Ohio Governor John Kasich with winning design Aaron Roberts

CCAD-Designed Licenses and Plates Hit the Road

It was a pretty big deal when Gov. John Kasich asked CCAD to help design new driver’s licenses and license plates for the Ohio BMV. And ever since the selected designs were unveiled in November 2011, we’ve been itching to see them out in the real world.

Well, that time has come. The new driver’s license went into circulation in January, and the new plates are due to come into use as this magazine hits the mail. So watch the wallets, purses, and bumpers near you for clean, elegant new designs by CCAD’s very own Aaron Roberts (Advertising & Graphic Design 2012)!

Informal Critique Blooms on Campus

Want to get unvarnished opinions about your art? Ask your peers.

That’s the approach Fine Arts alum Erin McKenna (CCAD 2012) adopted for a student-driven critique program she started at CCAD.

During her junior year, she participated in the semester-long New York Studio Residency Program. “There were kids from all over the United States,” McKenna says. “Nobody knows anybody when you get there. We decided that on Wednesday nights we’d make dinner together and walk around the studios, giving critiques. It was at night, much more relaxing; there were no professors there. We listened to each other. I learned a lot; it was nice to have the perspective of a peer.”

McKenna liked the idea so much she brought it back to campus, organizing evening critique sessions for students during her senior year. Up to 30 participants, mainly Fine Arts majors with some from Illustration and Advertising & Graphic Design, visited studios. “I had a lot of people come up to me after they had their critique and say it was very helpful.”

“It’s still going on Wednesday nights and has even more people,” she says.

Animation students during Skype conversation

Animation Students Skype for Advice

For members of the Animation Student Collective at CCAD, professional advice is only a Skype away.

Skype, an Internet voice and video service, links the student animators to professionals, including CCAD alumni. Animation senior Rico Jackson, president and founder of the Animation Student Collective, explains: “Most of the professionals are in California because that’s where the animation industry is, the bulk of it. We can’t bring them to Ohio because that would cost entirely too much money.

“Instead, we Skype them.”

The group meets in Kinney Hall. Using a computer linked to a video projector, Jackson asks the guest animator questions; other students also can come up to the computer’s camera and pose questions as well.

Chris Oatley (CCAD 2001), a former Disney character designer who now runs an online art academy, held a session with students last semester. “Chris is a phenomenal speaker,” Jackson says.

Jackson hopes to have Skype sessions with three guests during spring semester. He says the sessions have an impact. “With Chris, a lot of people sent us messages or talked with us afterward. They said it was really inspirational. Students made some artwork right away because they were inspired.”

Students work in the MindMarket

Students Embark on Two-Year Project with Electronics Company

The CCAD MindMarket’s DesignLab is giving students the chance to dig into an extended design project with the advanced electronics company InPower.

“InPower reached out to CCAD after learning about some of the offerings CCAD has for Industrial Design,” says Cynthia Gravino, CCAD MindMarket director.  “We determined that a DesignLab partnership would best serve their needs and would provide a great hands-on opportunity for our students in a client-based project setting.”

Tom Gattis, dean of the School of Design Arts and chair of Industrial Design, stepped in to lead the project.

For the first semester (fall 2012) students conducted a comprehensive market, product, and competitive landscape analysis.

This spring, they’ll incorporate that research into a redesign of InPower’s product packaging.

InPower will continue to tap into CCAD talent throughout 2013­–2014, focusing on work to find new avenues for their products.

“As an engineering-based organization, InPower provided an opportunity to expand the types of companies we serve,” Gravino says.

“The only difference [from the real world] is we are doing it within the safe confines of the college,” Gattis says. “Students have expert guidance from faculty and can try a lot of things and really explore concepts that in a corporate setting would be a bit too risky.”

Science Chair’s Research Presented

CCAD Chair of Science Julie Posey has worked with Ohio State University’s Division of Infectious Diseases since 2010 to create a tracking profile for a specific strain of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Posey’s research studied nearly 500 positive cases of MRSA.

The resulting paper, Development of Bio-informatics Research Network for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Blood Stream Infections (BSI): A Multicenter Regional MRSA Surveillance Collaborative for Genotyping, Geocoding, and Data Collection for Outbreak Investigation, was presented by OSU researchers at the Infectious Disease Society of America conference last fall.

Alexa Carson’s holiday card design

’Twas the Season — for a Holiday Card Contest Winner

CCAD teamed up with the Columbus Partnership last year to create a new tradition — a holiday card design contest.

The Columbus Partnership is a nonprofit, membership-based organization of 49 CEOs from Columbus’ leading businesses and institutions. Its primary mission is to improve the economic vitality of the Columbus region.

“Partnering with CCAD was a great opportunity to support an incredible educational asset in our community and work with the creative student innovators of Columbus who help drive our economic growth,” said Stephen Lyons, vice president of member services and community engagement at the Partnership.

A jury reviewed 38 entries and selected Illustration senior Alexa Carson’s design.

Carson received a $1,000 cash prize, and the card, which included her name and contact info, was distributed to more than 3,000 Columbus Partnership clients and friends.

Fine Arts Faculty Member Keeps Active Practice

Danielle Julian Norton’s approach to artmaking? Two words: keep moving.

Norton, a 1999 Fine Arts alum and now an assistant professor of fine arts and graduate studies, is keeping up an almost dizzying itinerary of residencies and exhibitions in the United States and Europe.

This includes stints last fall at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO, and last summer at I-Park in East Haddam, CT.

A year earlier, she did residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and in Dresden, Germany, under the sponsorship of the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Her exhibition schedule last year ranged from the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster to the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO, to the Cynthia-Reeves Gallery at Art Miami. A show at Ohio Dominican University will have just closed as this magazine mails.

“To grow as an artist I feel it’s important to meet other artists and go outside my comfort zone.” Norton says. “Each time I go and meet a new art community and group of artists, it’s like a mini-graduate school; you learn new approaches to art-making.”

“I think it works well in the classroom,” she says. “I can give [students] real-world examples. A teacher should also be an active artist.”

Norton calls her work interdisciplinary, “a cross between sculpture, photography, and performance.”

Next on tap is I Forgot to Forget, a June 15 – July 20 exhibition she is curating at the Urban Arts Space of Ohio State University.

Professors working in the new Fab Lab

The CCAD campus has undergone some serious changes that I bet some of you would find very interesting if you came back for a visit (hint: we would love for you to come back and visit).

One of the big additions that we’re particularly excited about is the new 3D printing lab, dubbed “The Fab Lab,” which is now officially up and running in Kinney Hall.

The Fab Lab was funded by Nancy and Tad Jeffrey and includes equipment like a Shopbot 3-axis CNC router, a 4-axis CNC Milling Machine, a Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), a laser cutter, a format printer, and a vacuum former.

“Students are getting to learn how to use this equipment in the safe confines of the college so when they get out into the real world they will have a competitive edge,” said Tom Gattis, dean of the School of Design Arts.

Not only Industrial Design students, but all majors have started working with the equipment in the lab and are excited about the possibilities. CCAD has begun to bring in technicians versed in the technology to show students the application of these tools in the real world.

“Some of our students may not end up with a design firm that has this equipment in house, but they may be working with a service bureau that they get pieces and parts from, so having the ability to communicate with those technicians is huge,” Gattis said. “They may design something and realize that the technician will need to modify this or flip that part. That give and take is part of the design process. Learning communication and compromising skills as a student is invaluable.”

The lab may be a dream come true to students and faculty, but Gattis isn’t done just yet.

“In five years I just want to see more,” Gattis said. “I would like to see a farm of this equipment, so to speak. My greatest hope and fear, quite frankly, is that come fall semester we are saying, ‘Ahhh, we are overwhelmed.’ This equipment will have a great benefit to the students, all students, no matter what their major is.”

But enough from us; check out the photos below of the new Fab Lab!

Students work on project for InPower through the CCAD MindMarket

Students are tackling a big project with local advanced electronics company InPower through CCAD’s MindMarket.

“InPower reached out to CCAD after learning about some of the program offerings CCAD has for Industrial Design,” said Cynthia Gravino, CCAD MindMarket director.  “We had several meetings and determined a CCAD DesignLab partnership would best serve their needs and would provide a great hands-on opportunity for our students in a client-based project setting.”

Tom Gattis, dean of the School of Design Arts and chair of Industrial Design, stepped in to lead the student class.

“InPower originally came to us hoping to redesign the packaging for an existing product and look for some new market opportunities,” Gattis said. “We attacked it from a different point of view and realized we can do a lot more than just redesign a package.”

For the first semester (fall 2012) students conducted a comprehensive market, product, and competitive landscape analysis.

“We spent nearly the whole semester researching things like who the customers are, what motivated them to purchase, examining how the company was attacking the market and finding alternatives,” Gattis said. “The students did a tremendous amount of work and exceeded the client’s expectations.”

During the spring semester (2013) Gattis is leading the students in the physical redesign of the packaging based on the internal and external factors revealed by their research. They will explore design factors such as mood, color, typography, and texture to create the best branding and packaging for the company.

The partnership with InPower will extend throughout the next academic year, with the company tapping into CCAD talent to help discover new avenues for its products and its brand.

“One of the most interesting aspects of this partnership is that InPower is an engineering-based organization,” Gravino said. “This type of company is outside of the other industries we usually have a chance to work with and provided an opportunity to expand the types of companies we serve.”

The partnership allows students to experience a real-world situation with a client and product that are local and will use their ideas.

“This is as close as we can simulate to the real world; the only difference is we are doing it within the safe confines of the college,” Gattis said. “[Students] have expert guidance from faculty along the way, and they can take a lot of risk without the fear of getting fired or demoted. They are allowed within that context to try a lot of things and really explore concepts that in a corporate setting would be a bit too risky.”

The CCAD MindMarket offers several creative services formats through the DesignLab, from charrettes, which are intense 54-to-72 hour design challenges, to class projects lasting 16 weeks, to partnerships, which can be longer and recruit the broadest variety of CCAD students, faculty, and staff.

Close-up shot of Tim Rietenbach’s work that will be in “FUNCTION.” Photograph by Luke Kramer.

Seven CCAD faculty members will come together and show their work at Columbus’ Cultural Arts Center in a group exhibition, FUNCTION, Jan. 9–Feb. 8, with an opening reception Friday, Jan. 11, 6–8 p.m.

“The exhibition looks at the idea of function,” said Michael Goodson, CCAD’s exhibitions director. “We have faculty that have a design background and faculty that have a fine arts background in this show, and they are coming together to look at functionality and dis-functionality for items designed to function and those based on the idea of function.”

Goodson helped organize the exhibition and will show his work along with Associate Professor and Industrial Design alumnus Davis Burghy (CCAD 1989), Foundation Studies and Fine Arts instructor Matthew Flegle, Dean of the School of Design Arts and Industrial Design chair Tom Gattis, Professor and Industrial Design alumnus Joel Gundlach (CCAD 1986), Assistant Professor and Fine Arts alumna Danielle Julian Norton (CCAD 1999), and Associate Professor and Fine Arts alumnus Tim Rietenbach (CCAD 1977).

Work will range from Burghy’s deconstructed stair banisters to Flegle’s illustrations of colliding objects. For more information and gallery hours, visit the Cultural Arts Center’s website.

Tom Gattis in the studio.

Tom Gattis’s world is a little hectic at the moment. In less than a month he needs to sell a home, find a home, find a school for his two teenage daughters, pack, and move to Columbus, OH from Savannah, GA to start his new job as CCAD’s chair of Industrial Design on July 1. Despite all of that, he describes this time as “not too crazy,” and is looking forward to getting to Columbus and hitting the ground running.

“I’m really excited,” he said. “It’s a huge opportunity to have an impact on, and help grow, a burgeoning program.”

Gattis is coming to CCAD after 13 years with Savannah College of Art & Design. During his tenure as chair of their Industrial Design program, he was responsible for ushering in sponsored project programming that changed the face of design education for students and significantly increased enrollment and revenue for the program.

“I’m hoping I can bring my success at SCAD to CCAD,” Gattis shared. He explained how a project-based learning model, where students work on real-world projects for leading design companies, can help address the gap between classic design education (based on models developed in the 1950s and ’60s) and the continuing changes occurring in today’s design industry.

“I started doing design projects with companies in the classroom about 10 years ago and it changed how I looked at design education,” said Gattis.

“When we bring in businesses and captains of industry and get the students engaged with the real-world design process and application—the program becomes an apprentice model where they are learning from the masters.

Roses by Tom Gattis.

“The project-based model helps students learn what to expect in a real-world design environment, while allowing them the safety of an educational environment. They can still take risks, but they see the real-world applications and implications. Plus the student has the excitement of knowing there is a chance that his or her project could make into a store.”

While at SCAD Gattis served many roles, including chair of furniture design, chair of Industrial Design, and associate vice president for academics for SCAD’s Hong Kong campus.

When asked to describe his favorite aspect of teaching, he said: “There’s a moment that happens with a student, which is difficult to describe, when you see the switch happen. They go from student to professional. It’s a great feeling to watch that happen and know you have helped them get there.”

Like many CCAD faculty, Gattis practices what he teaches. In his spare time, he is a master wood turner and builds wooden boats, including his own mahogany 15-footer called Daddy’s Girl, which will also be making the journey to Columbus from Georgia.