MFA Design Department Co-chair Lita Talarico was the MC of this year’s Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) ceremony, which was held in Taipei, Taiwan in collaboration with the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA). Of the more than 4,600 entries received, only 42 finalists were chosen for the ADAA, which honor the most talented student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers, and computer artists from higher education institutions worldwide who have created projects using Adobe software.
Another member of the SVA community, MFA Interaction Design Department Chair Liz Danzico, served as a judge for the ADAA competition. “Over the years, the tools themselves have become so sophisticated that the students are able to realize their ideas in a much more sophisticated way than ever before,” said Danzico. “This competition showcases those great ideas that are expressed with a high level of technical ability.”
Image: Lita Talarico at the Adobe Design Achievement Awards.
In conjunction with the current exhibition “The Masters Series: Edward Sorel” (on view through November 5, 2011 at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street), the illustrator extraordinaire has designed a limited edition poster (pictured) specifically for the occasion. Based on one of the artist’s favorite gags, the print is 18” x 30” and will be given away to the first 10 people to email their mailing address to news@sva.edu. Please include “Edward Sorel Poster” in the subject line. And for those in New York, there will be a reception and award ceremony for Sorel on Thursday, October 13, from 6 – 8 pm at Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26 Street, 15th floor.
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Five Platinum GraphisAwards have gone to BFA Advertising and Graphic Design alumni. Young Wook Kim(BFA 2010 Advertising), Cindy Eunhaee Cho(BFA 2010 Advertising), Michael Mackay (BFA 2010 Advertising), Hez Kim(BFA 2010 Advertising)and Yoon Bin Lee (BFA 2010 Graphic Design) are all recipients of the prestigious honor, alongside each of their instructors. The award provides students a rare opportunity for exposure and recognition by securing them a spot in the Graphis New Talent Annual 2011, and also honors the instructors and schools that guide them. Graphis serves as a platform for outstanding work in Design, Advertising and Photography.
Image: Yoon Bin Lee, ICP Project. Courtesy of the artist.
Current MFA Social Documentary Film student Raúl Paz Pastrana has been named the recipient of the 2011 Cary Grant Award by the Princess Grace Foundation, which was founded 25 years ago by Prince Rainer III of Monaco in honor of his wife, Princess Grace [Kelly]. The award recognizes Pastrana’s dedication to making “films that empower marginalized communities to tell their own stories, raise the social awareness of mainstream audiences, and document the hope, beauty, and struggles of the human spirit.”
In addition to being honored at the Princess Grace Awards Gala on November 1 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City, Pastrana will also receive a $20,000 scholarship to be used to fund his thesis film The Huaorani: Savages of the Oriente/Protectors of the Forest, which focuses on a group of legendary warriors that live in the depths of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Da Suel Kim (current student, BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department) was recently announced as one of only four winners of the 2011 Imageworks Professional Academic Excellence (IPAX) Sande Scoredos Memorial Scholarship. Named after one of the founders of the Sony Pictures IPAX professional development program, the scholarship grants $5,000 to each recipient.
The Sony Pictures IPAX professional development program, created in 2004, aims to “educate faculty and help structure curricula at leading academic institutions in an effort to develop future talent who will contribute to the overall growth of the visual effects and animation industry,” according to Imageworks’ Web site. A total of $50,000 in scholarships is awarded each year through IPAX.
Fulbright scholar and SVA alumnus Vera Sacchetti (MFA 2011 Design Criticism) recently won the Design History Society postgraduate prize for her thesis paper “Design Crusade: Considering the Shortcomings of Social Design,” which she presented at the SVA Theatre this past April (watch video below).
In addition to receiving a bursary from the DHS, the prestigious honor also earns her a spot at the upcoming Design History Society Annual Conference, which will explore the topic of “Design Activism and Social Change” and is being held in Barcelona, Spain, from September 7-10.
If Dr. Frankenstein had combined pieces from Dracula, Wolfman, Mickey Mouse and Spongebob Squarepants, the result might resemble something out of Blenderstein!, a cartoon short created by Zach Bellissimo (BFA 2011 Animation). The film, which Bellissimo made for his thesis project at SVA, was among the winners of Cartoon Brew’s 2nd Annual Student Animation Festival.
In a recent interview with Strange Kids Club, Bellissimo discusses the honor of being chosen for the award. ‘Its a big deal for me since I respect the people who run the site so much,” he said. As for where he drew inspiration for the short, he explains, “The characters featured in classic horror films, especially the Universal Studios films, are some of the most iconic and recognizable characters ever played by some of the most iconic and recognizable actors ever,” he said. “Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre all helped me develop [the characters of Blenderstein!].”
The project took eight and a half months to complete and was mainly drawn digitally, Bellissimo says in the interview. “The computer is a tool that makes an animator’s job easier, but the animation is still done the old school way. Every drawing is one frame, but instead of being drawn on paper, it’s drawn on the computer, still by my hand and still painstakingly tedious.”
The 2011 Emmy nominees have been announced, and among the names on the elite list of those in the running for a gold statuette are MFA Social Documentary Department faculty memberJoia Speciale and MFA Social Documentary Department guest lecturerSam Pollard.
Speciale was nominated in the category of Outstanding Cinematography For Reality Programming as the director of photography for the television show Intervention, which allows people to confront loved ones who engage in destructive behavior. To watch a clip from “Rachel,” the episode Speciale has been nominated for, visit the InterventionWeb site. Pollard was nominated for editing If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise, a Spike Lee-directed documentary depicting recovery in the Gulf Coast region following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
For a full list of nominations and other information on the awards show, please visit the Emmy Web site. The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards will air on Sunday, September 18, at 8pm E/T on Fox.
After being chosen as one of three finalists out of 200 submissions, Jessica Miller (current student, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department) took the top spot in this year’s AuthentiCity photography contest and took home a cash prize of $10,000 from sponsor illy issimo. Selected by a jury that included representatives of ILKO Coffee International, illycaffe, SVA, and Elisabeth Biondi (former visuals editor of The New Yorker), Miller was honored for her series Facade, which blends flexible (and faceless) human bodies with rigid urban landscapes.
Along with Miller, finalists Phil Kline (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media) and David Rapoport (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media) had each received $3,000 to create work for AuthentiCity—following the theme “discovering new urban lifestyles”—and all three will have their photos exhibited from July 8 – 27 at the SVA Gallery, 209 East 23 Street.
To view the work of all three finalists, check out the project’s Flickr album.
