Schwab Poster Earns Accolades

You might have already noticed the striking image used for the Campaign for Art Center, created by acclaimed graphic designer and alumnus Michael Schwab. We’re happy to report that the poster has won a second gold award in the international design publication Graphis, and will be featured in the Graphis Poster Annual 2010. Earlier this year, it was added to the permanent collection of San Francisco’s Legion of Honor fine arts museum. Schwab’s donation of time, vision and talent underscores the lasting impact that an Art Center education has had on his life and creative career. Congratulations, Michael!

Read more about the poster and the genesis of the Art Center pencil in this intersting article at @Issue.

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Alumni Featured in PDC Show

More Diana Thater news: She has curated a very cool show with several Art Center alumni at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood as part of their Design Loves Art program. The program features a series of rotating contemporary art exhibitions and talks with artists, galleries, curators and architects in ongoing project rooms as well as exhibitions, multimedia events and film/video screenings.

Comprised of three exhibits, Thater’s show opens this Friday, Nov. 6. Be sure to stop by!

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Just What Is this Design Thinking Stuff?

The idea of design thinking is one that has been up for a ton of discussion recently. But what exactly is it?

“Design thinking, as a concept, has been slowly evolving and coalescing over the past decade. One popular definition is that design thinking means thinking as a designer would, which is about as circular as a definition can be,” writes Roger Martin.

Read an excerpt from his book, The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage—and the colorful commentary that follows—at Design Observer.

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Meet Mariana Prieto

For Mariana Prieto, the path to Art Center was a journey on many levels.

Moving to the U.S. from Spain to attend the College, Prieto says that “becoming a better designer meant leaving a school where I was comfortable and reapplying to a place that had already rejected me—but it was all for an enormous reward.”

Read more from this Product Design student in this great interview.

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Richard Meyer

Don’t miss Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Richard Meyer.

Meyer’s work has appeared in a variety of venues, ranging from art journals and museum publications to anthologies of lesbian and gay theory and literary criticism. He is author of Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art, and is currently working on a book titled What Was Contemporary Art? Meyer is associate professor of art history and fine art at USC.

Big Picture Lecture Series:
Richard Meyer
Monday, November 2, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

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Through the Eyes of an Alumnus

The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) presents Population: Portraits by Ray Turner, an exhibition of 150 portraits by the Art Center alumnus and former faculty member.

Turner ILLU ’58 fashions a uniquely seductive and engaging fusion of lyrical realism and abstraction in portraiture. A prescient interpreter, Population features intimate portraits of Pasadena residents.

The exhibit runs through Jan. 31. Read more about the exhibit at artdaily.org.

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Under Canstruction

It’s that time of year again—canned food drive time. You’ve seen them and donated to them, too. But you’ve probably never seen a canned food drive quite like this one.

The fourth annual Canstruction LA will be held from Oct. 30 through Nov. 15 at 5900 Wilshire Blvd., located across the street from LACMA. Organized by a collaboration of design industry leaders and AIA Los Angeles, Canstruction LA invites teams of prominent Los Angeles architects, engineers and designers to create exciting exhibits made entirely of cans of food.

Exhibits are on view to the public and awarded prizes by a panel of judges. Art Center’s Randall Wilson, Environmental Design instructor, is a judge this year.

Check out the Canstruction LA site for information, photos and video of the event.

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Designmatters Project Creates Solar Water Distiller

 Adjunct professor Tony Luna writes on the Designmatters blog about the Agua Pura project, which tackled the problem of finding clean water in Guatemala.

The project arose from a joint class, Product Design for the Developing World, participated in by students from Art Center, Caltech and Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala. The goal was to create useful products for populations that make less than two dollars a day.

Luna explains: “What transpired over approximately the next ten months was truly amazing as our four students, together with their Landivar University counterparts, took the most basic low-tech concepts, built prototypes, did field studies and tests, and refined the products. Most importantly, they learned from each other.”

Read more about this exciting project on the Designmatters blog.

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