In today’s episode of Art Center Stories, alumnus Dice Yamaguchi talks about sustainability and remembers help form Art Center’s EcoCouncil student group. Take a look:
Tag Archives: Alumni
In Case You Missed It
Photo by Eric Curry
As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty.
Some of the latest:
- Photography and Imaging alum Eric Curry’s photo shoot with the Downy Fire Department produces some beautiful results. Flickr and The Downey Patriot
- Architect and Saturday High instructor Alla Kazovsky’s insights on her Saturday High class. Huffington Post
- Student Max Ostap’s idea for a super-speed car inspired by Tesla Motors. Earth Techling
- Stopping by the studio of Photography and Imaging alumna—and acclaimed knitter—Lisa Anne Auerbach. New York Times Magazine
- Art Center alum Frank Nuovo and his father, Frank Sr. Monterey County Herald
- Will someone fork over $95,000 for Art Center alum Henrik Fisker’s gorgeous design? Jalopnik
- Larry Wilson on the Williamson Gallery’s HYPERBOLIC exhibit. Pasadena Star-News
San Diego, Here We Come!
Art Center’s Office of Alumni Relations hits the road today for a trip to San Diego, where they’re hosting an alumni event tonight at Nissan Design America.
San Diego alumni chapter co-chairs Chuck Pelly PROD ’58 and June Rubin ILLU ’84 will welcome Art Center President Lorne Buchman and Transportation Design Chair Stewart Reed TRAN ’69 to America’s Finest City to meet with alums and share the latest about the College’s strategic plan and Transportation Design program.
San Diego alums, see you there!
Art Center Stories: Gabriel Wartofsky
What happens when a Transportation Design student visits Shanghai to study transportation patterns? Alum (and folding electric bike creator) Gabriel Wartofsky tells us in this installment of Art Center Stories.
Walking in the Consumer’s Shoes: Product Design Alum’s Urshuz is All About Customization
Grant Delgatty's Urshuz line of shoes allow consumers to mix and match a shoe's uppers and soles
Never heard of Urshuz? You will soon enough.
Perhaps you’ve read about Art Center Product Design alumnus and faculty member Grant Delgatty’s entry, the Soleman Redemption, into last month’s Red Bull Soapbox Race in downtown L.A. The vehicle Delgatty drove—which could shed its layers to transform from a shoe, to a sandal, to a sole—was essentially a moving advertisement for his new line of footwear, Urshuz, whose main hook is that consumers can mix and match shoe uppers and soles into a variety of material and color combinations.
Urshuz (pronounced “yer shoes”) are currently available for purchase at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, DNA Footwear in Brooklyn, ShoeLab in Quebec and a number of other retail locations. And next month, Delgatty’s line hits the big time when the customizable shoes will be available at Urban Outfitters stores nationwide.
We sat down with Delgatty—whose history in the footwear industry includes stints designing for K-Swiss, heading up design at DVS Shoes and holding the position of Vans’ director of design for seven years—to get to the very sole of Urshuz.
Dotted Line: How did Urshuz come about?
Grant Delgatty: I’ve been in the footwear industry for a long time, and one of the growing trends I’ve observed is that consumers want to express themselves and they want to feel connected to their products. I set out to develop a method in which a consumer could become more involved in the design process of their footwear.
Art Center Stories: Anya Farquhar
In today’s installment of Art Center Stories, Graphic Design alumna Anya Farquhar talks about her time at Art Center and conquering typography. Take a look:
Art Center at Night Instructor on New Book, Film
Art Center at Night instructor Robert Mehnert recently completed the cinematography of Jinn, a supernatural thriller written and directed by Art Center Film alum Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad.
Jinn is based on the Middle/Far East myth of the Jinn, a race of beings that occupied the earth long before mankind evolved. The problem is that some of them want the world back for themselves. The story follows Shawn, the one man who can save humankind, on his quest to save mankind from a terrible fate.
The planned release date is this Halloween. Mehnert and Ahmad have worked together on three other films.
In a departure from the world of motion pictures, Mehnert has written a series of books, the first of which, Looking Down at the Sky, is now available on Kindle from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. An adventure in time and alternate reality, the story tells the story of a brilliant mathematician lost in a mysterious earthquake—only to wake in her own bed, discovering that seven years have passed.
Visit Mehnert’s website at bobmehnert.com.
MDP Grads Help Define Future of Mobile
Alex Braidwood's Synthetic Din
The L.A. Times Hero Complex blog has a great piece on the evolution of mobile apps, and even better—it features the thesis projects from recent Graduate Media Design grads Alex Braidwood and Scott Liao!
From the article:
Media artists such as Alex Braidwood, 32, are in fact harnessing smart devices as the means to a more aesthetically nuanced end. The Art Center College of Design graduate programmed the iPhone’s built-in camera to function as a sensor that detects blue, red and yellow tones. The Synesthetic Din program then translates the colors into an ever-shifting electronic composition that plays into a user’s ear buds as he or she walks down the street.
“To me the most interesting things about smart phones and iPads is that they have all these capabilities that are just waiting to be glued together in new ways,” says Braidwood. “I like turning these devices into little performance machines.”
Braidwood, who last month earned his master of fine arts in Media Design, notes, “Most apps are commodities that people get either because it helps them do something or it’s some kind of novelty game. But there’s this space in the middle where it’s not about guiding you to the best sushi restaurant in town but more about helping you wander around and discover something new that you did not see or hear before.”
Art Center graduate Scott Liao has similarly toyed with the innards of iPad tablets to create what he calls “enriched narrative.” His Anonymous Triangle piece allows viewers to aim a sensor-rigged iPad at projected short films to trigger back-story texts about the various characters. “With current tablet technologies,” says Liao, 27, “we have the chance to change our viewing behavior from passive to active.”
Read more: Apps evolution: A new wave of digital artists is adding whimsy to mobile gaming
Art Center Stories: Keith Longino
In today’s installment of Art Center Stories, Art Center Advertising alumnus Keith Longino talks about getting work after his graduation in 1967, and how the skills he learned here helped him make a radical career change years later.
Alumni Stories: Patrick Kiruki
Today’s episode of Art Center Stories features Kenyan designer and 2005 Product Design alumnus Patrick Kiruki. Below, he discusses Art Center and what makes the College unique.