Campus News |
ART CENTER NEWSWIRE - March 12, 2001
PASADENA, CA, USA | To keep abreast of the exciting and innovative ideas, people and projects at Art Center College of Design, the media and general public can subscribe to Art Center's news digest by sending a blank email to: newswire-on@lists.artcenter.edu. We highlight some of the newsmakers in our Art Center community twice a month. To report news or obtain more information, contact Jan Kingaard, tel. (626) 396-2394, fax (626) 683-9233.
CAMPUS
Artworld
Artist Ron Jones has been named provost at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
The StarArt Center's Graduate Fine Arts Gallery on Del Mar in Pasadena is the site for the Spotlight Awards exhibit. The Awards honors young California artists in grades nine through 12 in the visual and performing arts. The students' work is the first exhibited since the visual arts were included in the show six years ago. The winners of the visual arts awards will have their work displayed at the April 17 Spotlight Awards program at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the performing artists will be honored.
Pasadena Star NewsArt Center was mentioned as one of the "stalwarts of education" in the introduction of Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard at his State of the City Address.
GREAT MINDS
Pasadena Star News
Faculty member Joseph Stoddard was the first featured artist in the new series of monthly arts events for young people at the Children's Center for the Arts in Pasadena. Stoddard is an accomplished watercolor artist.The Californian, Compton Bulletin & Lynwood Journal-Art Center College of Design Board of Trustee member Alyce de Roulet Williamson was recently elected to the Board of Directors of The Music Center, Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County.
Mark Capper of Herman Miller Advanced Research made a presentation on last term's sponsored research project. Mark also talked about the project and about research-driven design at Herman Miller.
Noted writer and theorist W.J.T. Mitchell made a presentation for the Toyota Motor Corporation Endowed Lecture Series. Mitchell is especially well known for his keen analysis of the word-image relationship. In his talk at Art Center, he updated Walter Benjamin's famous essay on "mechanical" reproduction for our era. He reviewed some recent exhibitions that have focused on genetics, cloning, and biological engineering and addressed general questions such as the notion of the originality of the artwork, the idea of reproduction, and the concept of the "age" or period.
Kit Hinrichs and Brian Jacobs of the international design consultancy firm Pentagram Design made a presentation for the Business Dialogue Series. The firm's holistic approach to design incorporates graphic, product and architectural design within its broad spectrum of services.
N. Katherine Hayles from UCLA's Department of English was the guest speaker for the Digital Dialogues. She is one of the preeminent intellectual figures in America today and is the author of How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. She discussed literary hypertexts and focused on the transformations that bodies undergo in digital media.
adidas Senior Footwear Designer, Cross Training, Joe Ponce gave a presentation for the Business Dialogue Series. Joe heads a team of designers that help to create collections of footwear product that cross over between sport and lifestyle. Joe presented the adidas design process, work culture and design philosophy.
L.A.-based graphic designer Anne Burdick led a far-reaching discussion about design, textuality, and the visual intellectual. Her lecture "Heavy Graphic Design: Building Literary Bodies" presented an experimental body of graphic design projects that play in the arenas of fiction, lexicography, digital criticism, poetry and conceptual art. She is known for exploring projects relating to the intersection of writing and design through her interdisciplinary design firm. Collaborating with literary heavyweights on everything from poetry installations to "MP3 concept albums" to graphic dictionaries and the electronic book review, her projects have rearranged the face of both net.art and literature.
Stefan Sagmeister lectured on "Is it possible to touch somebody's heart through design?" He shared examples of his work and discussed the emotional side of the design process.
The Toyota Motor Corporation Endowed Lecture Series hosted speaker Wolfgang Weingart, director of the International Typographic Program at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland. His work has helped bring a more expressive quality to the Swiss design traditions, making way for the postmodern and deconstructive sensibilities that blossomed in the late 1980s. His new book, Wolfgang Weingart: Typography, has been described as a "must-have for every graphic designer." In it, he sums up his lifework, including his own development as a designer and his teaching methodology.
ADVERTISING
CMYK
Associate advertising chair Paula Goodman explained why the 1984 campaign introducing the Apple computer was her all-time favorite tv ad/campaign. "The strategy was brilliant. The advertising was totally user-friendly, like the product. The ads reflected an absolutely clear understanding of the consumer and addressed the fears and phobias then associated with going digital-not to mention all the benefits of the first Apple computers."
CMYKThe work of students and alum in a variety of disciplines was showcased. Included were Matthew Merrill, Erwin Federizo and Arnaldo D'Alfonso, John O'Hea, Bryan Ranzenberger, Tom Kendzie, Christopher J. Burton, Jonah Light, Daniel Santat, Jeff Soto, and Tamara Guion. Alum Michael Schwab was a design judge.
CMYKAlum Rick Boyko of Ogilvy & Mather was spotlighted for his extensive work and experience in the advertising field.
CMYKArt Center's emphasis on professionalism has established it as a "towering redwood in communication-arts education" among ad and design programs that have been sprouting up across the country. "There is a clear advantage to hitting the ground running," says Ramone Muñoz, interim chair of the graphic design department and dean of students and faculty at Art Center. "In many cases, a focused major was a strong part of their (the students') decision to come to Art Center in the first place." In addition, staffing the faculty with working professionals, offering "hands-on" instruction, and a prime location near Hollywood and Los Angeles provides graduates with keys to a successful career in their chosen field. Says fifth term ad student Eric Townsend of his awakening at Art Center, "I've never been more excited or filled with hope about my future."
DESIGN EDUCATION
Los Angeles Times
"It's a good breeding ground, with students coming up with new ideas," responded Brooke Hodge, MOCA's new curator of architecture and design, to the question of how Southern California design schools contribute to L.A.'s design profile. "I think it challenges people who are already here. It just keeps the whole thing going."
ENVIRONMENTAL & PRODUDCT DESIGN
Lynette Jennings, Design
The Discovery Channel television series filmed a program segment in the prototype space at the college with 10 Art Center students, instructor Katherine Bennett and Mark Capper of Herman Miller. The fall feature explores the workplace of the future and the recent findings of the classroom research project sponsored by the multinational provider office, residential and healthcare furniture and services. The program will reach an average audience of 1.3 million per day in Canada and the U.S.
FILM
Lürzer's Int'l Archive
Art Center alum Tarsem is considered a superstar among commercial directors. His work for Levi's, Nike and Smirnoff is legendary and award-winning. It takes an interesting idea to bring him to a project, though. "I think the idea is practically everything. If the idea doesn't work no amount of fluff will change that, unless it's an ad for perfume or something like that."
ILLUSTRATION
San Gabriel Valley Weekly
The work of student Cheryl Stevens was part of an exhibit celebrating Black History Month at the Friends Gallery in Pasadena.19th Annual Black History Parade & Festival-The cover art for the parade and festival program and the silk-screened T-shirts was designed by illustration student Vivian Ng.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Tear Sheet
"Enthusiasm," according to alum Dewey Nicks, "is the most valuable quality you can have because you can't replace it if you lose it." His enthusiasm is captured in his new book Kustom, "a lively, lurid look at people who make things bigger, brighter, louder and faster than the manufacturer's specification." The book includes outtakes from photo shoots Nicks worked on with fashion editor/ muse Lisa Eisner. In addition to his photo career and the book, Nicks is working on test screenings for an upcoming project tentatively entitled, "The Hook Up."
Idaho Mountain ExpressAlum Kathleen Hirago explores the attraction and appeal of water in an exhibit entitled "Water Series." The show is a series of large, semi-abstract, acrylics on masonite. Since attending Art Center, Hiraga has worked for MTV Networks as a photographer and as an art director for the television show Mad About You.
PRODUCT DESIGN
I.D.-International Design
The problems commonly associated with airplane travel-long lines, delayed flights, cramped legs, etc.-were addressed by 24 Art Center students in a recent sponsored project for The Boeing Corp. and the design firm Teague. The students retooled some of Boeing's bigger jets to make flying more comfortable and more exciting. Explains instructor Steve Montgomery, "There once was a time when flying was a romantic thing. People would get dressed up and get served on china. The students came at it (the project) with the idea of re-romanticizing air travel." Some of their ideas included picture windows, in-plane Starbucks, lounge areas and stadium seating. Boeing was impressed enough with the ideas that they invited the student teams to the company's Washington headquarters to present their concepts. "The students displayed a freshness and openness of thought," says Alan J. Anderson, senior engineer for Boeing's commercial airlines group. "They generated ideas that could actually be incorporated into passenger aircraft of the future."
TRANSPORTATION
The Times (Trenton, NJ)
The "family car" has evolved. Station wagons, long recognized as the typical American family car, are back. Though overshadowed in recent years by the bigger-and-bigger SUV's, newly designed station wagons are becoming more common on the showroom floor. "The '70s were square (in design), the late '80s and '90s were the organic stage of round-shaped cars like the Ford Taurus," says Art Center instructor Bumsuk Lim. "Now the major trend is seen with the VW Beetle and Audi TT: A simple geometric shape, with emphasis around wheel arches." These design upgrades have been well received by consumers that are interested in the practicality of a station wagon that also offer better mileage than SUVs.
Toronto StarToyota's Matrix, a sporty mix of SUV, station wagon and sedan, was a high point at the recent Detroit Auto Show. Art Center graduate and CALTY designer Craig Kember did the initial sketches on which the Matrix is based and spent three months in Japan working with Toyota's designers there to refine his concept for production. Though he claims no particular external sources for his inspiration, his passion for hot streetcars is evident in his design. Canadian production of the Matrix is expected to begin in 2002 with sales beginning in 2003.
WILLIAMSON GALLERY
Los Angeles Times
"The Universe From My Backyard" is Russell Crotty's contribution to Pasadena's citywide celebration of art and science and is currently on display at Art Center's Williamson Gallery. The work includes "painstakingly precise ink renderings of space-scapes" perceived through a telescope in his self-built Malibu observatory. Notes reporter Holly Myers, "With its patient craftsmanship and ardent attention to detail, Crotty's conscientious fusing of art and science brings honor to both disciplines. Walking through his maze of cosmic spheres, it is difficult not to feel infected by his eager fascination."