Tag Archives: DOT

Say Hello to The New Dot Magazine

Screenshot of the redesigned website for the newly reimagined Dot magazine.

The wait is over! Art Center’s flagship publication, Dot magazine, has been reimagined and redesigned from the ground up. The hardcopy will begin landing in mailboxes shortly, but the online version is available for you to peruse right now.

What’s new in Dot? As always, the magazine will continue to cover noted alumni, programs and trends in the larger art and design fields. But now we’ll be bringing you this coverage twice a year! Stories in the new issue include: a profile of alumnus Ian Sands, a pioneer in the field of interaction design; a peek into the future of Art Center’s Environmental Design program; and a remembrance and appreciation of Art Center’s second president, Don Kubly.

Additionally, Dot has been expanded to include several new sections, including: Around the World, highlighting the work of Art Center alumni and faculty; In the Studio, a behind-the-scenes look at recent studio classes (this issue we look at the recent Purina Remix trandisciplinary studio sponsored by the Nestlé Purina); Spotted, social pages covering Art Center events around the world; and Dot News, a new home for campus news.

We hope you enjoy the new Dot and we look forward to hearing what you think of the changes. Let us know in the comments below or send an email to editor@artcenter.edu.

Get Ready for a Newly Redesigned Dot Magazine

In the coming weeks Art Center College of Design’s flagship publication, Dot magazine, will land in your mailbox with a new design, new features and an engaging new website.

The reimagined Dot will be published twice a year and share relevant, engaging stories about the Art Center community.

Changes you’ll notice immediately include new sections like “Around the World,” which highlights innovative work created by our alumni and faculty; “In the Studio,” a visually-fueled feature that chronicles the course of a studio class; and “Dot News,” a new home for campus news.

There’s so much more we want to share, but we think the magazine will speak for itself.

For the time being, here’s a preview of the new issue’s cover, which features Environmental Design alumnus Sami Hayek’s ENVL ’96 160 Stool.

Emerging Ambitions: Scholarships Support Tomorrow’s Artists and Designers


A bulletproof lemonade stand, a tender childhood moment captured in the Southern California sun, a futuristic car that stores energy in chemical bonds, and a sneak peek at the future of the written word—all of these were made possible due to the generosity of Art Center scholarship donors.

This past February, Art Center President Lorne Buchman and Student Government President Erik Molano addressed the student body at an event titled “Meet the Presidents.” There, Buchman offered a preview of the College’s new strategic plan and discussed one of its most important elements: easing the financial burden to students.

While pointing out that Art Center delivers an expensive form of education—equipment, labor and team teaching all add to a per-student cost that actually exceeds tuition—Buchman said easing students’ financial commitment is critical to maintaining a diverse student body and a robust learning environment.

“A huge part of my job is to find the philanthropy and scholarships that are going to help,” said Buchman. “I think about this every day.”

He’s done more than think about it. In the last year, thanks to targeted budgetary reallocations and fundraising projects like the “80 for 80” initiative, Art Center made an additional $3 million available for student scholarships. And with a full 80 percent of current Art Center students receiving financial aid, you can be sure that every additional dollar counts.

Annually, Art Center allocates $9.6 million for scholarships; of that amount, 18 percent comes from donors. And for many students who come to Art Center seeking a bachelor’s degree, but who already have a prior degree—as is true for three of the students profiled here—those scholarships are fundamental, as they’re ineligible for either federal or California state grants.

Increasing scholarship support is a key priority for Art Center, as laid out in Create Change, the College’s new strategic plan. Here are three current students and one recent alumnus whose visions we can all delight in thanks to Art Center scholarships.

Read more in Dot magazine.

Hot Off the Press: DOT 19

The latest issue of DOT is online, and print versions are hitting mailboxes now!

This issue focuses on Art Center’s new strategic plan, Create Change and includes President Lorne Buchman’s reflections on the strategic plan, essays by faculty and planning committee members on the plan’s different aspects, and profiles on students who’ve realized their creative visions thanks to scholarships.

In October, we’ll debut a reimagined print magazine and online presence, so stay tuned. To be notified via email when the next issue is published, sign up for our mailing list.

Read DOT 19.

Art Center Students Win Big


To art and design professionals throughout the world, Art Center is known as a place where great students do even more than what was expected of them.

It’s no wonder, then, that each year Art Center students are the recipients of dozens of prestigious art and design awards across the industry.

Read about five recent winners to learn more about their award-winning projects, their work process and sources of inspiration. Like all Art Center students, these students demonstrate what is best about the College, combining creativity, talent and passion with conceptual rigor and solid technical expertise.

Read more in DOT magazine: Art Center Students Win Big

The Limits of Control

Ask Art Center faculty and alumni what changes they think the next 80 years of art and design will bring, and you’ll get no shortage of compelling answers.

Autonomous cars! Augmented reality! Networked schools of fish! (No, I’m not making that last one up.)

David Erven, Dihedral Tile, detail (2008)

All topics worthy of in-depth exploration, but there’s one emerging trend that keeps kicking at the door. It’s a trend that appears across many disciplines and fulfills deep-seated human needs, ensuring it won’t be going away anytime soon.

This trend doesn’t have a name per se. It goes by many names: DIY (“Do it yourself”), hacking and open-source are just a few of its monikers. Whatever you call it, this trend represents a paradigm-shift for the creators of intellectual property.

It’s a trend where end-users are increasingly expecting more control over their products and experiences, and where creators are shifting from designing finished products to designing spaces where user-driven expression can occur.

And it’s a trend, which—although it has numerous historical antecedents—is about to explode thanks to both current technology and technology just around the bend.

Read more of this story at the DOT magazine website.

Reflecting Back at 80: Alumni Faculty Look Back on 80 Years

Eighty years ago, Edward “Tink” Adams had a revolutionary idea for a school that would teach real-world skills to artists and designers. Even more radical: classes would be taught by working professionals, at the top of their respective fields.

Third Street campus, 1950

In 1930 the Art Center School opened its doors at West Seventh Street in Los Angeles, with just 12 instructors and eight students. Adams, a former advertising executive from Chicago, served as director. Since then, Art Center has changed its name, moved twice (to Third Street in 1947 and to Pasadena in 1976), maintained a satellite campus in Switzerland for 10 years and opened a second campus in downtown Pasadena in 2004. Today, the College boasts a student body of 1,500 and nearly 600 full- and part-time faculty members.

Over the decades, Art Center has been home to world-renown faculty including automotive designer Strother MacMinn TRAN ’35, illustrator Phil Hays ILLU ’55, lettering and logo designer Doyald Young ADVT ’55 and illustrator Barron Storey ILLU ’61.

As we celebrate our 80th anniversary, who better to ask about Art Center’s history than our faculty—in particular those who were students here before becoming instructors? What are their favorite memories of the College?

Read more: Looking Back on 80 Years

A Liberal Arts Approach to B-School

Business schools are finally realizing that the development of students’ critical and creative thinking skills is just as important as learning about finance. In the past decade, business executives have realized the value of managers who can think more nimbly across multiple frameworks, cultures and disciplines in a fast-changing, global market.

A very interesting article in the New York Times examines this idea as well as the prominent business schools who have re-evaluated and, in some cases, redesigned their M.B.A. programs around this notion.

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