I Heart Ojai, Do You?

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

The City of Ojai invites professional artists and/or artist teams to submit qualifications for a public art commission that is part of the Libbey Bowl Renovation Project in the heart of downtown Ojai. Libbey Bowl is an historic outdoor amphitheater for musical and cultural events that has been inexistence since 1957.

The deadline for artist qualifications is October 21, 2009 by 5:30 p.m. The budget is estimated to be $40,000 from the Percent forthe Arts Program, with additional funds possible from grants and fundraising efforts.

All those interested are invited to go to the City of Ojai website to download application information. For additional information please contact Kathleen McCann at mccann@ci.ojai.ca.us or (805)646-5581 x111.

Happy today!!

From: Shirin Raban
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:57 AM
To: Lauritsen, Karen
Subject: Happy today!!

Hi Karen, I am having such a wonderful group of students in my packaging class. They are so enthusiastic. Everyone posted their work on time!!! And I have 3 of my old students!!! They all comment on each other's work. There is real good energy and they are genuinely interested in 3D shapes and package design. Best,Shirin

A User Experience Moment

[Wireframes by Maria Esguerra]


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeroen Hermkens <jeroen@hetissimpel.nl>
Date: Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:27 PM
Subject: Final work
To: Scott Hutchinson <shutchin@ucla.edu>


Hi Scott,

I am grading some of the final work (all is due this Saturday). But this one really makes me proud ;-)

http://www.tofupicnic.com/ux/index.html

Regards,

Jeroen

Online Design Guru Needed for Entertainment Based Internet Marketing Team

This is a $400/week, entry-level position (perfect for a recent art school graduate) based in Los Angeles, CA. We are looking for a highly creative, motivated, and skilled individual with an in-depth knowledge of web design and management that can apply their creativity to already-planned strategic marketing tactics. It is imperative you have a strong artistic vision, as this position calls for a person willing and able to head the art department of an online marketing company. This position will require both graphic design and light programming skills. Essentially, you will be directly involved with running a small, online marketing company, specific to one musical artist on a major record label. Please be familiar with Photoshop and Dreamweaver at the very least. Knowledge of Flash, CSS, PHP, etc would be a huge plus!

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:
* HTML skills (ability to build widgets and create appealing-to-the-eye banners)
* Heading the creative aspects of asset creation for social networking and digital uses
* Assisting with development of online marketing campaigns
* Knowledge of how to navigate a website’s backend
* Facilitating online contests, polls and unique features on various music-marketing related websites
* Blogging and generating buzz on entertainment specific websites
* Being a point of contact between entertainment specific webmasters and the band’s marketing team
* Utilizing social networks in creative ways to raise awareness for the artist and upcoming releases/announcements
* Self starting spirit with the ability to work without direct supervision

Please send your resume and any websites or web-related projects that you have created or worked on to: thehivemail@gmail.com

Evening with Tomato From AIGA

If you're enrolled in Design History and Context (if you're not, there is a wait list) with Michael Dooley, you're going. If you're not, you can go too! Go to AIGA Los Angeles for more info about the UK design group and next Wednesday's event.

Check Tomato out.

HOW Now Brown Cow? Enter our contest for a free course and...

Design by Woody Pirtle

Recently, HOW Magazine published (in its print edition, not online) a story about continuing education schools in design. They overlooked us, which seriously bummed us out.

So, we're holding a contest for our students, related to HOW's recently announced Poster Design competition. The poster design must promote the DCA Program at UCLA Extension. It's our way of turning a frown upside down.

The winner of our contest will receive one free course ($575) AND we'll cover your entry fees to the HOW Poster Design Contest ($30 or $60 depending on if it's one poster or a series).

Please submit your entry via http://www.mediafire.com/ and mail the link to dca@uclaextension.edu. Please DO NOT send files directly. You are eligible to participate if you're currently enrolled in any of our three certificate programs or have successfully completed a certificate program in the last year.

The deadline is November 15, 2009.
Files (JPG or GIF) must be no larger than 2MB.

The winner will be announced on this blog, where the image(s) will also appear.

Here is the official stuff you need to know from HOW.

Even More of a Discount at Adobe MAX

Remember when I announced the Adobe MAX Conference? No? Well, that's okay.

Adobe has just announced that student pricing will be over 80% off Adobe MAX Registration.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/edu/max2009/

A full conference pass for $199 or a for day it’s just $99.

Use code STU691 and bring your ID to the event.

Finding the Funny

There are tears on my keyboard from my recent fit of unbridled laughter after reading Good Night and Tough Luck, which Cristina alerted me to with her post.

Seriously, laughs that good and long and hard are rare and wonderful.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. Thanks, Cristoph Niemann.

Read Cristina's blog. She's funny too.

Hello Design Studio Visit for DCA Students

“We create intelligent, living systems for people to experience. We believe in building systems that are useful, usable, and desirable.”

That's Hello Design. They do incredible work as their website will attest. And, they're hiring. They even offer internships, which some of you are looking for.

You know what would be a good intro in a cover letter for said job or internship? (I mean, in addition to being qualified and using spell check.) I think it would be mentioning your first-hand familiarity with their studio (and of course, their work) after going a tour. Don't you think? It just so happens your AIGA Student Group President, Lucie Mamos, has coordinated just that for the first 15 DCA students who sign up.

Please RSVP by September 25th to Lucie at lmamos_aigauclax@yahoo.com. The tour is the 29th. It's the stuff inspiration is made of, and I don't say things that hokey, lightly.

Related article on Hello Design's co-founder, David Lai.

Juice Boxes that Look Like Fruit!

Seriously, I can't handle Blogger right now. It's driving me insane. But these juice packages by Naoto Fukasawa are crazy cool. See more here.

Thanks for the tip, Cristina.

Adobe MAX 2009 in LA

The other day Scott and I were meeting with Dan Cluff, Flash superstar, who mentioned that Adobe MAX is one super duper incredible conference. So I thought I'd pass that on. Also, AIGA members can get a $400 discount. This year, it's in L.A.

It is big money (which is relative, really). But it's quite a list of speakers. If you go, you can tell all your friends you know what's coming in CS5 and whether or not there is really going to be Flash compatibility with iPhones and make other such tech talk.

AIGA Make/Think Design Conference

Scott will be there in Memphis with you, if you go. Also, I've been to Memphis before and it is a fun place to visit, mainly because they make delicious biscuits and serve them with like every meal.

Or you can consider the benefits of hanging with Stefan Sagmeister, Chip Kidd and Jill Greenberg, among many others. For a complete list, go to AIGA.

Also, I know money is tight, but it's $350 for students, which strikes me as a reasonable investment in your chosen profession.

Times Square Collage for Target

With thanks to James Fish who posted this NYT article to his blog.

U-g-l-y, but is a Name an Alibi?

It may be argued that good design is in the eye of the beholder (yes, argued not agreed). Such is so of the building where most UCLA Extension business takes place. Shortly after I started working here I said to Scott that the building did not please my aesthetic tastes. He then told me it was an important edifice built by an important man, A. Quincy Jones. I still don't like it, but now I know who did it.

I prefer the 1010 building, which is prettier. According to me. And according to a prospective student I met yesterday who was aghast that 10995 Le Conte was standing. He said his father was a parole officer, and the building reminded him of his father's workplace. In other words, he was waiting for parolees to emerge from the location in which I'm currently sitting at a keyboard. Although I'm not a defender of this institutional design, I was a little defensive at his comment. This is, after all, the look of public education in America.

Photographer Lissa Rivera has a photography project documenting public and private schools on her website. I think they're mostly east coast public schools, because they have lovely hardwood floors which I've never seen as a student or teacher in California. Also, the public schools appear to have been photographed prior to school starting. By which I mean they look fairly clean.

Also, at one of the San Francisco high schools where I taught, the bathroom stalls were about shoulder-high, because it was built as an elementary school. Teachers used the bathroom too, since it was the only one on the second floor. I think you can imagine where I'm going with this.

So, although this may be a country in which name and image are our means of immortality, and even more immediately, our justification for being, I still don't care who did it if I don't like it. I mean, I'll care in an intellectual sense, but not an aesthetic one.

A. Quincy Jones on Wikipedia
UCLA Space Inventory Stats
Lissa Rivera Photography
Good Magazine Picture Show of Lissa Rivera's "Places of Education"

Yes, Package Design. It's a Specialty.

©2002 Artwork is Property of Korbel Media
All design in this post by Shirin Raban

When I meet with potential students at the pretty and hip 1010 office, and we talk about what graphic design is, usually the preconceived idea is related to print and web. You know, brochures and websites. But then I may mention package design, and like me when I first learned about it, I see a flicker of realization. Oh, yeah! Someone designs those orange juice cartons and iPod containers and cracker boxes (yes, two out of three had to relate to food).



That someone is sometimes Shirin Raban, who is teaching the course online this fall and has done package design and branding for such brands as Mattel Toys and Korbel Champagne.

What's really cool about this quarter is that it's online for the first time so that those of you who are outside of Los Angeles and studying in Tennessee and Hawaii (you know who you are) can take the course too! (Or, those of you who have a hard time accepting who you become when behind the wheel of a car.) You may wonder how it can be done online, but Shirin is experienced both with teaching online and teaching packaging, so if anyone can do it well, it's her.

Register if you want to learn about this fun area of design, that includes hand skills (folding!) and mock-up skills (comping!).

Catch the Web 2.0 Train Before it Gets to Station 3.0

Image at architecturesdesign.com

Just this morn I met with an Art Center graduate who has been successful in print design for many years. She has noticed, though, that the print work is drying up and more and more potential clients are looking for designers for the web. Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that...

Which is why we are offering Web 2.0 Quick Start for Designers this month. In the workshop, you can learn lingo like:

rich media
interfaces
portable devices
open APIs
third-party applications
social software platforms

You've heard of these things, now "get" them in a more meaningful way. Taught by Charles G. Hollins, Technical Project Manager, Content and Monetization, MySpace.

There's more good lingo: Monetization.

Saturday, 9am-5pm,
September 12, 1 mtg.

Discounted for certificate students.
Register.

Eco-Printing Internship

To Whom It May Concern,

I graduated from the UCLA Extension Design Communication Arts program in 2005. I have since then opened my own graphic design and printing company and will be opening a retail location in Sherman Oaks within the next month.

I am looking to take on a couple of interns and was wondering if you could let the student groups know about my intern position.

I am looking for motivated students who would like to learn more about what it takes to be a graphic designer whether it be freelance or working for a company. The student will be working in a high-end design studio that also specializes in eco-friendly printing. They will have the opportunity to meet with clients and design their projects from start to finish. They will learn the appropriate way to set up print material as well as learn website interface design. We are looking for someone to work 15-20 hours a week and we will make the schedule according to the school schedule. They will be able to use most of the projects they design in their own personal portfolio.

Please let me know if there is any other information you need and if you can pass this along to any design classes or student groups.

Thank you,
Renee Delgado
Green Graphics and Printing
(818) 708-3090
www.GotGreenPrinting.com
www.GreenSQuareGraphics.com

Communication Arts Interactive Competition

Deadline: October 2, 2009

"Enter the most prestigious design competition for interactive media, the Communication Arts Interactive Design Competition. Any interactive project created for digital distribution on the World Wide Web, CD-ROM, interactive kiosk or handheld device is eligible. Selected by a nationally representative panel of distinguished programmers, interface designers and creative directors, the winning entries will be distributed worldwide in the Communication Arts Interactive Annual and on commarts.com, assuring important exposure to the creators of this outstanding work."