Mac Designer Jon Ivey on PBS

How does the design of your cell phone, toothbrush or couch impact your life? Did you ever stop to think about it? Director Gary Hustwit (HELVETICA) looks at our complex relationship with manufactured objects, the people who design them and the creative process behind their work. Step inside the offices of the world's most influential product designers to see how these objects influence us—oftentimes without us even knowing it.

In this clip, Apple's Jonathan Ive gets obsessive about design

OBJECTIFIED premieres this week on Independent Lens, a weekly series airing on PBS. It will be on KVIE this Friday, 11/27 at 8pm.

For more info and additional broadcast times on the OBJECTIFIED, click here.

Logo design from hell?

There's a lot of talk about the new AOL logo that's just about to be launched as part of a rebranding.

Most designers and critics seem to think very little of it.

What do you think?

Read about it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2009/nov/23/digital-media-aol-reactions-to-new-logo

The GCOM Student Design Awards are coming.

Save your final GCOM projects from this semester for the Student Design Awards next semester.

The 2010 GCOM Student Design Awards will recognize the best student work of the 09-10 school
year.

The competition is open to GCOM@SCC students who were or are enrolled in one or more GCOM classes during the Fall 2009 and/or Spring 2010 semesters.

Entries will be judged by local art directors and designers and entries that win gold or silver awards will be display at Brainstorm: the GCOM Student Showcase in May 2010.

Check out the some of the work from last year's Student Design Awards here. Check back for more.

GCOM students win 5 awards

The Sacramento City College Express newspaper — both print and Web versions — garnered an impressive 15 awards at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges NorCal regional conference held in San Jose Nov. 7, 2009.

Page designers, GCOM students who lay out the Express pages and design graphics as part of Don Button’s GCOM 319 course, won top awards. Designer Bill Smith won two second place awards for Informational Graphics and Inside Page Layout, and two Honorable Mention for Inside Page Layout and Photo Illustration. GCOM student Thanh Nguyen won an Honorable Mention for Photo Illustration. The entire design staff also shared an Honorable Mention for Front Page Layout.

On the editorial side, Journalism and Photography students won a total of 9 awards. The most prestigious, was General Excellence in Online Journalism for the SacCityExpress.com web site.

Congrats to everyone!

GCOM faculty speaking at PechaKucha

Profs Robyn Waxman, Don Button, and Aaron Winters will be speaking this Saturday at a the final night of a 3-night PechaKucha marathon. November 7, 8:20pm at the MARRS Building at 20th & J.

What is PechaKucha? Good Question. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

Robyn will be presenting her FARM Master's Thesis project, Don will be telling the history of public skateparks in Sac, and Aaron will be doing something cool featuring his own work.

And it's FREE,

For all the info on the 3-night event, go here and click on the dates on the right: http://pecha-kucha.org/night/sacramento/newsletters/990

GCOM and PHOTO Club students on Good Day Sacramento

GCOM Clubber Lori Llanillo and Kevin Fiscus from the PHOTO Club were featured on Good Day Sacramento yesterday. They are creating Got Milk? ads featuring Julissa Ortiz, Tina Macua and Mark S. Allen of the show for their joint projects in the GCOM/PHOTO 490 class.

Just another reason to join the class next semester ... you get recognized!

See the video here and see the photos on the Good Day Blog here.