Tag Archives: Alumni

Remembering Don

Kubly and a student with a model of Hillside Campus

Don Kubly passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

He was an alumnus, our second president, an influential leader, a colleague, mentor and friend.

A native of Pasadena, Kubly came to Art Center to study Advertising, quickly earning a reputation as one of the school’s best students.

“We wanted to be leaders in the field, so it wasn’t a matter of training, but a matter of truly understanding,” Kubly said in a 2010 interview. “A school like ours was unusual back in those days.”

Kubly met his wife, Sally, while both were students at the College’s first campus on Seventh Street in Los Angeles.

Don and Sally Kubly. Photo © Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design

“When Don asked my father if he could marry me, my father told him that if we did, he would have to take on my Art Center tuition,” Sally remembered in a 2010 interview. “That’s what motivated Don to begin teaching, that tuition payment.”

After graduating in 1949, he landed a job at N.W. Ayer & Son in Philadelphia, one of the country’s leading advertising agencies. Serving as a senior art director for more than 16 years, Kubly won numerous gold medals and other top awards for his creative work.

In 1963, Kubly returned to Art Center to work with College president Tink Adams as assistant to the director, teaching and managing the school’s day-to-day operations.

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Product Alum Taking on Soapbox Race

Art Center Product Design alum and faculty Grant Delgatty is taking a unique approach to tomorrow’s Red Bull Soapbox Race in downtown Los Angeles, based on his new Urshuz line of footwear.

From the Pasadena Star-News:

Utilizing fasteners, buyers can attach and swap different styles of tops to Urshuz soles, or convert them into sandals. That’s pretty much how Soleman Redemption, Delgatty’s entry in the 10th annual event race, will work.

While he’s hurtling at 35-40 mph down South Grand Avenue, Delgatty will rip away Soleman Redemption’s foam top resembling a giant shoe to reveal a giant sandal underneath.

“Then at some point in the course, I’ll rip off the sandal, so it’ll just be the sole,” said Delgatty, who teaches product design at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.

We’ll be bringing you more on Delgatty’s Urshuz next month, so stay tuned.

Be sure to read the rest of this great article, and check out the slideshow: Pasadena team will compete in this weekend’s Red Bull Soapbox Race

Good luck, Grant!

Legacy Circle: Giving Back to Future Alumni

Legacy Circle is an alumni-led group of volunteers committed to supporting Art Center students through financial contributions. All money raised—100 percent—is distributed to students through Art Center scholarships.

Thom Meredith GRPH ’04 with incoming students at Legacy Circle breakfast

Established in 2006 to engage alumni and friends in making gifts to the College, Legacy Circle raises funds to ensure that the next generation of leading designers and artists can attend Art Center regardless of their financial need.

To date, members have contributed more than $400,000 and pledged $1,300,000 in planned gifts. Additionally, Legacy Circle members have created and supported special scholarship initiatives such as the Joe and Rosa Farrer Endowed Scholarship and the Ted Youngkin Memorial Scholarship.

At the heart of the College’s recently unveiled strategic plan, Create Change, is the increasing need for scholarship support to make Art Center available to students regardless of their financial resources. This has always been at the core of Legacy Circle’s mission of “alumni giving back to future alumni.”

The group is committed to engaging a broader constituency and growing the number of alumni participating in Legacy Circle.

Legacy Circle Co-Chairs Gail Howland PHOT ’04 and Dan Ashcraft PROD ‘73

They are reaching out to a wider range of alumni with events in major cities around the world with the intention of connecting with alumni who are dedicated to helping our cause and who want to stay personally involved with the College.

In addition to supporting talented students, Legacy Circle provides opportunities for alumni to come together and reconnect.

The group holds exclusive gatherings each year, including events in members’ homes and studios. Last summer, John Clark hosted the group in his beautiful office and art glass studio in El Segundo. This May, Legacy Circle will hold a special thank you event at the home of Katie Sprague GRPH ’91. For the past year, Legacy Circle has also hosted a breakfast for incoming students and their families at each new student orientation.

If you are interested in joining Legacy Circle, or would like more information, contact Amy Swain in the Office of Development at 626.396.2427 or amy.swain@artcenter.edu.

In Case You Missed It

As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty.

Some of the latest:

  • Everyone’s excited about the new Clayton Brothers (alums, of course!) show at PMCA. L.A. Times
  • Art Center students help outfit a Bugatti. New York Times
  • Alumnus Young Kim designs bendable mouse for Microsoft. Montreal Gazette
  • The ICFF in New York this weekend will feature Art Center student work from Bernhardt Design/Art Center studios. PSFK
  • Remembering the late fashion illustrator, technical painter and Art Center alumnus Edward Strain. My San Antonio
  • Product designer and Art Center alum Daniel Ashcroft on determining what consumers want. Daily Breeze

More from Syd Mead on Sentury II

Legendary visual futurist and Art Center alumnus Syd Mead stopped by Art Center last month as part of the Design Studio Press Spring Lecture Series.

Mead and his "Blade Runner" Spinner vehicle.

His lecture traversed the history of automobile design, the future of transportation, his early work for Ford and U.S. Steel, his work on Blade Runner and his latest book Sentury II.

We followed up with the designer via email to ask him about Sentury II.

Dotted Line: You mentioned in your lecture that the cover of Sentury II is intended to look like a metallic artifact that might be found in the future. What’s happening in the scene depicted in the artifact?
Mead: On the left of the spine of the book is a series of manifolds, circuitry and panels that simulate the energy feed to the image coherent side at the right (the actual cover of the book). I show a stylized, ceremonial figure just to the right of the book spine (the center of the overall artwork) and a horizontal split that reveals an energy source (heat? photon glow?) from behind the front surface of the plate combination.

At far right, just above the glowing energy source horizontal is a tableaux of figures and fixtures. One figure is entering a vehicle of some sort while behind him are a series of figures depicting a montage of social interaction, stylized foliage and geometric alignments that eventually go parallel to the outer edge of the ‘artifact.’

I imagined that this entire piece might have been dug up, cleaned off and somehow energized to bring the overall surface detail into view. The overall look of the cover art is a deliberate homage to the cover of Sentury II, which I painted first.

The cover of Sentury II

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Student Work on Display at Milan Furniture Show

Brooke Woosley at work in her booth at the Salone Satellite

The New York Times has a great article on last week’s International Furniture Fair in Milan, where several Art Center students and alumni were exhibiting their work.

For up-and-coming designers, “Milan is something else: a gateway to an international reputation, the place where a prototype might be snapped up for production, or a chat at Bar Basso (the watering hole that is to ambitious designers what Les Deux Magots was to expatriate writers in Paris) might lead to a job in a renowned studio. Mixing with the throngs of manufacturers, distributors and buyers are legions of young designers who aspire to global recognition and the important money that goes with it.”

The article highlights alumna Brooke Woosley, who was at the fair exhibiting two designs: Chloros, a faceted display case and Bundle, a dangling lamp.

From the article:

By noon on the fair’s opening day, Ms. Woosley had already begun to regret her brown leather boots with their cruel wooden soles. In 2007, she had helped design the booth at the Satellite occupied by her classmates at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. This was her second trip to the fair. Had she forgotten that sensible shoes, even in this capital of style, aren’t a fashion crime, but preventative therapy? And speaking of discomfort, what was she planning to do if someone ordered, say, 100 Chloros?

View student designs on display at the fair, and check out additional coverage on the fair and Art Center students exhibiting designs there:

Shattering the Glass Backboard: Alumnus Chronicles Lakers Championship

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein, from Journey to the Ring

Like many of the professional athletes he captures on film, Photography and Imaging alumnus Andrew Bernstein is recognized as an all-star in his respective field. As NBA Senior Official Photographer and NBA Photos Senior Director, Bernstein’s photography has appeared on thousands of magazine covers around the world.

What’s different about Bernstein’s work is the unique personal rapport that he’s developed with the athletes he shoots, allowing him exclusive access to behind-the-scenes moments. His work has been exhibited in solo shows around the country, including a 20-year retrospective of his work in 2004. Bernstein is among just four photographers whose work was selected for permanent exhibit in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was also instrumental in the development and use of the multiple-camera Flash Wizard II system, which revolutionized indoor sports action photography. His most recent book, Journey To The Ring: Behind the Scenes With The 2010 NBA Champion Lakers, written by Lakers coach Phil Jackson, chronicles the team’s season leading up to the championship.

Just in time for the NBA playoffs, we caught up with Bernstein to talk to him about basketball, photography and everything in between.

view slideshow

Dotted Line: Tell us about what you do.
Bernstein: I am the team photographer for the NBA’s two local teams, the Lakers and Clippers. I travel with the teams and cover all the major NBA events—Olympic Games, USA Basketball, WNBA, All-Star Games, Finals. As a senior director, I oversee various team photographers, mostly in the Western Conference. With my boss, the VP of NBA photos, we manage photography throughout the league.

I started working as a freelance photographer for the NBA in 1983. That year’s NBA All-Star Game was my first assignment. I continued freelancing for them and in 1986, helped create the position of official NBA photographer. It was a contract position, and I continued that in that manner until I became an employee of the NBA.

I’ve worked as the team photographer for basically every team and every venue in L.A. since then. I was the Dodgers team photographer from ’84 to ’95. And I’ve become the director of photography for AEG’s two main facilities, the Nokia Theater and Staples Center. I have a crew of five or six people, depending on what’s going on that time of year. We’re responsible for photographing every event in these venues, sporting or otherwise. In addition, I’ve been fortunate to run a successful business, Andrew D. Bernstein and Associates Photography, Inc.

Dotted Line: Which sport do you enjoy photographing the most? Is there one that’s more difficult to capture?
Bernstein: I’ve shot every sport known to man. Baseball was very tedious and challenging because of the boredom factor— sometimes you can go an entire game without really getting a great picture.

When you shoot a hockey or football or a basketball game, though, something’s always happening. It makes it fun to shoot. I love shooting football—I shot UCLA football for five years, and shot the Raiders and Rams when they were in L.A. Hockey is probably the hardest to photograph, because we’re physically limited to where we’re allowed to position ourselves and shoot—we have to shoot through a little hole cut in the boards beside the rink. Not to mention, it’s very fast moving, with players coming toward and away from you at a fast speed. It can get crazy.

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Doyald Young Memorial Scholarship Established

Young

Award-winning graphic and logotype designer, alumnus, mentor and revered faculty member Doyald Young, who passed away in February, will be honored by his alma mater with the Doyald Young Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship, which will be available to incoming and current Graphic Design students, was announced at Young Love, a celebration of Young’s life and legacy taking place at the College last weekend. With enough support, the College intends to endow the scholarship to benefit its students in perpetuity.

“Shortly before his passing, Doyald said, ‘If you have the gift of teaching, you must pass it on,’” Art Center President Lorne Buchman says. “In establishing the Doyald Young Memorial Scholarship, it is our hope that we honor the generosity and strength of a gifted artist and powerful teacher—and encourage others in that same spirit of giving to ensure his legacy in the next generation.”

Young taught lettering and logotype design in Art Center’s Graphic Design Department for decades. His freelance work included logotypes for hotels, clubs, universities, financial institutions, arts, entertainment and practically every other industry. He created several corporate and commercial fonts and published three books about his work: Logotypes & Letterforms, Fonts & Logos and Dangerous Curves.

Young was named Inaugural Master of the School by Art Center in 2001, named a Fellow of the Los Angeles chapter of AIGA in 2006, received an AIGA Medal in 2009 and received an honorary doctorate degree of humane letters from Art Center in 2010. His life story and immeasurable talent was also documented by lynda.com as part of their 2010 “Creative Inspirations” series. Young received his formal education at Frank Wiggins Trade School and Art Center.

Individuals interested in making donations to the scholarship can donate online, or contact Senior Development Officer Palencia Turner at 626.396.2366 or palencia.turner@artcenter.edu.