Tag Archives: 80th Anniversary

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.

Art Center’s 80th Anniversary Weekend is Here

Art Center continues our 80th anniversary celebration with a special anniversary weekend Saturday and Sunday.

Tomorrow, October 16, Art Center will honor four prominent alumni—industrial designer Yves Béhar, car designer Frank Stephenson, contemporary artist Pae White and blockbuster filmmaker Zack Snyder—with the Creative Spirit award at a gala to raise scholarships for students in Art Center’s undergraduate, graduate and public programs.

The following day, Sunday, October 17, is Art Center’s beloved Car Classic. This year’s theme, Freedom of Motion, celebrates the powerful combination of technology and passion that allows humans to move well beyond their own physical abilities.

Also on Sunday, we’ll be participating in the Art & Design Open Market at One Colorado in Pasadena.

We hope you’ll join us!

Wheels in Motion: A Look at Art Center’s Transportation Design Department

Guest post by College Archivist Robert Dirig and Transportation Design Director Jay Sanders

Strother MacMinn teaches class on lawn, 1960 (Photo courtesy Art Center Archives)


Art Center’s Car Classic has become one of the most highly anticipated transportation events in Southern California, if not the entire country. Over the past nine years, the event has showcased amazing automobiles and brought together industry leaders–many of whom are Art Center alumni. As we approach Sunday’s Car Classic 2010: Freedom of Motion, join us in looking back at how Art Center became a leader in the world of transportation design.


Jergenson is shown in this circa 1950 photograph with student A.K. Ragheb PROD '51. (Photo courtesy Art Center Archives)

It is estimated that more than half of the world’s car designers are Art Center graduates. Transportation Design alumni currently hold top positions at the studios of Pininfarina, Ferrari-Maserati, Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Porsche, Audi, Volvo, Nissan, Aston Martin, Mazda, Toyota/Lexus and Volkswagen North America.

The field has a long and storied history at the College. Years before Transportation Design became a major at Art Center, our graduates were taking positions with General Motors’ Buick Division in Detroit in the 1930s.

In 1948, Transportation Design became an official course of study at the College, with such influential faculty members as George Jergenson, Strother MacMinn and John Coleman establishing the school’s connection with transportation design—a field that would lift Art Center into international prominence.

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Analog Technology in the Digital Landscape: Archetype Press at 21

A Q&A with Professor Gloria Kondrup, Archetype Press Director


Gloria Kondrup

How did Art Center’s Archetype Press come about?
Archetype Press was founded in 1989 with more than 2,500 drawers of rare American and European foundry type, wood type and ornaments from the collection of Los Angeles typographer and printer Vernon Simpson.

The support from Art Center’s then-president David Brown, the financial backing of five patrons, and the hard work of the founding Archetype Press Director Vance Studley was crucial to its creation. Before coming to its current home at South Campus, Archetype was located on Mills Place in Pasadena. This was before the retail revival of Old Pasadena—most of Colorado Boulevard was boarded up, and finding parking was never a concern.

What role have you played in relation to Archetype?
I discovered Archetype Press and letterpress printing in 1992 as a graduate student at Art Center. Although my design background was in branding and packaging, I found the letterpress experience authentic and tactile. After graduation, I purchased my own presses and established a design studio that straddled both 15th and 21st century technologies.

In 2003, I was given the opportunity to become director of Archetype. In one sense, I view my responsibility as stewardship for the preservation of language and of a cultural artifact while enhancing students’ ability to understand the relationship of language and imagery.

People are often surprised that Art Center teaches students to use this “outdated technology.” What is your response to that?
Archetype continues the tradition of an older—but not outdated—technology. While letterpress is steeped in tradition, Archetype is not nostalgic.

As an experimental typographic workshop, students don’t just study the prototypes of digital letterforms, but are exposed to a sensual graphic experience that is both felt and seen as type is inked and pressed into a piece of paper. They are getting ink underneath their fingernails, not merely replacing ink cartridges in color printers. They are being challenged to expand beyond the margins of the computer screen, engaging in a design discourse that can question the uses of newer technologies.

Without question, digital technologies are the preferred way for the efficient exchange and dissemination of information. But digital technology has also allowed letterpress printing to change and explore new ways of combining image and text.

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Reflecting Back at 80: Alumni Relations

Annual meeting of Society of Art Center Alumni at the Sportsmen's Lodge in North Hollywood (1963)

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

Art Center’s alumni have always been an important part of the College, but the Office of Alumni Relations wasn’t formed until the ’60s—and it looked much different than it does today.


Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society of Art Center Alumni, known as the "Fall Roundup" because of the Western theme (1969)

The Society of Art Center Alumni was formed and incorporated in 1960. While support for the Society was provided by the College, it was a separate organization with a budget based in annual dues.

The aim of the Society was to form a network of alumni by creating alumni directories, distributing newsletters, organizing regional chapters and planning exhibitions.

One particular goal was for alumni to be more active with Art Center and help support and strengthen the curriculum and policies.

During the ’70s, the Society’s most important activity was a juried exhibit of alumni work for which they produced a catalog. During this era, the annual meeting was an opportunity to showcase the alumni work created during the previous year.

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Save the Date: Art Center’s 80th Anniversary Weekend

We’re celebrating 80 years of excellence in art and design education at Art Center. Following the inauguration of our fifth president in April, and a community-wide Day of Service in June, the College continues its celebration with a special 80th Anniversary Weekend.

On Saturday, October 16, Art Center will honor four prominent alumni—industrial designer Yves Béhar, car designer Frank Stephenson, contemporary artist Pae White and blockbuster filmmaker Zack Snyder—with the Creative Spirit award at a gala to raise scholarships for students in Art Center’s undergraduate, graduate and public programs. The following day, Sunday, October 17, is Art Center’s beloved Car Classic. This year’s theme, Freedom of Motion, celebrates the powerful combination of technology and passion that allows humans to move well beyond their own physical abilities.

For more information about the gala, call 626.396.2338. Tickets and details about Car Classic are available at artcenter.edu/carclassic.

Reflecting Back at 80: Mystery Photo

This photograph shows Chair of the Fine Art Department Lorser Feitelson and a group of students viewing a selection of paintings to be used in a traveling exhibit. We know that the student standing behind Feitelson is Greeley Wells FAPT ’69, but not much else.

Do you recognize any of these sharply dressed students? If so, contact Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig at 626.396.2208 or robert.dirig@artcenter.edu. For more information about the Art Center College of Design Archives, including how you can donate or access materials, visit artcenter.edu/archives.

Reflecting Back at 80: The Art Center Dot

As the unofficial school mascot, Art Center’s Orange Dot has a long and storied history. When the school was founded in 1930, designers were exploring primary shapes, so it is no surprise that a simple filled-in circle was chosen to augment Art Center’s printed materials. Advertising alum Robert Brown claims that the Dot was his idea, while Don Kubly, the College’s president from 1969 to 1985, noted that the school’s founder, Tink Adams, chose the Dot because it was an easy way to add a splash of color to the school’s publications.

1931 Art Center Catalog

The Multi-Colored Dot
The Art Center School, as it was then known, opened in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles in a courtyard of buildings on Seventh Street.  The glass front door had a red-orange border, and in the front window, the name of the school carried a matching red-orange dot. The Dot was not limited to this color nor was it the only shape Art Center used in promotions. However, the use of dots in published materials undoubtedly began nearly at the same time as the school.

The Dot Goes Into Semi-Retirement
Due to changes in contemporary design, or perhaps because of an association with the Japanese flag, Art Center stopped using the Dot, in any color, toward the end of World War II (mid-1940s). The timing also happened to coincide with the school’s move to its second location (Third Street in Hancock Park) and Art Center may have wanted to present a new look along with its new address. The essence of the Dot lingered, however, as many publications carried photographs cropped into circles.

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Reflecting Back at 80: Sponsored Projects

Guest post by Art Center Archivist Robert Dirig

It’s Week 14, which means that students across campus are finishing up final projects, participating in final critiques, and preparing for Graduation as the term’s sponsored projects are coming to a close.

Sponsored projects, giving “real world” design problems to students, have been a hallmark of the College curriculum for years. But did you know that Art Center’s history with sponsored projects goes back to 1960? It was in that year that students took part in a space capsule project sponsored by General Electric. George Beck, manager of industrial design at G.E.’s Light Military Electronics Department, approached Art Center with the idea for students to design a space capsule and interior computer, providing for the most efficient relation between the computer and the pilot.

Take a look at great photos from the project below.

Visit the College Archives, and check out the Archives Facebook page, to learn more about Art Center’s history.


Reflecting Back at 80: Looking at Our Campuses

It’s a special year for us here at Art Center—2010 marks our 80th anniversary.

It was in 1930 that the Art Center School opened its doors at Seventh Street, in the Westlake Park area of Los Angeles. In the decades since, we have moved two additional times (to Third Street and then to our present Pasadena campus), maintained a European campus for a decade, and opened a second Pasadena campus.

In the latest issue of Outer Circle, we look back at the past 80 years of Art Center through the memories of our alums.

Travel back in time with us for this fun feature: In Their Words: 80 Years of Art Center