Tag Archives: Alex Cabunoc

Art Center in the News: February-March 2014

Maggie Hendrie on the set of TakePart Live

Maggie Hendrie on the set of TakePart Live

Art Center students, faculty, staff and alumni have been making news while making their mark at on the art and design worlds. For those who may have missed a headline or two, we curated this handy highlight reel of our recent media clips:

Don’t miss two lengthy, live interview segments we arranged for Interaction Design Chair, Maggie Hendrie and ACCD student Alex Cabunoc on the new cable program TakePart Live—a show tailored to Millennials (age 18-34) that reaches 40 million-plus households through Participant Media’s Pivot TV network. (Participant Media is the award-winning, socially and politically progressive production company responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, The Cove, Lincoln, among other enlightening and edifying films and TV shows).

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How Alex Cabunoc set out to save the world, one laundry load at a time

Visitors to Art Center’s homepage may have found themselves wondering if that Brady Bunch-like grid of student selfies splayed out on Art Center’s homepage was some kind of post-modern meditation on ’70′s pop culture. And they’d be wrong. The real explanation —  a refreshed batch of student profiles — is a lot like Art Center itself: A practical solution to a real world need whose outcome is a lot more interesting than anyone might have expected going into the project.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out a series of deeper dives into the creative lives of those profile subjects, with highlights from the body of work they’ve produced at Art Center. We’re kicking off the series with this look at Product Designer Alex Cabunoc’s truly impressive array of innovative social impact designs aimed at improving the lives of inhabitants rural communities in the developing world. For the project featured in the above video, Cabunoc teamed up with fellow student Ji A You to create the GiraDora foot-powered washing machine for a Designmatters challenge to alleviate the water shortage in Lima, Peru. The product he produced has vast potential to improve the health and quality of life of women in water-poor communities throughout the developing world. In the below Q&A, Cabunoc provides some personal context to his Art Center journey.

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Designer Showcase spotlights alumnus and trustee Kit Hinrichs and packaging projects by Art Center students

This month Designer Showcase, a packaging forum sponsored by Avery Dennison, is profiling Art Center alumnus and trustee Kit Hinrichs’ ADVT 63 firm Studio Hinrichs as well as work by several former and current Art Center students.

Recent rebranding projects—by Vinh Pho PROD 11, Nadia Tzuo GRPH 11, Mike Kim PROD 12, Jim Bogenrief GRPH 11, Simon Davey PROD 11 and current Product Design student Alex Cabunoc—are highlighted on the site’s “Seen at the School” section.

For each project, Hinrichs provides feedback on why he finds the work successful. Of Davey’s Dulce Mexico packaging that integrates ancient Mexican iconography, he says, “The tactile quality of the surface, plus a robust color palette, makes the product very memorable.”

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Art Center Top Winner of Awards from Industrial Designers Society of America

Art Center College of Design won the most awards of any college in the prestigious 2012 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA®). Design teams are celebrating across campus today as the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the winners of the program—a celebration of design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts.

Balde e Balde

IDSA will reveal the Best in Show, Curator’s Choice, People’s Choice and the Sustainability Award at the IDEA ceremony on Aug. 18 at its 2012 International Conference in Boston.

GiraDora

Students won three Gold, two Silver, and three Bronze awards in the annual competition. Congratulations to all the students, faculty, staff, and administrators who were involved in these projects.

DIGIFI

Gold Winners

  • Mike Kim, Product, DIGIFI: Audionauts project
  • Kim Chow, Designmatters, Product, Environmental Design, Balde a Balde: Safe Agua project
  • Alex Cabunoc & Ji A You, Designmatters, Product, Environmental Design, GiraDora: Safe Agua Washer and Spin Dryer

Silver Winners

  • Geoff Ledford, Product, Traverse Ski Patrol Rescue Toboggan
  • Leonardo Ochoa, Product, ALLAYANT – A shirt with built-in back support for paramedics

Bronze Winners

  • Derrick Tan, Product, Link Collapsible Recurve Archery Bow and Prosthetic
  • Siddharth Vanchinathan, Hugo Giralt Echevarria, Philip Keller, Jan Lienhard, John Badalamenti, Nicholas Fusso and Heather Hoopes, Grad ID, KPCC Growth Strategy
  • Andrew Kim, Product, Pal IV Pump System

Finalists

  • James Cha, Product, Syncro – Post-surgical knee rehabilitation device
  • Lindsay Nevard, Product, Nutriflex Flexible Infant Nutrition System
  • Chelsea Ji Hong Park, Product, Blind Spot laundry kit for the visually impaired
  • Joel McDavitt, Product, Airia Rescue Backboard
  • Jonas Crister Kristiansson, Grad ID, A Place For My Stuff
  • Seth Weissman & Viirj Kan, Designmatters, Product, Environmental Design, Caja Del Tesoro: Safe Agua
  • Kim Chow & Carlos Vides, Designmatters, Product, Environmental Design, Soap Buddy: Safe Agua
  • Mariana Prieto & Alexandra Yee, Designmatters, Product, Environmental Design, Clean & Smart.

Designmatters Projects Clean Up at the Spark Awards

Three Designmatters projects from Safe Agua Peru are among the winners for The Spark: Concept Fall Winter Awards: GiraDora: Safe Agua won the highest ranking SPARK! Award; Balde a Balde: Safe Agua won a Gold Award; and Vitamigos: Safe Agua won a Bronze Award.

GiraDora, Student team: Alex Cabunoc / Ji A You

GiraDora, by students Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You, is a human-powered washer and spin dryer that increases efficiency and improves the experience of hand-washing clothes. For under $40, GiraDora more than doubles productivity, increases health of women and children, and affords the opportunity to begin breaking the poverty cycle. The user sits on top of the drum-like appliance and pumps a pedal with her foot, which agitates, cleans, rinses, then spins-dries clothes. While providing a more comfortable, ergonomic, and efficient way to clean clothes, GiraDora also affords opportunities to generate income.

Balde a Balde, by students Kimberly Chow and Carlos Vides provides running water from any bucket, maximizing cleanliness while optimizing water use.  Nearly half of the world lives without access to running water. Balde a Balde (Spanish for “Bucket to Bucket”) is a portable faucet that provides running water from any container, bringing the health benefits and experience of using a tap to families living without running water. The user attaches Balde a Balde to any container with a universal clip, then begins a continuous flow of water with just a few squeezes of the siphon pump. Users can easily control the exact amount of water they need, with a simple click of the on/off spout or a twist of the valve to regulate flow. Balde a Balde harnesses gravity to bring the dignity of running water to the 3 billion people living without taps.

Balde a Balde, Student team: Kimberly Chow / Carlos Vides

Vitamigos, by students Thomas Kong and Cora Neil, combines water purification and nutrition in a tasty beverage. Kids want it, mom’s love it! For the 1 in 6 people living without access to potable water, purification methods are costly, time-consuming, and often inconsistent. Kids often end up drinking sugary-sodas in place of clean water. Vitamigos combines water purification and nutrition in a tasty beverage, creating a new, fun, playful, and interactive experience for moms and kids living without access to potable water. It is a more convenient and economical alternative to boiling water and healthier than the sugary drinks purchased from the local bodegas. The ultimate goal of Vitamigos is to help reduce the illness and medical costs associated with waterborne disease.

More about all the Safe Agua Peru projects can be found on the Designmatters website here.

Congratulations also to alumnus Dan Ashcraft for his Bronze Award winning project, Aria.

According to its website, “Spark is first and foremost a community of designers and creative people, bound together by the idea that Design can make significant, positive changes in the world and help make it better. The way we promote this Good Design is through the annual organization of international design competitions, exhibitions, blogs and workshops.”