Tag Archives: Student Work

Are You Excited About Attending Art Center?

Recently, Art Center’s Admissions Office asked their Facebook fans to answer a simple question: Are you excited about attending Art Center? They expected to receive a quick note or video, but never anything as moving as incoming Entertainment Design student Saiful Haque created. Watch his beautiful, well-crafted and poignant film expressing his feelings about attending the College below.

We would love to hear from more incoming students as well. Feel free to send us a paragraph, a video, a drawing—whatever helps you express how you feel about becoming the newest member of the Art Center family.

Art Center Student Work Featured in New Book


Product Design in the Sustainable Era, a new book published by Taschen, features more than 100 projects by industry leaders including IBM, frog design, IDEO, fuseproject, GE, Electrolux—as well as the work of seven Art Center students, individually featured on double-page spreads!

Congratulations to these students for this recognition of their outstanding work:

  • Leslie Evans, Vespera blow dryer
  • Daniel Huang, Environ iron (pictured)
  • Mark Huang, Vespera cycling helmet
  • Sharon Levy, Moietea water/tea kettle
  • Magdalena Paluch, Spirit car seat
  • John Phillips, Ecodeck skimboard
  • Jason Pi, Leena table fan

The work was produced in the Design for Sustainability 2 studio, led by instructors Heidrun Mumper-Drumm and Fridolin Beisert. In addition, project sketches from Huang and Paluch were used as section dividers. Great work, everyone!

Summertime Is Showtime

A number of our students and alumni are exhibiting work this summer in galleries around the country. A few current exhibits:

  • Photography and Imaging student Chase Koopersmith has work in the group show Inspired, opening at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York on July 14.
  • Advertising alum Ed Mell’s solo exhibit, Ed Mell: Paintings of the New West, is currently on display at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

We’re sure there are some we’ve missed. If you know of any student or alumni shows, let us know.

(Pictured: Outside AB Tool Crib: Matt, Mike, Carey, Steven, John, Mel and Karl by Sharon Lockhart.)

Art Center Tops IDEA Awards List of College Wins

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) has unveiled the winners of the 2010 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition—and Art Center topped this year’s list of college wins with five awards!

A celebration of the year’s most inventive and creative product and product concept designs, this year’s competition received the most entries since its beginnings 30 years ago.

The 2010 IDEA jury, made up of 18 world-renowned designers and design thinkers, spent weeks previewing entries online and two-and-a-half days of face-to-face evaluation and debate. Judging criteria focused on eight areas of industrial design excellence: innovation; benefit to the user; benefit to society and natural ecology; benefit to the client; visual appeal and appropriate aesthetics; usability testing, rigor and reliability for the design research category; and internal factors, methods and implementation for the design strategy category.

Our winners:

Silver IDEA:
1881 “American Red Cross Fashion” Branding Strategy
Koo Ho Shin, GradID
Faculty: Andy Ogden, Steve Montgomery, Katherine Bennett

Bronze IDEA:
Spirit: New-Generation Sustainable Automotive Seat
Magdalena Paluch, GradID
Faculty: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm, Fridolin Beisert

Remax Snowboard Boot
James Yoo, Product Design
Faculty: Fridolin Beisert

Luxy Vespa Helmet
Daniel Shih-Tung Chang, Product Design
Faculty: Fridolin Beisert

Latrine Design
Juan-David Quiñones, Product Design

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Student-Made PSA Airing on CNN International

CNN International has donated air time to the student-made United Nations Population Fund television spot, When Mother Died, the Family Fell Apart, running it throughout the month of June. The PSA was created in a Designmatters studio that developed an integrated multimedia awareness campaign in support of UNFPA’s Safe Motherhood Initiative. Art Center Advertising, Graphic Design and Graduate Media Design students participated in the project.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is an international development agency that promotes the right of all humankind to a life of health and equal opportunity.

If you missed the spot on CNN, watch it below:

Take a Trip Back to 1969

Here’s a fun video courtesy of Archives for a drizzly Tuesday—an Art Center promotional film from 1969.

It was directed by Advertising students Wayne Carmona and Gerald Eggers, and funded by the Society of Art Center Alumni. We really love the groovy intro and outro music, and the psychedelic cartoon near the end has us scratching our heads, yet thoroughly entertained. Head over to our new Videos section to view.

Archibong Named Student Designer of the Year

Ini Archibong

Environmental Design student Ini Archibong has been named Student Designer of the Year by Stylus and Bernhardt Design. The Stylus + Bernhardt Design American Design Honors are a new annual awards program developed to support the future of American product design. The American Design Honors will provide young designers with both exposure and financial support. Archibong will be honored by Stylus and Bernhardt at the 2010 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York next week.

“A few minutes after meeting Ini, you realize you are in the presence of someone destined to achieve great things,” says President of Bernhardt Design Jerry Helling. “His personal charisma complements his natural design talent—he has the drive, passion and commitment to sustain a long and successful career.”

Born and raised in Pasadena, Archibong began his studies at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He soon realized that he could not ignore his creative passion, opting to focus on fine art and architectural design. He worked for two years at George Architecture in South Pasadena, where he learned the essential skills of the trade and strengthened his application portfolio for Art Center. In 2007, he was accepted into the College’s Environmental Design program, and received both an Edwards Entrance Scholarship and an Art Center Outreach Grant.

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Es Tiempo Wins I.D. Award

Great news: Es Tiempo, a cervical cancer awareness campaign which resulted from a Designmatters transdisciplinary studio has won Best of Category in the Student Division of I.D.’s 2010 Annual Design Review. The project was among more than 400 entries.

The project, a collaboration between Designmatters, USC’s Keck School of Medicine and USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, took place last summer and was led by the College’s Advertising Department, including lead faculty Elena Salij and Maria Moon. Es Tiempo is a broad-based communications and outreach campaign encouraging Latinas to seek out early cervical cancer screening.

A warm congratulations to the student team behind Es Tiempo: Phillip An (Illustration), Mark Brinn (Graphic Design), Chris Lack (Graphic Design), Tracy Hung (Graphic Design), Haelee Kang (Graphic Design), Lucia Loiso (Photography and Imaging) and Camille Ontiveros (Fine Art).

Read more about Es Tiempo at the project’s website, and be sure to check out this great write-up by DesignObserver.