Tag Archives: Samsung

Art Center in Asia: Seoul Power

In this photo from the mid-90s, Product Design alumnus Gordon Bruce (BS 72), standing, teaches a creativity course at the Innovative Design lab of Samsung (IDS).

In the latest issue of Dot magazine, we explore Art Center’s long history—nearly 60 years—of connections to Asia. Today, we look at the College’s now 20-year relationship with Samsung.

When it comes to Art Center in Asia, one man whose influence stretches far and wide is Product Design alumnus Gordon Bruce (BS 72), who this past Spring delivered the College’s commencement address and received the Art Center Lifetime Achievement Alumni Award.

At that event, Bruce told an entertaining story—complete with props—about teaching in Seoul, South Korea and the time he used a banana to illustrate to a group of Samsung designers why “mother nature is the best designer.”

Beyond drawing laughter and a big round of applause, his tale offered a unique glimpse into an era when Samsung was far from the technology powerhouse it is today and a time when the company and Art Center were just beginning what is today a 20-year relationship.

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Asking ‘Imagine If?’: Interaction Design at Art Center

Alumnus Ian Sands PROD 95 in Microsoft's prototyping lab, testing a TouchWall.

This Fall term, Art Center took another step in its evolution and launched an Interaction Design (IxD) degree program headed up by user experience pioneer Maggie Hendrie.

Now, wait a minute, you might be thinking, hasn’t the College been teaching interaction design for years? After all, Art Center has alumni working at Google, Microsoft, Samsung and virtually every company exploring the boundaries of interactivity.

The answer to that, of course, is yes, Art Center has indeed been preparing its graduates to enter the field of interaction design for the better part of two decades.

“Art Center has a long history of maintaining the dynamic between the development of a craft and the application of it, and interaction design is an applied craft,” Hendrie recently told The Dotted Line. “Also, Art Center is already outstanding in the very fields in which interaction is applied: environments, interfaces, products, automotives, social projects and systems.”

Take for example alumnus Ian Sands, the co-founder of vision and strategy firm Intentional Futures, who graduated from the College in 1995 with a degree in Product Design.

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Recipients of 2011 Samsung Faculty Enrichment Grant Awards Announced

(L to R) Instructors Adele Bass, David Luce and Everard Williams, Jr. were among the recipients of this year's Samsung Faculty Enrichment Grant Awards. Photo: Steven A. Heller / Art Center College of Design.

Yesterday, Art Center President Lorne Buchman and the Faculty Council announced the recipients of this year’s Samsung Faculty Enrichment Grant awards: Dewey Ambrosino, Adele Bass, Marcie Begleiter, Gabrielle Jennings, David Luce and Everard Williams, Jr.

In his announcment, Buchman said the reviewing panel of jurors were particularly impressed by the scholarly nature of the proposals and the spirit of creative inquiry that inspired them. The proposals ranged from a collaborative art installation in Vietnam exploring light and sound phenomena to a series of on-site interviews with family and colleagues who knew the German-born 20th-century American artist Eva Hesse.

“The research projects submitted by these six individuals are noteworthy and wide-ranging and will surely benefit the entire Art Center community,” said Buchman.

Head past the jump for descriptions of the projects.

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Inspired Designs: Meet Saturday High Instructor Jeffrey Jones

Jones at Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Jeffrey Jones, a senior designer for Samsung Design America’s mobile unit, spends his days designing smartphones like the Galaxy Mini and the Corby II, but on Saturdays he teaches Introduction to Product Design at Saturday High, Art Center College of Design’s program for high school students (grades 9 through 12).

Jones—who studied at Art Center at Night and went on to earn a B.S. in Product Design at the College in 2007—was first turned on to the field of Product Design at Pasadena City College, where he took a class taught by Art Center instructor and alumnus Stan Kong PROD ‘83. While at Art Center, Jones interned at Vans, where he designed skateboarding equipment for the Vans Equipment Group, under the leadership of Art Center alumnus, Safir Bellali TRANS ‘01.

Before being hired by Samsung, Jones freelanced for Boombang, a creative think tank led by another Art Center alumnus, Tylor Garland PROD ‘94, where he worked on the design of two video game accessories—a fishing rod for The Strike and a rifle for The Hunt—for outdoor retailer Bass Pro Shops.

We recently caught up with Jones to learn more about his Saturday High class.

Dotted Line: Tell me about Introduction to Product Design.
Jeffrey Jones: Last term was the first time I taught the class, so I’m still fine-tuning it, but essentially it’s a 10-week course that I’ve broken up into three phases: the research phase, where students figure out what kind of product to design and for whom they’re designing; the ideation phase, where students develop their ideas, push the envelope, and select their very best concepts; and the refinement phase, where they further develop their best idea and present to the class exactly what their product is and how it works. I invited Joonsuh “Justin” Kim, the director of Samsung Design America to attend the final, and he sat in as a guest crit.

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