Tag Archives: 2014

Brad Bartlett scattered inspiring pebbles of wisdom throughout his Great Teacher Award address

Instructor Brad Bartlett stands inside student Ka Kit Cheong's "Plaception" installation. Photo: Chris Hatcher

Instructor Brad Bartlett stands inside student Ka Kit Cheong’s “Plaception” installation. Photo: Chris Hatcher

“I went for a long hike on Sunday morning to think about what I would say to you today,” said instructor Brad Bartlett this past Saturday at the top of his commencement address to Art Center College of Design’s graduating class of Summer 2014. “During that hike I remembered something one of my college professors, Dr. Michael Pause, once said: ‘May I always remain a pebble in your shoe.’”

Immediately prior to delivering his speech, Bartlett became a twice recipient of College’s Great Teacher Award for full-time faculty; he previously won the award in 2003. Also at Saturday’s ceremony, Humanities & Sciences instructor Rocio Carlos won this year’s part-time faculty Great Teacher Award.

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Student Leadership Award winner Hugo Pilate extols the art of listening and being heard

Student Leadership Award winner Hugo Pilate. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Student Leadership Award winner Hugo Pilate. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Who ya’ gonna call? Hugo Pilate, apparently.

This past Saturday, as Product Design graduate Hugo Pilate made his way to the stage to accept Art Center’s Student Leadership Award for the Summer 2014 term, Ray Quirolgico, the College’s Associate Provost for Student Affairs, offered the following caveat: “Hugo has asked me to affirm that he is known for run-on declamations so you may need to brace yourself,” said Quirolgico. “I was also informed to give you his number in case you get lost in what he has to say at any point.”

He then read off Pilate’s phone number not once, but twice.

Lest you think the French-born graduate was just having a laugh, Pilate gave out his number again as he capped off a speech that focused on the importance of being heard and, even more importantly, listening to others. Continue reading

Grad Show Preview: Diving into the Summer 2014 talent pool

Perhaps more than graduation itself, Graduation Show Preview marks the culmination of a student’s years of hard work at Art Center. Each term, on the Thursday before Saturday’s commencement ceremony, the College’s classroom studios, hallways and exhibition spaces come alive with 2D, 3D, digital and other work renowned for both its conceptual rigor and its professional finish. It’s like one giant gallery opening — the Summer 2014 edition brimming with more than 450 invited guests — showcasing some of today’s most innovative and most driven emerging artists and designers.

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Art Center arrives in force at New York Design Week 2014


With New York Design Week in full swing, the city is teeming with design lovers and luminaries seeking a competitive edge on leading talent and trends. Art Center is featured at two major events: the high-profile International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and WantedDesign. Attracting nearly 30,000 tastemakers in the worlds of interior design, architecture, retail, manufacturing, distribution and developers, ICFF is considered North America’s premiere showcase for contemporary design.

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‘Mother nature is the best designer:’ Highlights from Gordon Bruce’s spring 2014 graduation speech

Industrial Design alumnus Gordon Bruce (BS 72) goes bananas at Art Center's Spring 2014 graduation

Industrial Design alumnus Gordon Bruce (BS 72) goes bananas at Art Center’s Spring 2014 graduation. Photo: John Dlugolecki

“Maintain truth to your core and you will be beautiful and create beautiful things in your future,” Industrial Design alumnus Gordon Bruce (BS 72) told graduating students during Art Center’s Spring 2014 Graduation Ceremony on Sat., April 19, where he received a Lifetime Achievement Alumni Award.

Saying that the award meant “more to me than you’ll ever know,” Bruce delivered  a lively speech in which he recounted: another college’s admissions counselor telling his dad that his son “didn’t have the right stuff” to design; sharpening pencils as a part-time office boy at the studio of architect and designer Eliot Noyes; meeting the “gods of design” through the College’s lecture series, including Charles Eames, Paolo Soleri and Niels Diffrient, the latter with whom he became best friends.

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Oscar Ahoy-a! Grad Film student, Rahat Mahajan’s ‘Istifa’ selected as Student Academy Award finalist

Still from Rahat Mahajan's Student Academy Award finalist, Istifa

Still from Rahat Mahajan’s Student Academy Award finalist, Istifa

Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka the organization that hands out the Oscars) receives over 500 submissions from student filmmakers around the world. This past week, Art Center Graduate Film student, Rahat Mahajan’s narrative short, Istifa (Resignation), was selected as a national finalist for the most prestigious prize awarded to student filmmakers.

Please join us in congratulating Rahat, a 5th term student from India. Shortly after hearing the good news, we caught up with Rahat and asked him to share his thoughts on the process of making the film and where he hopes to go from here.

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SXSW Interactive 2014 wrap-up: Chelsea Clinton, Neil Young and Toms.com

Chelsea Clinton at SXSW Interactive 2014

Chelsea Clinton at SXSW Interactive 2014

The final day of SXSW Interactive has now taken on a different cast; in light of the tragic car crash that claimed two festival-goers’ lives and injured many more. Our deepest condolences go out to the families of those victims.

Even though the festival was technically winding down; passion, engagement and insight revved high throughout the day’s panels and presentations. The conference had successfully lived up to its interactive title. Many themes in the 2014 program were plucked from a virtual suggestion box, including this year’s focus on tech’s role in social change, culminating with Chelsea Clinton’s galvanizing closing keynote address (more on that later). In fact, all of the events we attended on that final day—from presentations by TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie—were informed, either directly or indirectly, by a socially conscious approach to technological innovation.

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Reflecting on African American History Month’s many shades of meaning to students of art and design

Illustration of Dominican fruit by Medar de la Cruz

Illustration of Dominican fruit by Medar de la Cruz

“One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” W.E.B.  Du Bois (1868-1963)

Before coming to Pasadena I rarely thought about how significant the color of my skin was to my everyday life. I was raised in a neighborhood in Miami, Florida where I was part of a majority consisting of residents who were either immigrants, multi-lingual or people of color.

Medar de la Cruz

Medar de la Cruz

But when I came to Art Center I realized I no longer fit in as easily. It was here that I was first asked: “Are you black?” This made me realize that race was going to make an impact on my experiences. It’s normal for people to be affected by stereotypes and visual representations. And it’s normal to make assumptions about someone by the color of their skin. So when I was asked this, I responded, “Yes…I mean I’m not white. My parents are Dominican, my ancestors are African, and I was born in America. So technically that makes me African American as well.” I learned that question alone helps me define who I am.

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A young Art Center film student finds her tribe at Sundance 2014

Second term Film student, Laura Holliday (left) poses at Sundance with her high school mentor, Betty Bailey

Second term Film student, Laura Holliday (right) poses at Sundance with her high school mentor, Betty Bailey

I always assumed I had no business attending large prestigious film festivals until I had a movie showing there. So, as an undergraduate film student in only my second term at Art Center, I figured it would be a long time before I ended up at one of them. However, after getting the opportunity to attend the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, I can say confidently that any film student or movie lover has a place there, and can benefit boundlessly from being immersed in a scene ripe with creative energy and opportunities to connect.

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Building a better Super Bowl spot, Art Center-style

When I think about what it takes to create a great Super Bowl spot, I can’t help but first think of all of the things we had to tell our teams NOT to do to create one.

  • No animals doing things animals can’t do.
  • No old people doing things old people can’t do.
  • No inanimate objects doing things inanimate objects can’t do.
  • No Martians or other forms of aliens.
  • No cavemen.
  • No deserted islands.
  • Nothing that uses the soundtrack from “2001 Space Odyssey.”
  • Nothing that features a chimpanzee, even if it is doing things chimpanzees can do.
  • No one going to heaven.
  • Nothing that requires you to play me a special effects reel from a company in Finland before telling me the idea.
  • No 70′s hits and site gags.
  • No patriotic attempts to make people cry.
  • And please, no old chestnuts I killed last year.

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