and strengthened his application portfolio for Art Center. In 2007, he was accepted into the College’s Environmental Design program, and received both an Edwards Entrance Scholarship and an Art Center Outreach Grant.
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Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation Endows Illustration Scholarship
Albert and Trudy Kallis
Advertising alumnus Albert Kallis, with his wife Trudy, recently established an endowed scholarship to support Illustration students with a gift from the Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation. In addition to helping students receive an education at the College, they hope to inspire fellow alumni to participate in the tradition of helping the next generation.
Widely recognized as a founder of International House of Pancakes, Kallis is best known for his work as an illustrator and art director for American International Pictures. Many of his posters have become collector’s favorites. Prior to his association with AIP he illustrated album covers for Capitol Records, and worked with Saul Bass in film advertising.
In 1973, Kallis left motion picture advertising, and with his wife created the Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation, which funds and produces documentaries to educate and inform audiences in unique and entertaining ways through a broad range of subjects including art, music, history, science and spirituality.
The Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation Endowed Scholarship will be awarded for the first time this fall to a new or continuing Illustration student who demonstrates academic merit and financial need. For more information, contact the Office of Financial Aid at 626.396.2215.
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Art Center Inaugurates Fifth President
President Buchman
“Come Art Center—meet your own demand,” Dr. Lorne Buchman urged the crowd assembled for his inauguration at Hillside Campus. “Let us bring to our future the very fortitude we exact from those we educate. Some of the same magic that for 80 years, brought to life those gods of design, art and human expression. It’s a mammoth but vital task. We know how to do this—it’s in our DNA. Conjure and imagine things that don’t yet exist. Designers, design your school.”
On Thursday, April 22, Art Center ushered in a new era as it inaugurated Buchman, its fifth president and chief executive officer. Named president last year after a nationwide 10-month search, Buchman is the former provost and president of Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts. Most recently, Buchman served as President of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. A trained theater director and scholar, he has held a number of faculty and administrative positions at the University of California, Berkeley.
Graduate Media Design Department Chair Anne Burdick, who served as Department Chair’s representative on the Presidential Search Committee, said that while many leaders in the art and design world were interviewed for the position, just one candidate was both a team builder and a change agent. “Only Lorne had that precise combination of empathy and chutzpah,” she told the audience.
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