Tag Archives: Illustration

Spring 2016 orientation: Back-to-school pro tips for surviving and thriving at ArtCenter

 

Student orientation

Student orientation

Ah, the first day of school. It’s an initiation fraught with the anxiety of the unknown and flashbacks to the horrors of middle school cafeteria mishaps. Fortunately, ArtCenter has built in a full schedule of activities to provide a soft landing to incoming students and their families.

Orientation Week’s busy agenda features social mixers and in-depth information sessions on everything from campus sustainability to the infamous ArtCenter critique. Students are also matched with Orientation Leaders, who act as guides, companions and resources for the latest insider information on navigating the academic, social and geographic peculiarities of life at ArtCenter

In the spirit of optimizing the orientation week experience for the incoming class of 2016, we’ve compiled the following authoritative collection of pro tips from our Facebook community of current and former students to help ArtCenter newbies avoid rookie mistakes.

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Illustration alum and legendary Star Wars poster artist Drew Struzan on the awakening of his own creative forces at ArtCenter

Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (center) receives the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award at ArtCenter's Fall 2015 graduation ceremony. Photo: Ross LaManna

Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (center) receives the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award at ArtCenter’s Fall 2015 graduation ceremony. Photo: Ross LaManna

It’s not hyperbole to say that billions of people around the globe have seen the work of Illustration alumnus Drew Struzan (BFA 70).

As “the man behind the poster,” the 68-year-old Struzan has created iconic imagery for the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Muppets and Harry Potter series of films. Other instantly recognizable works of his include posters for Coming to America, The Goonies, First Blood and The Thing.

And though he’s retired from the entertainment industry to focus on his studio work, he recently lent his deft hand to a poster for Batkid Begins, the documentary about the boy who became Batman for a day thanks to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and a D23 convention exclusive poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens in theaters today.

This past weekend at ArtCenter’s Fall 2015 graduation, Illustration chair Anne Field presented Struzan with the ArtCenter Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award. After eliciting a standing ovation from the crowd inside the packed Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a visibly moved Struzan asked Field with a laugh, “Does this mean my life is over?”

After the ceremony, I met with the living legend and he was kind enough to share memories of his time at ArtCenter in the mid-to-late 1960s, when the College was located at Third Street in the Hancock Park Neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Persistence, perseverance and Pixar paved the path to The Dam Keeper’s Oscar nomination

Alumnus Robert Kondo, co-director of Tonko House's short The Dam Keeper. Photo: Jennie Warren

Robert Kondo, co-director of Tonko House’s short The Dam Keeper. Photo: Jennie Warren

In the 2015 Academy Award-nominated animated short The Dam Keeper, a young pig selflessly operates a windmill to keep a poisonous cloud from destroying his town.

Keeping imminent disaster at bay doesn’t seem to be an issue for Illustration alumnus Robert Kondo (BFA 02), who co-directed the film along with Dice Tsutsumi, the first project to emerge from their Berkeley-based animation studio Tonko House.

Take, for example, the story of how Kondo landed his first job. He recalls feeling sick one day during his final term at ArtCenter, walking out of class and heading to the parking lot to recuperate in his car.

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Blazing a luminous trajectory: Doug Aitken, Jen Rosenstein, Mark Ryden and Lawrence Carroll

Doug Aitken, Station to Station

Doug Aitken, Station to Station. Courtesy Regen Projects.

1. Since graduating from ArtCenter nearly 25 years ago, Doug Aitken (BFA 91 Illustration) has blazed a luminous trajectory. From his breakout Electric Earth video installation at the 1999 Whitney Biennial, to the nomadic Station to Station (2013), the Southern California native creates multimedia works at once monumental and ephemeral.

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Tales from the art side: ArtCenter launches Untold Stories to share alumni Q&As

Jon Jon Augustavo (MFA 13 Grad Film)
This short is not only something I’m proud of—the tone, the look and the story are all representative of my voice as a filmmaker and it is probably the last time I was able to create something that’s not weighed down by expectation or inundated by other voices. This is something that is truly me. More recently I’m waking up and developing a few independent feature films. Films go much slower than commercials and music videos and the projects start out seeming so far away, like a pipe dream. But in the blink of an eye everything starts to happen and it’s all on top of you.

We have created a virtual sharing space, Untold Stories: Q&As with ArtCenter Alumni, for alumni to talk about their past, present and future projects as well as the ideas and challenges that shape their careers, lives and work.

ArtCenter alumni are some of the most accomplished art and design professionals in the world. We hail their prominent successes in our various digital and print publications, including Dotted Line, Dot magazine, the Viewbook and social media channels.

We are proud to share these triumphant moments. But fame—or even outsize accomplishment—is not the only evidence of success. We believe that inspiration, innovation and authenticity are the true hallmarks of a creative and fulfilling life. So, as we celebrate our 85th anniversary we are embarking on an effort to understand meaningful achievement in all its variations and to share the many untold stories of ArtCenter alumni.

In many ways the site is an anthology of alumni work and will be used as a source for content on all of our communications channels where we will continue to share the ArtCenter story with the world. Alumni have been invited to explore and engage with Untold Stories by answering questions and submitting images to this highly visual and highly personal space. This is the place where designers and artists share their thoughts as well as their work. Here is a small sample of posts already inhabiting the space. We invite you to visit Untold Stories to peruse the rest and keep checking back for new entries.

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Classing up 1111 South Arroyo Parkway: Goodbye ’80s corporate office. Hello 21st-century atelier.

Faculty Deni Wohlgenuth teaches on the first day of class. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Faculty Deni Wohlgenuth teaches on the first day of class. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Take the 110 Freeway all the way to Pasadena and just try not to notice ArtCenter College of Design.

The College’s recently purchased six-story building at 1111 South Arroyo Parkway has undergone a makeover—its stucco exterior has been painted black and large “ArtCenter” logos adorn each side of its wraparound mirrored curtain wall—arguably giving the College its greatest public visibility in history.

But it’s what’s going on inside that structure that’s really impressive.

The beginning of the Fall term last week brought with it the arrival of hundreds of students to the building, all of whom are taking courses in the recently reimagined sixth floor of the building.

And what a reimagining it is. Continue reading

OUTSIDEIN exhibition assembles a pantheon of street artists to create mural-sized works illustrating public art’s expanding sphere of influence

RISK's OutsideIn installation on the north face of ArtCenter's Wind Tunnel building at 950 South Raymond Avenue. Photo by Chuck Spangler

RISK’s OUTSIDEIN installation on the north face of ArtCenter’s Wind Tunnel building at 950 South Raymond Avenue. Photo by Chuck Spangler

“Street art has exploded as an anti-authoritarian form of art making and an important global movement happening in the visual arts today,” said OUTSIDEIN curator and author G. James Daichendt in a recent TEDx speech, “The Streets As Canvas.” “Even if you’ve never stepped foot into a museum or gallery, you’ve been impacted by street art since it lives in the corners of our communities.”

In recognition of this phenomenon, ArtCenter College of Design has organized OUTSIDEIN, an expansive indoor and outdoor exhibition opening, with a public reception on October 8, 2015, and continuing through January 10, 2016, at multiple venues in Pasadena. Initiated by ArtCenter’s Illustration Department Chair Ann Field, the exhibition’s curatorial team also includes Daichendt and Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery Director Stephen Nowlin.

“Like many artistic insurgencies, street art has had to navigate around the pitfalls of its own commercial success to remain possessed of raw and vital meanings,” said Nowlin. “That tension, along with the breadth of street art’s current influence in contemporary design and visual culture, is what we set out to explore in OUTSIDEIN.”

Featured in the show are artists Olivia Bevilacqua, David Flores, CHASE, Robbie Conal, Cryptik, Jeanne Detallante, Shepard Fairey, James Jean, Geoff McFetridge, RISK, Kenny Scharf and Jeff Soto, who is an ArtCenter alumnus.

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From techno to wearable tech: Study abroad students showcase Berlin-influenced wearables

“Head to Toe, Berlin” was a study abroad upper term course involving ten students from Product Design, Interaction Design, Graphic Design and Illustration. With nine weeks in Berlin, this immersed students in the design, textile and fashion industries of Berlin. Through field trips to designer studios, museums as well as input from professional guest speakers and studio work sessions, students were empowered to develop their own collection of designs focusing on head to toe wearables: apparel, accessories, soft goods, textiles and/or wearable tech.

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Art Center friends of 30 years unite for exhibition at Hurley HQ to raise scholarship funds

Julian Smith, Hayden Smith, Chris Lundy and Mark Smith worked together as the "Sarasota Brotherhood" to gather and ship the paintings for the exhibition.

Julian Smith, Hayden Smith, Chris Lundy and Mark Smith worked together as the “Sarasota Brotherhood” to gather and ship the paintings for the exhibition.

It’s no surprise that lifelong friendships are often forged out of the rigor and intensity of an Art Center education. Take Mark Smith (BFA 88 Graphic) and Chris Lundy (BFA 89 Illustration), who met at Art Center in 1985. What’s followed has been 30 years of artistic collaborations, a shared love of music, film and writing and surf days on the beach. When Chris was diagnosed this past September with glioblastoma multiforme, a cancerous tumor of the brain, the two friends met the challenge side by side. Inspired by each other and their shared Art Center experience, they decided to create a scholarship in Chris’s name.

On Saturday, July 18, an exhibition spearheaded by Mark will showcase Chris’s extraordinary paintings, with proceeds going to support the Chris Lundy Creative Scholarship. The fund will provide financial assistance to talented Art Center students. Mark offered to talk to us about the exhibition, which will take place at the headquarters of Hurley in Costa Mesa, and his friendship with Chris. Here’s our conversation:

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Art Center’s Bob Kato traces the evolution of The Drawing Club, LA’s bastion of communal creativity

Alum and faculty member Bob Kato's new book explores The Drawing Club's role as a hotbed of communal creative expression

Alum and faculty member Bob Kato’s new book explores The Drawing Club’s role as a hotbed of communal creative expression

You may not have heard of The Drawing Club, but for anyone who is serious about the art and craft of character drawing, this enduring Los Angeles institution is both a hands-on weekly workshop and a creative community hub.

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