Tag Archives: designstorm

Art Center pop-up studio opens doors at BIKINI BERLIN in the heart of City West

Art Center’s pop-up studio in BIKINI BERLIN

Over the past 12 years Art Center has built a rich track record of studio abroad projects in the German capital. What started out as an anarchistic design intervention squatting an abandoned drugstore back in 2003, has evolved into a robust educational program in the thriving urban environment of Berlin, sought after by students, faculty and alumni. The ensuing suite of semester-long transdisciplinary projects was co-created by Nik Hafermaas and David Mocarski, the department chairs of Graphic Design and Environmental Design respectively. Under the labels “Fresh Eyes Berlin” and later “Testlab Berlin,” the two majors plus the Illustration department have hosted more than ten projects combined.

Testlab Berlin projects use art and design strategies to envision how we will live in the future and are often sponsored by brands that are seeking genuinely fresh creative insights derived from first-hand cultural immersion in the multi-cultural laboratory that is Berlin.

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Inside the extended-play version of the Microsoft Surface DesignStorm video

 

Earlier this month, we posted a teaser trailer capturing highlights from a DesignStorm in which students conceived innovative uses for click-on attachments (code name: Blades) to Microsoft’s Surface tablet. The three-day session consisted of a group of students from the College’s various design departments facilitated by Graphic Design faculty member Gerardo Herrera along with Product Design instructor, Todd Masilko and Jeff Higashi, who teaches both Graphic and Product Design.

DesignStorms are Art Center’s trademarked immersive workshops which pair  expert faculty with select upper-term design students with sponsors to form multidisciplinary teams. Over the course of the collaboration, the teams apply an intensive design methodology to identify opportunities for deeper exploration and innovation.

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Microsoft cracks the Surface with an Art Center Design Storm

Earlier this month, Microsoft placed the latest iteration of its Surface tablet in the eye of an Art Center Design Storm. For the following two days, a group of tech-obsessed designers (the futurists of the future?) gathered in a classroom at Art Center’s Hillside campus for a super-charged idea generating session with a single directive: Conceive the most mind-popping attachments and accessories for the device imaginable.

A flood of innovative and enticing ideas flowed from this quintessential Art Center technique designed to stimulate creativity. Watching the above video — produced by Microsoft and shot and edited by Art Center Film alum, Erik Anderson — feels a lot like peering into the right side of a designer’s brain as it fires at full capacity.

Have a look and feel free to let loose with your own unexpected and innovative concepts for  Surface improvements in the comments section below.