Engineering vs. Design (Liberal Arts) degree - who gets hired?

Bill or Steve, who's right?

Read this interesting article from TechCrunch for an interesting and surprising perspective from an engineering professor.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/engineering-vs-liberal-arts-who’s-right—bill-or-steve/

And visit this New York Times "Room for Debate" section for a variety of other perspectives.

The Modernism of Mac

Here's nice little essay on the Apple design aesthetic — Is it retro? Is it modern? Is it even there?
.

ADAC Kickoff Event: November 1

Hello?!

We’re here. Where are you?

What is the state of design in Sacramento?
How can we come together to make a stronger community?

We have some ideas. We want to hear yours.

Join us for an evening and lets see what we can come up with together. It’s time you became involved in a serious endeavor to connect, strengthen and promote design in this city.

This is a volunteer run organization. An organization rich in history and unique in accomplishment. The design community needs you to step up and help maintain this legacy as we forge into the future determined to make an impact.

We will be outlining a renewed vision for ADAC, present plans for the coming year, and provide you an opportunity to speak with us and each other about what we can accomplish together.

Refreshments will be provided.

Admission is free and all are welcome.

Hello!? 11/1/10
Monday 6-8:30 p.m.

AIA Central Valley Building
1400 S Street, Sacramento

Email president@adac.org for more information.

You can also visit http://adac.org for more info.

Brainstorm Student Showcase - May 17

GCOM@SCC and the GCOM Club present Brainstorm: the 2009-2010 Design Showcase featuring Student Awards and Face-off competition.

Stop by to view all the award-winning Student Design Competition entries and see which design will pick up "Student Design of the Year" and the "Popular Choice Award" during the Awards Reception. You will hear more about the competition next week so stay tuned.

Brainstorm will also feature an "Iron Chef-like" design competition in which four students will be challenged to create an original design in 30 minutes. There will be four different Face-off competitions: one for design, 3D modeling, motion and a faculty Face-off competition.

May 17, 2010

2pm - 7pm

SCC Student Center

Schedule

(may be subject to change)

2pm Welcome

3:00pm Student Graphic Design Face-off

3:45pm Faculty Design Face-off

4:30pm Student 3D Design Face-off

5:15pm Student Motion Design Face-off

6:00pm Student Design Awards/Reception

Hugh Dubberly @ Sac State - This Friday

After print, TV, and user-centered design—what comes next? Hugh speaks about five trends in computing + five trends in design practice and what they mean for our future.

March 19th, 6:00 pm
Mendocino Hall 1005

CSU, Sacramento
Free Admission

Hugh Dubberly is a design planner and teacher. At Apple Computer in the late 80s and early 90s, Hugh managed cross-functional design teams and later managed creative services for the entire company. While at Apple, he co-created a technology-forecast film called “Knowledge Navigator,” that presaged the appearance of the Internet in a portable digital device.

For more event information and a parking pass, click here

For more info on Hugh Dubberly, click here

Design a Schedule Cover... NOW!!

This is your chance to get a published and printed design for your portfolio. All GCOM students are welcome to submit designs.

Sacramento City College’s Davis and West Sacramento Outreach Centers need your design and artistic skills. Using Photoshop, Illustrator and/or Modo, create a cover concept or illustration for one of the outreach location's Summer/Fall 2010 class schedule and submit it for consideration by Friday, March 19.

Each cover needs to follow a specific theme. All the important details are on THIS FLYER (click to download), which is also posted in the Design Lab and T-100 classroom.

You can also see examples of past student-designed published covers HERE.

Any questions about this can be directed to Don at buttond@scc.losrios.edu or Tom at cappelt@scc.losrios.edu

You can visualize anything!

The Flowing Data web site is a great source of inspiration for GCOM students to learn about information visualization. And just to show you that charts and graphs never have to be boring, here's the very excellent Engineer's Guide to Drinks.

Download the full PDF here.

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.

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

Call for Outreach Schedule Designs

This is your chance to get a published and printed design for your portfolio. All GCOM students are welcome to submit designs.

Sacramento City College’s Davis and West Sacramento Outreach Centers need your design and artistic skills (The Downtown center is closing). Using Photoshop, Illustrator and/or Modo, create a cover concept or illustration for one of the outreach location's Spring 2010 class schedule and submit it for consideration by Friday, October 30.

Each cover needs to follow a specific theme. All the important details are on THIS FLYER (click to download), which is also posted in the Design Lab and T-100 classroom.

You can also see examples of past student-designed published covers HERE.

For West Sacramento, HERE are some images of the new building you can download.

You can use these for reference, use the large rendering as is, or adapt the rendering to your design.

Any questions about this can be directed to Don at buttond@scc.losrios.edu or Tom at cappelt@scc.losrios.edu

Great event on campus this Thursday

The Cultural Awareness Center, International Studies Program & Staff Resource Center Present

ART AS POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Art, Identity & Social Justice

When: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12-1PM
Where: Cultural Awareness Center

Artists not only document social change; they promote, inform, and shape it. Whether through music, plays, paintings, songs, films, media, textiles, jewelry, photography, poetry, sculpture, spoken word, and dance – art is powerful.

For art is the intellectual underpinning of social change; and nowhere is there more potential and more need for art than here and now.

Join Artists:
Mitra Fabian, Richard Macias, Jose Montoya, Khali Keyi & Angela Alforque, with David Rasul as Moderator

As they discuss how art intersects with social change, justice, politics, healing, community organizing and activism.

Fast Company's Masters of Design for 2008

A Dutch superstar, an unyielding architect, a force for good, a style soothsayer, a digital visionary and 71 perfect products. 

That’s what you’ll find here in Fast Company's fifth annual report on the intersection of business and design. 

Plus you'll also find slideshows, Masters of Design exclusive video, expert design blog, and an invitation to join the FastCompany.com Design Topic Group.

Check it out here: www.fastcompany.com/design/2008

Call for Outreach Schedule Designs

This is your chance to get a published and printed design for your portfolio. All GCOM students are welcome to submit designs. 

Sacramento City College’s Davis, West Sac and Downtown Outreach Centers need your design and artistic skills. Using Photoshop and/or Illustrator, create a cover concept or illustration for one of the outreach location's Summer/Fall 2009 class schedule and submit it for consideration by Monday, MARCH 23.

Each cover needs to follow a specific theme. All the important details are on THIS FLYER (click to download), which is also posted in the Mac Lab and T-100 classroom.

You can also see examples of past student-designed published covers HERE.

Any questions about this can be directed to Don at buttond@scc.losrios.edu or Tom at cappelt@scc.losrios.edu

Check out the Design Guy Podcasts

The Design Guy is now up to 36 podcasts! Check them out and even subscribe to the iTunes podcast here.

This may be the best creative podcast, period. Nuggets of wisdom, brief, to-the-point, and spot on. All students and aspiring designers in any field would do well to subscribe to these free audio gems, and listen!

"The show that explores timeless design principles and explains them simply. We discuss graphic design in particular, and design in general, to equip you with lessons in process, inspiration, and practice. Get a new concept under your belt in mere minutes and unleash your creativity."

Enter the Media Arts Competiton

The Multimedia & Entertainment Initiative is pleased to announce the 2009 Media Arts Award Competition, now in its 10th year. Last year more than $35,000 in software and special prizes were awarded to 50 community college and high school students.

This is a very important state-wide competition, and GCOM always tries to enter some or our students work. Last year, our own Vitaliy Zavorotny won for Graphic Design Promotional Materials. In fact, the competiton poster you see here was designed by him as well!

The winners are showcased at an award ceremony and featured on a DVD. A prize in the contest would look excellent on your resume. 

If you are interested, you can get all the info at www.cccmei.net/mediaarts/

In order to enter, you must also contact a GCOM instructor to submit the forms for you. So, we're waiting for you to come to us!

Info Graphics Master to Speak...

Don't miss a great opportunity to see this special GCOM guest speaker presentation:

Nathaniel Levine

Sacramento Bee

visual journalist, graphic artists and digital illustrator

Friday, December 5

1pm in T-100

Nathaniel is an award-winning visual journalist who uses Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and 3D applications to create 2D and 3D art, maps, charts, and interactive animations for both the printed newspaper and the Sac Bee web site.

This presentation will be very informative for all students interested in graphics, 3D, publication and journalism. There will also be plenty of time for question and answers.

See some of Nathiel's work here:

Interactive version of the map above
Interactive nail gun graphic

Outreach Cover Winners!

Congratulations to the GCOM students whose work was chose to grace the covers our our three Spring 09 Outreach Center Schedules.

Downtown Outreach Center: Karen Adams

Davis Outreach Center: Debi Flory

West Sacramento Outreach Center: John Conley

Good job designers!

Design a Schedule Cover... NOW!!

This is an URGENT Call for Entries for all GCOM students:

Sacramento City College’s Davis, West Sac and Downtown Outreach Centers need your design and artistic skills. Using Photoshop and/or Illustrator, create a cover concept or illustration for one of the locations and submit it for consideration by Monday, NOVEMBER 3.

Each cover needs to follow a specific theme. All the important details are on THIS FLYER (click to download), which is also posted in the Mac Lab and T-100 classroom.

Any questions about this can be directed to Don at buttond@scc.losrios.edu or Tom at cappelt@scc.losrios.edu

Check out Design For Obama

First of all... this blog and this posting are NOT to promote Barack Obama. The GCOM Blog is a non-partisan site. 

This IS a posting to promote the web site DesignForObama.org —not for political reasons, but because it is a great example of how you, as a designer or design student, can use your skills and talent to promote ideas and causes, instead of just products. 

And no matter which candidate you support, as a designer or student, this site can provide you with a lot of inspiration and visual ideas. And if you have your own, you can post it. So, it's also a great example of how a community of designers and artists can come together and use the internet as a way to share their ideas, free of concerns about money or copyright. 

To be fair, I Googled around for John McCain related design sites and found none. But you can find pro-McCain shirts and products at CafePress.com.

And here's the last pitch: Be sure to VOTE on Nov. 4!