“This year’s Thesis Forum is a celebration of the new entrepreneurial design and research processes that enable savvy designers to take more responsibility for their own creativity,” wrote MFA Design Department  Co-chairs Steven Heller and Lita Talarico in the event’s program.

Melissa Gorman (Designer as Harvester) presented her plan for The Brooklyn Sandwich Society, a farm-to-table eatery that will be opening in Fort Greene this summer.  Jesse Senje Yuan (Designer as Timekeeper) discussed Talewind, a social network she designed that allows people to collaborate on family history through images and stories. Leen Sadder (Designer as Pathfinder) offered Beinetna, a private online platform where college-aged girls in Lebanon can have anonymous conversations with their peers. Sebastian E. F. E. Ebarb (Designer as Tailor) laid out his Nahi project, a line of beautiful soft goods inspired and designed by Native Americans.

Short videos for all of the projects can be seen at “The Designer as ____” website. All thesis presentations can be viewed in their entirety here. In addition, all of the projects will be on display via iPads at the “Designer As______” Thesis Launch at SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery (601 West 26 Street, 15th floor) from April 27 – May 12. The opening reception for the exhibition is Wednesday, May 2 from 6 – 8 pm at the Visual Arts Gallery.

Among the highlights:

>>  Q + A with David Caspe (MFA 2005 Fine Arts), who talks about his second career as a writer—for feature films and for his own TV creation, Happy Endings.

>> A look at the risky business of performance art and at those going out on a limb, such as BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department faculty member Liz Magic Laser, alumnus Andrea Fraser and current MFA Fine Arts student Elan Jurado.

>> A portfolio of the work of illustrator and SVA faculty member Sam Weber (MFA 2005 Illustration as Visual Essay), whose artistic landscape is full of monsters, gothic adventurers, vampires, ominous myths and dark fairy tales.

>> The rise of digital media platforms and its effect on illustrators, cartoonists, and other visual artists, with insights from current BFA Illustration and Cartooning seniors Amedeo Turturro and Trent Thompson; MFA Design Department faculty members Scott Dadich and Wyatt Mitchell; and Julius Wiedemann from art book publisher Taschen.

>> Plus Front Matter, Ready to Wear, Under the Influence, What’s in Store, Hire Ed, Color Commentary, and much more.

To read the entire Spring issue and view the Journal archives, visit sva.edu/journal.

Image: Sam Weber, detail from The Fisherman’s Wife, 2010, acrylic, watercolor and digital.

Two versions of the posters are on display—one featuring the entire alphabet and the other spelling out The ABCs of SVA: Art, Business, Culture.  “There is no better way to get across SVA’s three common themes—Art (which includes design), Business (which includes entrepreneurship) and Culture (which is the entire ball of wax)—than through Koen’s abecedarian,” says MFA Design Co-chair Steven Heller, who served as the project’s Art Director.

SVA has been producing the posters biannually for the past 65 years. Intended as an advertising and recruitment vehicle for the College (in fact, it was one of these posters that led Koen to SVA years ago), they are displayed throughout New York City’s subway system. Collectively, the posters present a glimpse of the College’s history and the array of its innovation and talent.

Having come full circle with the posters—from pre-College viewer to creator—Koen says he’s happy with the outcome. “After seeing them everywhere—yes, I get excited every time, especially when catching people scrutinizing them up close—I got to appreciate their cleanliness, compared to the underground environment where they live,” he says. “Contrary to the graphic language that dominates the stations, they provide a break with their quiet complexity and brightness.” But there is also a subtext within the work that Koen likes to point out: “Change your life by making art part of your vocabulary, one letter at a time.”

To purchase a poster, visit CAVA; watch a video for the poster below.

Poster credits: Design and Illustration: Viktor Koen; Art Direction: Steven Heller; Creative Director: Anthony P. Rhodes; Director of Design and Digital Media: Michael J. Walsh; Publisher: Visual Arts Press, Ltd.; Printer: Seaward Corporation.

Entitled Designing New York’s Future, the report highlights the talent coming out of SVA and three other New York design schools. “Their graduates have produced dozens of start-up companies that set up locally—something that has eluded most of the city’s scientific research institutions,” says the report. “They also provide the talent pipeline for New York City’s creative industries—including the city’s fast-growing design and architecture sectors.”

Among the education and business leaders cited in the report are SVA President David Rhodes, who points to New York’s dynamic creative community as a peerless resource to students, and MFA Products of Design Department Chair Allan Chochinov, whose upcoming design research class will meet at the SoHo offices of pioneering design firm IDEO. “One really important thing we do,” says Chochinov, “is introduce students to the best professional designers we know, and if we can do that in the context of their actual workplaces, all the better.”

Among the young entrepreneurs featured in the report are SVA alumni Nico Puertollano (BFA 2002 Computer Art), who started his own print and motion graphics studio after graduation, and designer Deborah Adler (MFA 2002 Design), whose innovative system for prescription packaging for Target began as her thesis project. In addition, the report’s cover features the work of SVA students Allison Shaw and Michael Yap, whose project for the MFA Interaction Design Department transforms the Williamsburg Bridge.

Click here to visit the Center for an Urban Future’s website and download the full report.

Images: (top) Cover of the Center for an Urban Future report; (next) MFA Interaction Design Department presentation.

Support from a 2011 Sapi Ideas that Matter grant helped Lee turn her idea into a reality. The $40,000 award went toward funding initial start-up costs for The Grand Assembly, including creating video profiles of the artists, as well as organizing the “[   ] is My Currency” exhibition, which was done through a partnership with the Carter Burden Center for the Aging.

To learn more about the project and exhibition, visit The Grand Assembly.

If you’ve ever wanted a private art lesson by MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department Chair Marshall Arisman, now’s your chance. American Artist has just released Modern Mixed Media with Marshall Arisman, a limited edition DVD featuring Arisman in his studio working with paper mache, drawing with a comb, pulling light from dark, and much more. For more information or to order a copy, visit Artist Daily.

Curated by Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Design Department, and Adam Harrison Levy, faculty member in the MFA Design Criticism Department, the festival marks the New York premiere of The Book: the Last Chapter?, an inventive and thought-provoking documentary about the fate of the book in the age of the iPad and the Kindle. Writers including Gary Shteyngart and Douglas Coupland, publishing entrepreneurs and literary agents weigh in on the topic.

Selling the Sixties: How Madison Avenue Invented a Decade tells the story of the advertising world that inspired the hit television series Mad Men. Including interviews with luminaries such as Gay Talese and legendary advertising creative George Lois (famous for his Esquire covers, Xerox ads, work with Andy Warhol and Muhammad Ali, as well as his reinvention of MTV), Selling the Sixties relays the story of consumerism in America. George Lois, the original Mad Man, will be present and taking questions after the screening.

The SVA/BBC Design Film Festival also spotlights the film-making career of Alan Yentob, the creative director of the BBC. Yentob is an award winning filmmaker and creator of the innovative BBC arts series Arena. In 1988 he became Controller of BBC2, where he commissioned the first films that focused specifically on design. He has since become the creative director of the BBC and presenter of the arts series Imagine. Mr. Yentob will be present for the premiere and will be in a conversation with Adam Harrison Levy. He will be taking questions from the audience.

“BBC Documentaries are among the greatest in the world,” says Steven Heller. “Early on, its producers took an interest in design. Put those two things together, and the result is a library of great design films. We wanted to show a few at SVA for our students and the general public. The amazing thing is that they have not been seen in the United States. Now, we can all benefit.”

For the full screening schedule and to order tickets, click here.

Images: (top) From Selling the Sixties: How Madison Avenue Invented a Decade; (second) From The Book: the Last Chapter?: BBC presenter Alan Yentob with Brewster Kahle from the Internet Archive.

5) Elizabeth Baddeley (current student, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay), Paintings

4) Jason Bishop (MFA 2009 Design), GOOD Magazine: The Hidden Cost of War

3) Deborah Gruber (current student, BFA Graphic Design), Life In A Day Of A Frequent Hair Twirler

2) Eric Wagner (BFA 2006 Computer Art) and Sharon Ma, Greatest Card Trick Ever

1) Lauren Hom (current student, BFA Advertising), Baked Goods and Booze

More: SVA Portfolios: Five Most Viewed Projects of January 2012

“My podcast booth in the Master’s in Branding Studio at the School of Visual Arts has allowed us to take the show to a new level,” says Millman, President of the Design division at Sterling Brands. “We look forward to a brand new season of shows in front of our eager and enthusiastic student audience.”

Upcoming Design Matters guests include Etsy Creative Director Randy J. Hunt, Brain Pickings Founder and Editor-in-Chief Maria Popova, John Conant Flansburgh from alternative-rock duo They Might be Giants, and OCD (Original Champions of Design) Founding Partners Bobby C. Martin, Jr. and Jennifer Kinon (Kinon is also an MFA Design Department faculty member and currently serves as president of AIGA New York).

On January 27, Design Matters hosted a special live videotaped discussion with Malcolm Gladwell about the launch of the illustrated collection of his books The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers. Other guests included artist and illustrator Brian Rea, designer and BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department faculty member Paul Sahre, Helicopter Principal Josh Liberson and renowned youth culture expert DeeDee Gordon. Watch the video below.

Image: (from left to right, top row to bottom) Jen Bekman, Rodrigo Corral, Randy J. Hunt, Maria Popova, Ken Carbone, Roman Mars, Emily Oberman, John Conant Flansburgh, Bobby C. Martin, Jr., Jennifer Kinon, Karl Heiselman, Erik Spiekermann, Cheryl Heller, Khoi Vinh, James Biber.

Steven Heller, co-chair, MFA Design Department: Last campaign’s logo. Need something to show a new beginning—just a tweak of some kind. But it may be too early for the Obama logo. Perhaps a new one will be unveiled at the Convention.

Debbie Millman, chair, MPS Branding Department: After four years, the identity still holds up. But I am disappointed that his campaign isn’t using the branding more creatively. There is no question it is recognized worldwide. Why not have another riff on the logo or the man à la Shepard Fairey?

Alice Twemlow, chair, MFA Design Criticism Department: Sol Sender’s design for the 2008 Obama campaign reset the standards for campaign logo design. His iteration for the 2012 re-election is less revolutionary but no less sophisticated. The sun rising over the American fields emblem, which the campaign presumes is now so recognizable that this is all is needed to signify the president, has taken up residence in the 0 of 2012. The choice to reverse the text in white out of cornflower blue feels fresh and bright, and still hopeful. The typographers Hoefler & Frere-Jones created a custom slab version of Gothic with serifs for the 2012 campaign and so the numerals are made of blockier bolder stuff than they were in 2008. Let’s just hope the man is too.

Heller: Clean and predictable. Yet almost a parody. Still can’t take the name “Newt” seriously.

Millman: His branding and website looks like a banking identity. Intentional?

Twemlow: With its dull dark blue, serif typeface, and a double-lined border, the Gingrich campaign signals conservative classicism as emphatically as it can. It would be almost too boring to contemplate if it weren’t for the delightful synchronicity of the word “Newt” being underlined by a swoosh that resembles a slimy salamander.

Heller: His name is the most bland of all. Fitting [that] the logos are equal to the name.

Millman: Old and trite; branding has a corporate hollowness to it. Web sitefeels like an infomercial. What identity?

Twemlow: Ron Paul’s campaign, if you could honor it with the name, is a veritable grab bag of different styles, resulting in a visual chaos that prefigures his deregulatory politics. He has co-opted every iconic visual device from the “I heart NY emblem” to the Facebook “like” symbol. The audaciousness and lack of systematic thinking in this ploy is funny until you remember that this guy is running to be presidents of the U.S., not prom king.

Heller: Did you know his real name is Willard (like the rat)? Actually the R representing the PEOPLE is not a terrible idea. I can see this growing on people. I’m not sure I believe the tagline.

Millman: Simple and self-confident, but very much about the man (not so much about our country or our future).

Twemlow: This is the scariest logo of all, because it’s subtly clever in its attempt to steal the middle ground from Obama. Romney is three men—red, white, and blue—according to the layers of the initial “R,” and thus he hedges his bets politically.  He has co-opted Obama’s cheery shade of blue, attempted to replicate his clean graphics and the mix of serif and sans serif, and he’s even picked the word “Believe” to stand behind, since “Hope” was otherwise engaged. This logo is like a fake Louis Vuitton handbag.

Heller: What’s right with this logo, other than his political stance?

Millman: For a corporation, it would feel established and a bit stuffy. Seems as if there should be an image of the Bible on this page… If you’re going to make a site that looks like Tumblr, why not just create a Tumblr account?

Twemlow: The further right you get, the less care seems to have been taken with the visual presentation of a candidate’s image. Like a graphic equivalent of his lamely monogrammed sweater vest, this logo looks as if it were created from an interchangeable selection of hackneyed devices that signal American values (eagle, red and blue, stars) in a DIY business card machine.