Sunstar, an art/science work by Liliane Lijn, artist, and John Vallerga, astrophysicist at UC Berkeley Space Science Lab, is a large-scale and far-reaching daytime installation sited on the historic 150’ Solar Tower on Mount Wilson. Using engineered glass prisms and specially designed code, a spray of diffracted sunlight is projected to specific locations, making the solar spectrum visible just at the meeting point of earth and sky in the form of a sparkling star. On loan to Mount Wilson Observatory, Sunstar will be beaming on selected locations participating in Pasadena’s AxS Festival: City as Wunderkammer, including ArtCenter’s Hillside Campus.

Sunstar will be shining its light on ArtCenter on the following schedule:

• Friday, November 2—4:30 p.m. to sunset
• Monday, November 5—2 p.m. to sunset
• Tuesday, November 6—11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

An array of six prisms, Sunstar takes incoming sunlight and refracts it, bending the light and spreading it into a spectrum–all the colors of the rainbow. It is mounted near the top of the Observatory’s 150-foot Solar Telescope Tower. With motion controls, it can be remotely directed to project the spectrum to a specific point in the Los Angeles basin. An observer below will see an intense point of light in a single wavelength, shining like a brilliant jewel from the ridgeline of Mount Wilson, 5800 feet above in the San Gabriel Mountains. The prisms can be moved to change the color of light an observer sees, or the observer can walk in one direction or another to change the color. In this case, the observer is actually walking across a giant spectrum some 250 yards long. While still very bright, at the great distances involved, it is perfectly safe to look at a single wavelength of sunlight.

The A×S Festival is a regional celebration of art and science, based in Pasadena and surrounding communities. While often described as occupying opposite ends of the spectrum, art and science are instead understood to be powerful engines of contemporary culture. As a thematic pivoting point, A×S provides opportunities for discovering the fascinations, curiosities, and tensions ignited by pondering integrations of art and science.

A complete schedule of events and more about the AxS Festival can be found on its website, 2018 A×S Festival.

Just in time for Halloween, the Fall 2018 issue of Dot magazine has landed on campus.

Raised and based in Southern California’s Antelope Valley, photographer and graphic designer Camillo Longo (BFA 12 Photography and Imaging) finds inspiration for his photos everywhere, from sprawling national parks and tattooed motorcyclists to moths whose wings look like paintings. He uses limited light to convey mystery and depth in his images. His “Escape” series pictured on the front and back covers of this issue depicts the fog and trees of the Angeles National Forest, where Longo became lost three years ago during a hike and contemplated his life. “I began seeking closure with myself, revisiting ghosts of my past to make peace,” he says. “I eventually escaped and made it out of the woods safely.”

Pick up a copy of Dot at the front desk of any campus building, in the library or CSE.

Photo: Juan Posada

Provost Karen Hofmann was presented with the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) Education Award during the organization’s annual International Design Conference in recognition of her significant and distinguished contributions to the field of industrial design education. The IDSA Education Award is presented to an IDSA member who has earned the respect and admiration of colleagues and students for teaching industrial design; and who has maintained an unwavering commitment to the values and principles of the industrial design profession.

“It is an absolute honor to be recognized by IDSA with the Education Award. Like others who received this recognition before me, it represents a passionate commitment in preparing the next generation of designers to create purposeful projects and meaningful careers,” Hofmann said. “It goes without saying, this award represents not only my work but the work of many at ArtCenter who contribute to innovative programming at the College: our students and faculty who continuously push the boundaries of design education as well as the staff and leadership who empower our creative community.

“It is also an honor to be counted among the three other women who have been past recipients of the IDSA Education Award—Leslie Speer, Lorraine Justice and Katherine McCoy—since they have served as role models for me to pursue education as a lifelong commitment,” Hofmann continued. “And I humbly extend my appreciation to Leslie, as well as ArtCenter faculty and fellow IDSA members Katherine Bennett and Babette Strousse for nominating me in the first place.”

ArtCenter President Lorne Buchman said, “I couldn’t be prouder of Karen and the incredible work she’s done at the College, both as Product Design chair and, now, as our new provost. She’s proven to be an agile and thoughtful leader; always with a focus on student preparation and success. Mazel tov, Karen!”

Each year, IDSA also recognizes exceptional student design talent through their Student Merit Awards program. Recent Product Design alumnus Charlie Hodges (BS 2018) and Graduate Industrial Design student Ryan Cunningham received Student Merit Awards in the undergraduate and graduate categories for the Western District. Coinciding with their award wins, Hodges presented an overview of his work during the IDSA/Eastman Innovation Lab Education Symposium and Cunningham has been asked to contribute an article to the winter issue of IDSA’s INNOVATION magazine.

Photo by Juan Posada

We are a campus of makers who make things and it is no secret that making things is messy—it creates waste and often involves the use of chemicals.

People and departments throughout the College have already been working separately to reduce waste and mitigate chemical hazards but Provost Karen Hofmann recently assembled a task force of students, faculty and staff to study the materials regularly used in our shops and classrooms with the goal of developing best practices to reduce waste and environmental toxins.

The team’s first target is the use of polystyrene (foam board, foam core or Fome-Cor) in the Laser Lab.
The Lab was redesigned and relocated in May 2017 with an eye toward improving all aspects of the space. Taking a holistic approach, Laser Lab Supervisor Kelly Moon recalls, “in the spirit of this goal, I began to research the materials we currently allow to be cut in the Laser Lab.”

Her research found that polystyrene is known to have the potential to release toxic emissions when heated at certain temperatures. Additionally, heating the material can potentially ignite the board’s paper surface and cause a fire. She also found that dozens of other schools prohibit foam board from being cut due to its potential for toxicity.

Moon brought her concerns to Director of Environmental Health and Safety Cynthia Quentin, as well Shops Manager Joe Kohnke and Director David Cawley. Provost Hofmann added Director of Sustainability Initiatives Heidrun Mumper-Drumm and Associate Director CMTEL Marshall Hamachi to the conversation and, with the addition of Product Design student Shu Ou, the Foamboard Working Group was launched.

As a result of the group’s research, ArtCenter is discontinuing use of all polystyrene related materials in the Laser Lab. In addition to alleviating health concerns, eliminating its use reduces waste since polystyrene cannot be recycled.

The task force identified nearly a dozen alternatives to the material that can be used and laser cut safely—all of which are recyclable and some that even cost less than polystyrene. These alternative materials are now available for purchase at the Shops.

Sample rings of alternative materials were created and distributed at the end of last term and graduating students were encouraged to create a “Material Smart Grad Show” by using recyclable materials, reducing waste, considering the environmental cost of transporting exhibits to and from the Convention Center and minimizing the use of foam core and other potentially toxic materials. The task force collected feedback, comments and suggestions from Grad Show participants and will use this information to inform their recommendations moving forward.

Please note, polystyrene is solely being eliminated from the Laser Lab, not banned from campus entirely, but students are encouraged to consider other, more sustainable materials when creating and mounting their projects.

Questions about the policy and alternative materials can be directed to David Cawley, Joe Kohnke or Kelly Moon.

Any questions or concerns regarding environmental emissions, health or safety should be directed to Cynthia Quentin.

Image by Stephen Swintek

Over 2.6 million refugees live in refugee camps that often lack adequate access to basic amenities such as food, water, and first aid. Women and girls living in refugee camps face another problem – the threat of sexual violence is all too prevalent for them, with communal toilets serving as hotbeds for sexual assault. This threat of assault only increases at night. To prevent having to relieve themselves at night, refugee women and girls sometimes abstain from eating or drinking, resulting in a negative impact on their health and livelihood.

The national runner-up in this year’s James Dyson Award sets out to solve this problem and to empower women and girls living in refugee camps.

Designed by Product Design student Anna Meddaugh, Night Loo is a portable, personal urinal that allows women and girls living in refugee camps to safely go to the bathroom at night. The petal-like flaps act as a splash guard when open, and cover the contents of the urinal when closed. After relieving herself, the user drops in a packet of pre-portioned super-absorbent polymer encased in dissolving PVA film, which turns liquid waste into an odorless powder in under a minute. The powder is then emptied through a spout that pops out of one end of the device. The urinal can also be unfolded to be flat, making it easy to clean. With Night Loo, refugee women and girls can feel safe going to the bathroom.

“Humanitarian issues have always interested me—during my undergraduate studies I learned a lot about human trafficking worldwide, and it really captivated and concerned me for some time after. Humanitarian problems are part of the reason I decided to go into product design. I thought maybe I can help address these issues. There’s got to be a design solution in there somewhere! I had actually planned on taking different classes the semester I designed Night Loo, but I saw the studio prompt (design something for displaced people) and switched my whole schedule because I very much wanted to design for people in need. It’s been my favorite project at ArtCenter – it’s been the most meaningful,” says Anna Meddaugh.

Judge Daniel K. Sodickson, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging, Principal Investigator at the Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research, and Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Radiology at New York University School of Medicine, noted, “A whole-systems solution for a dramatically human challenge—and a very topical challenge right now. It felt as if Meddaugh was sitting inside the heads of the people for whom she was designing, and that speaks—in some ways—to the human element of design. It’s not just the technology; it’s really understanding for whom you are designing the technology.”

Night Loo advances to the next stage of the James Dyson Award and is in the running for the international prize of $40,000, chosen by James Dyson. The James Dyson Award is an international design competition for students of engineering or design. The competition brief is simple: design something that solves a problem, and Night Loo does just that.

Night Loo has also received Special Recognition, 2018 Denhart Family Sustainability Prize; Student Notable, Design for Social Impact, 2018 Core77 Design Awards; and was an official selection, 2018 Global Grad Show.

Charlie Neshyba Hodges and David Hollo. Photo by Juan Posada

Graduating from ArtCenter is no mean feat—everyone who satisfies our degree requirements has much to be proud of and this Saturday we will celebrate with 128 hard-working, talented and probably exhausted individuals as they receive their degrees. During each graduation ceremony, we also take the time to recognize a number of exceptional student achievements—students who graduate with honors, students who graduate with distinction, students who completed the requirements for a minor, students who began their ArtCenter careers in one of our Public Programs and students who are veterans of the Armed Forces.

We reserve special recognition for the graduate with the top academic achievement, the valedictorian of the class, and the individual who is the recipient of the Student Leadership Award. We ask these stellar graduates to address their peers at the graduation ceremony. This term, graduates and their friends and family will hear from valedictorian Charlie Neshyba Hodges and Student Leadership Award recipient David Hollo. This exceptional duo have weathered the challenges before them and emerged triumphant. At first glance, it looks like they followed the same path and made a number of the same stops on their journey through ArtCenter—both of them satisfied the requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree in Product Design. Both of them will be graduating with a Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation. Both of them worked as teaching assistants, both of them were nominated to receive the Student Leadership Award and both of them will be addressing their peers at the Graduation ceremony. Yet, in a way that is somehow very ArtCenter, they are also remarkably different.

Enrolling in ArtCenter was the beginning of the second act for Charlie’s career trajectory. A Google search brings up his Wikipedia page that recounts his successful career as a dancer. Performing with Twyla Tharp, im’ij-re and the Sacramento Ballet, Charlie was named Best Male Dancer at the European Critics’ Choice Awards (2003), Best Male Dancer on Broadway (2010), and L.A. Weekly’s Person of the Year (2014). He has appeared on television (including the Tony Awards, Regis & Kelly and The View) and in print (The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue and others).

Having already achieved more than many do in a lifetime, to say Charlie flourished during his time at ArtCenter would be an understatement. Described by a staff member as “a force of nature,” Charlie served as a teaching assistant for a number of classes, was a Designmatters representative at the Better World by Design conference, a student competitor at WantedDesign and he was recently named the Western District Student Merit Award Winner for the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) and will represent ArtCenter at IDSA’s national conference. He led the renovation of Hillside’s sustainable garden as part of EcoCouncil and was selected to speak at the student-led TEDx ACCD and the BOLD symposium produced by Career and Professional Development. He also managed to find time to teach Design for Dance to 13 year-olds at the Colburn School and slightly older students CalArts.

Awards, accomplishments and accolades appear to rain down on Charlie wherever he goes and whatever he does but the real secret to his success is his dedication to hard work. It is not unusual to find ArtCenter students who work hard and are persistent and tenacious but Charlie takes those traits to a whole new level. “I think that luck is lonely like a one-night stand, while skill provides the benefits of a long-term commitment. And I’m the marrying type,” he tells the audience in his TEDx ACCD talk, recounting how he auditioned and was rejected 41 times before landing a position with the Sacramento Ballet. For Charlie, it has always been about hard work and a positive attitude. As he says, “Failure is a rainstorm: if you just let yourself get wet, you’d realize how much fun it is to splash through puddles, dance in the street, and feel the cool rain on your face.”

Yearning for more wisdom from Charlie? He talks about his ArtCenter experience in this recent video.

The Student Leadership Award fulfills ArtCenter’s vision of educating artists and designers who are not only leaders within their professional fields, but also leaders in their communities. Each term, the College reaches out to the campus population for nominations from peers, faculty and staff. A committee selects the student who most demonstrates leadership through their participation in ArtCenter’s campus life, community outreach, student organizations and department initiatives. The selection committee is often faced with a difficult task of choosing between exceptional students and this term was no exception.

This term’s Student Leadership Award winner, David Hollo, was raised in Budapest, Shanghai and New York and he had his sights on ArtCenter from the time he was 11. He recalls admiring the work of concept artists, car and product designers and marveling at the fact that they all attended the same College. He decided then that he would be a designer—he didn’t know yet what kind of designer, but he knew where he was going to study.

Where Charlie is a force of nature, David is a careful thinker. Described by fellow students as “deeply thoughtful” and “someone who will carry the weight for everyone,” David’s singular focus served him well at ArtCenter, where he carefully devised an educational path for himself focusing on his interest in systems design and planning.

“This institution to me always revolved around recognizing beauty and value in our world, complemented by the relentless ambition to make it better,” David writes, explaining his mindset and approach.

Participating in ArtCenter’s NASA/JPL conference and representing the College the National Academies Keck Futures conference, where he was tasked with introducing design thinking and methodologies to scientists and engineers, David made a point to, in turn, learn as much as he could about scientific investigation and engineering rigor.

David participated in the Designmatters Safe Niños project where a team of students were so moved after visiting Coaniquem, a nonprofit pediatric treatment facility in Santiago, Chile that cares for young burn survivors, that they joined together and worked as a team, organizing themselves like a design studio, instead of working on their projects individually. This collaboration inspired David to join with a classmate and create a student-led course, Design for Transformation, which asked students to look at local problems and use design-thinking to solve them. “The class exemplified how the tools and skills involved in design can have a profound impact on social issues and systemic problems,” he recalls.

David was awarded a prestigious Design fellowship with Dalberg Design, where he conducted research in Kenya, Tanzania, Myanmar and Nigeria, for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Inspired by the impact design can have on global problems, on his return he worked with CMTEL (ArtCenter’s Color, Materials and Trends Exploration Laboratory) to help develop an interactive materials and trends library. “The increasing environmental impact of humanity makes it more important than ever to rethink how we approach education about the materiality of design,” he observes.

Described by a faculty member as someone who “responds to every situation with quiet but powerful mediated thinking.” and as someone who takes “strategic risks,” David is committed to tackling big global problems. “Be it climate change, poverty, waste, pollution, corruption, the more challenging and gnarly the problem, the more motivated I become.”

Charlie and David are each going to have a hand in changing our world for the better. We just know it and we can’t wait to see it.

We would be remiss if we didn’t recognize the contributions of the other Student Leadership Award nominees. Kristen Hahn devoted much of her time at ArtCenter to serving the community She was a peer mentor, a teaching assistant, acted as the social media director for TEDxACCD and served in student government. She took her role as Illustration Department representative seriously, fielding and addressing individual concerns brought to her by fellow Illustration students. Ultimately, she met with the President and Provost to discuss and find solutions for issues that were consistently raised by students and faculty. Her hard work changed the ArtCenter experience for the better for all Illustration students, now and in the future.

Matt Ravenelle and Andi Choi were nominated for their dedication to serving fellow students, primarily through the ArtCenter Christian Fellowship. Matt founded the group and was singled out for his commitment to serving to his fellow students. “Matt has led the Christian Fellowship with such a humble and guiding heart, he has certainly impacted so many lives at ArtCenter through his service and example. Andi was an active participant in the Fellowship, taking over as President in 2018. She was lauded by students for her kind and generous nature. Supporting her nomination for the leadership award, a student writes, “Andi is a person who is both a listening ear and an organizer who helps ArtCenter students feel connected.”

Saturday’s Graduation ceremony will be held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, starting at 10 a.m. Grad Show follows, from 1–6 p.m. in Exhibit Hall B at the Pasadena Convention Center, adjacent to the Civic Auditorium. If you can’t make it to Graduation, we will be livestreaming the event. For more information about everything Graduation, including links for the livestream and our Graduation app, please visit artcenter.edu/graduation.

Grad Show is going on the road—trucks and vans loaded with the models, prints, paintings and creations representing years of blood, sweat and tears, will soon be streaming down Linda Vista and along Green Street—to the heart of Pasadena, where graduating students from all departments will be preparing their exhibits for Grad Show, under one roof for the first time. Everyone is excited by this opportunity but it is a big change for the College so we thought we would check in with Director of Special Events JoJo Tardino to get a little intel about the change and what to expect.

Campus News: Why the Pasadena Convention Center?

Jojo Tardino: The Convention Center provides a large, public-facing venue where we can fit everyone in one spot, allowing visitors to view the work of graduating students from all majors. In addition, the Exhibit Hall is adjacent to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, where the Graduation Ceremony is held, making it possible for grads, friends and family to walk to Grad Show from the ceremony.

CN: This is a big change for the College—why did we choose an off-campus location?

JT:  Grad Show serves many purposes—it is a recruiting event, a networking event, an exhibition and a celebration of years of hard work. We are always evaluating and looking at ways to improve the experience for all audiences, as well as our students. As the College began to spread out, the challenges of putting on one show over two campuses began to mount and it became evident that we needed some creative solutions. The College convened an internal DesignStorm last term to tap into the thoughts and wisdom of our students, who were asked to explore ideas for “Grad Show 2.0.” Many great ideas were presented but, overall, we learned that students wanted a more unified, cross-disciplinary and more community-facing Grad Show.

Although we will miss seeing our hallways and classrooms be transformed into exhibition spaces, stretching Grad Show over our two campuses made it difficult for visitors to take in the entire show and near impossible for grads to view work of their peers from other departments. We currently don’t have a campus location that can accommodate all departments.

CN: Who made this decision?

JT:  Many parts of the College are involved in Grad Show, from my department, Marketing and Communications, to Career and Professional Development and, of course, the educational departments. We all have input, but, ultimately, the decision was made by the department chairs, with guidance and support from new Provost Karen Hofmann. Together, they agreed that the Summer Grad Show could serve as a pilot, essentially the first iteration of Grad Show 2.0.

CN: What are the challenges presented by the venue change?

JT:  Well, we don’t have 24/7 access to the venue but I like to consider that a positive and hope it means less long nights and missed sleep for graduating students. Producing Grad Show has always been a little like directing a performance, with actors, dancers and musicians who all have different needs, costumes and props. For students, it means they need to prepare an exhibit that can be transported and they will have to carry in everything they need. Loading in and loading out needs to be much more carefully choreographed than in the past.

CN: Everything they need?

JT:  We hope they have everything they need with them but we’ll have a tool station with drop cloths, hammers, drills, etc. Like always, faculty and staff will also be available to lend a hand, helping students straighten a picture frame or aim a spotlight and, perhaps most importantly, offer moral support.

CN: Are students being asked to reduce or make changes to their exhibits?

JT:  Overall, no. But, in conjunction with sustainability efforts currently underway at the College, students at this Grad Show have been asked to consider the materials they are using, and to minimize or eliminate the use of foam board and vinyl, using recyclable materials as much as possible.

CN: Is Thursday still “industry night?”

JT:  Yes. Thursday is an opportunity for our graduating students to network with their future peers in industry, including ArtCenter alumni and potential employers. Grad Show is open to everyone Saturday afternoon, from 1–5 p.m.

CN: Where should people park?

JT:  Anywhere they want! Most people will be familiar with the neighborhood and parking options but, for those haven’t spent much time in Pasadena, the Convention Center has a parking lot and there are large parking structures at the neighboring Paseo Colorado shopping center. Also, the Del Mar and Memorial Park stations along the Metro Gold Line are both about ½ mile from the venue.

CN: Have you heard complaints?

JT:  No! I don’t mean to be surprised, but it is unusual to find this much consensus at ArtCenter. While it’s a big cultural shift for the College, everyone who I’ve spoken with is very excited about the move. Not to mention, people are relieved that other students, faculty and classrooms aren’t being displaced during finals weeks.

CN: What if we have more questions?

JT:  Download our Grad Show app (Apple or Android). Yes, there’s an app! It has information on graduating students, schedules and more.

Visit our website at artcenter.edu/graduation for information about all of our Graduation activities and links to the main events calendar. Visit the Pasadena Convention Center website for directions and parking information.

We hope to see you there!

Photo: John Dlugolecki

On a typically beautiful sunny summer day in Pasadena, a group of ArtCenter employees gathered in the Faculty Dining Room for a plated-service luncheon. A yearly tradition, the team from Human Resources hosted this invitation-only event that celebrates employees with at least 10 years’ employment at ArtCenter who achieved significant career milestones in 2017.

Welcoming the group, Rich Haluschak said it was important to take time out from our day-to-day routines and acknowledge the faculty and staff members who have demonstrated a dedication and commitment to the College by the longevity of their employment. Taking part in these luncheons every year, Rich observed that it was not unusual to have employees being recognized for 30, 35 and 40 years of service to the institution.

To put that in perspective, an employee celebrating their 40-year work anniversary in 2017 would have begun their ArtCenter career in 1977. The same year that Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the 39th President of the United States, Elvis Presley died, football legend Pelé retired, NASA launched the Voyager 1, the Apple II was introduced and the Atari 2600 was released. The price for a gallon of gas at $0.62 was less than the price for a gallon of milk, which would cost you $1.68. And Wayne Hunt started teaching graphic design at ArtCenter, the same year he founded Hunt Design, just one year after the College moved from its downtown Los Angeles location to the Hillside Campus in Pasadena. It would be five years before the College offered its first course in computer graphics. Hunt continues to teach in the Graphic Design department and also works with the College on signage and wayfinding initiatives, including offering his expertise to our Master Plan.

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Artwork by Tim Hawkinson for the “Moons” exhibition | Williamson Gallery

MOONS, an exhibition pondering wonder, worlds and orbiting mysteries, opens July 19, with a reception at the Williamson Gallery. The exhibition opens right in the middle of Pasadena’s AstroFest, which celebrates the city as the center of space research and study. Nothing says space research more than COSPAR, an organization created in 1958 to promote international cooperation in the pursuit of scientific research in space, which is holding its annual gathering in Pasadena this year.

Between MOONS, AstroFest and COSPAR, Pasadena is earning its reputation as the City of Astronomy. It truly is the place for space.

“Celestial bodies tethered by orbital physics to our solar system’s planets, commonly known as moons, comprise a consortium of enticing worlds that are rocky, wet, icy, cratered, hot, cold, and puzzling, some of whose veneers are textured with mountains, lakes, concealed oceans, valleys, volcanoes, geysers, canyons and plains, and have both water and heat to fuel tantalizing speculations,” says Williamson Gallery Director and MOONS curator Stephen Nowlin. “Such objects lead us to both the poetics and the disruptions ignited by an age-old urge to ponder reality beyond the single planet in which we are cradled.”

The MOONS opening reception on Thursday, July 19 from 7 to 10 p.m. is free and open to the public.

Image from Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–18, currently running at London’s Design Museum

The Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography [HMCT] South Campus Gallery presents “nice” —an installation designed and curated by HMCT 2018 Typographer-in-Residence, Lucienne Roberts. The public is invited to an opening reception this Thursday, June 28, from 6–9 p.m. The exhibition runs through September 23, 2018.

Roberts is a design graduate of Central St Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London and has been practicing as a graphic designer, design writer/educator for over 25 years. In 2012 she co-founded GraphicDesign&, a publishing and curatorial venture that foregrounds how graphic design connects with all subject matter. GD&’s two most recent projects are Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–18 currently running at London’s Design Museum until August 2018, and Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?

For this exhibition, Roberts’ starting point was a poster initially featured in the Hope to Nope exhibition carrying the following provocation: “Slogans in nice typefaces won’t save the human races.” The message of the poster is apocalyptic — the human race needs to be rescued. Furthermore, it warns of the dangers that arise when meaning and aesthetics become disassociated and designers design primarily for themselves. With the intentions of teasing out its meaning, and arguing for an alternative position, “nice” presents multiple re-workings of the poster’s message. Alongside displays exploring the power of the slogan through time, the definition of “nice” is used to describe different typefaces and the democratizing effect of print and typography in sharing human knowledge and experience.

The first section of “nice” pairs a set of advertising, religious, and political slogans each opposite Oddly Head’s poster to ask if history bears out that its message is “true.” Another section displays email correspondence between Roberts and a select group of graphic designers and typographers including Erik Spiekermann, Paula Scher, and Hamish Muir, in which she asks them to cite five “nice” typefaces. “nice” also presents a collection of books, one of which is a rare facsimile of typographer/printer Giambattista Bodoni’s famed Oratio Dominica of 1806, in which the Lord’s Prayer is reproduced in 155 languages.

Roberts’ colleague David Shaw and Lavinia Lascaris, the 2018 HMCT typography fellow and a recent graduate of ArtCenter’s MFA Graduate Graphic Design (MGx) program, assisted with the installation and design of the exhibition. Additional installation assistance was provided by HMCT ArtCenter staff, and students Lulubi Garcia, Joshue Molina, Roberto Rodriguez, and Jorge Ruano.

“nice” is organized by the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography and made possible by the generous support of the Lowell Milken Family Foundation.