November 30, 2017
From Running Shoes to Brand Strategy and Executive Education, ArtCenter College of Design Honors Three Pioneers Forging the Next Frontier of Innovation
Kit Hinrichs, Julian Ryder and Jacques Perrault Receive Alumni Awards for Creating Meaningful Change through Art and Design at Fall Commencement Ceremony December 16
Three distinguished alumni will be honored by ArtCenter College of Design at its fall commencement ceremony Saturday, December 16th. The trio, who influence how we live and learn through design innovation, represent the impact of an ArtCenter education on the world. The ceremony, held on the Hillside Campus in Pasadena and also live streamed on the College’s YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/arcenteredu), will bestow degrees on 188 graduating students.
Global design icon Kit Hinrichs, class of 1963 in Advertising, will receive the Lifetime Achievement award in recognition of his extraordinary career; executive education leader Julian Ryder, class of 1972 in Advertising, will be honored with the Outstanding Service award recognizing his significant service to the College; and pioneering industrial designer Jacques Perrault, class of 2014, will receive the Young Innovator award, which honors an alumnus or alumna of the past 10 years for notable professional achievement or creative innovation.
“I’ve never been frightened by a piece of blank paper,” said Kit Hinrichs when interviewed about his life as a creative. “I know there’s always a solution.”
A distinguished designer, author and educator, Hinrichs is considered one of the most influential, respected and revered designers in the field of graphic design. Currently, principal and creative director of Studio Hinrichs in San Francisco, he served as principal in several design offices in New York and San Francisco before spending 23 years as a partner with international design consultancy Pentagram. Throughout his five-decades long career, he has won hundreds of awards and has been the creative force behind several of the most recognized graphic and brand identities known today. His list of distinguished clients includes United Airlines, Sappi Fine Paper, Design Within Reach, Muzak, Gymboree, University of Southern California, Safeco, Museum of Glass, Symantec, KQED, the San Francisco Zoo, Restoration Hardware and many more. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress. He is co-author of five books, includingTypewise, Long May She Wave and The Pentagram Papers.
“Creativity is an integral part to building a world that can work for everybody,” said Julian Ryder when asked about the value of design thinking.
A practicing artist since high school, Ryder started his career at Lockheed Aircraft in the engineering department but quickly realized his calling was to be a creative. After going to night classes to develop his skills, he applied and was accepted to ArtCenter. Learning how to think conceptually was a critical life turning point. The ability to create a big idea by combining imagery with thought in an imaginative way to trigger a deeper response was a game changer. A committed lifelong learner, he spreads the design thinking gospel to legions of business leaders each year as chief creative officer of The Right Brain Project, a creativity education and training firm. His goal is to help build creative cultures and bring design thinking to bear on challenges and opportunities in the business world. Prior to starting his own businesses, he was a creative director for major advertising agencies in New York and Los Angeles. He produced advertising for world-class brands such as Nike, Proctor & Gamble and Honda Motors. In terms of his outstanding service to the College, Ryder was a member of the faculty and co-chaired the advertising program from 1983 until 1986. Today, he serves as co-chairman of FullCircle, ArtCenter’s membership community open to anyone interested in supporting art and design education.
“We have the opportunity, if we reflect on a challenge, to question fundamentally what’s been done and respond to it with things that haven’t been thought of yet, that haven’t been imagined,” said Jacques Perrault who, through the use of new computational design tools, is pioneering a revolutionary new process to create high-performance running shoes. He integrates sports science data with writing scripts and algorithms to reduce creation time and more efficiently pave the way to making a midsole custom fit to each athlete’s movements. As a computational designer with Adidas Futures, he is leading the way to a new level of additive manufacturing in mass production on a global scale.
“Jacques has been fundamental in his relentless passion, drive and talent to move this project forward and lay the foundations for the next generation in innovation of design within the high performance sportswear industry,” said ArtCenter Product Design Chair Karen Hofmann in her nomination of Perrault for the Young Innovator award.
The ArtCenter Alumni Awards are an annual recognition—celebrating its 10th Anniversary this December—bestowed by the College and the Office of Alumni Relations, with input from the internal ArtCenter community and global alumni community nearly 20,000 strong and growing. FullCircle board members review all award nominee submissions. Honoring outstanding graduates is an opportunity for ArtCenter to recognize the extraordinary talent, impressive service and influential reach of its alumni. The awards are presented at the close of the Fall term during commencement each December.
Past recipients of the Lifetime Achievement award include:
Syd Mead, BS Transportation Design 1959
Frank Nuovo, BS Product Design 1986
Kenji Ekuan, BS Product Design 1957 (deceased)
Doyald Young, BFA Advertising 1955 (deceased)
Lou Danziger, BFA Advertising 1948
Bruce Burdick, BS Environmental Design 1961
Gordon Bruce, BS Product Design 1972
Shiro Nakamura, BS Transportation Design 1981
Drew Struzan, BFA Illustration 1970
Michael Reese, BS Product Design 1974
Past recipients of the Outstanding Service award include:
Ramone Muñoz, MFA Fine Art Painting 1990, BFA Advertising 1977
Mikio Osaki, BFA Advertising 1961
Michael Osborne, BFA Graphic Design 1978
Stephanie Sigg, MS Environmental Design 1998
Wendy MacNaughton, BFA Fine Art 1999
Gala Narezo Westheimer, BFA Photography and Imaging 2001
Stan Kong, BS Product Design 1983
Patrick Kiruki, BS Product Design 2005
Gary Meyer, BFA Illustration 1959
Rob Ball, BS Environmental Design 1983
Past recipients of the Young Innovator award include:
Nikolai Cornell, MFA Media Design Practices 2004
Dustin Arnold, BFA Graphic Design 2004
Eric Benjamin Nyquist, BFA Illustration 2007
Geetika Agrawal, MS Industrial Design 2005
Jonathan Jarvis, MFA Media Design Practices 2009
John Niero, BS Environmental Design 2007
Spencer Nikosey, BS Product Design 2008
Katie Dill, BS Product Design 2007
Mari Nakano, MFA Media Design Practices 2010
Jessie Kawata, BFA 2011
About ArtCenter: Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. ArtCenter offers 11 undergraduate and seven graduate degrees in a wide variety of industrial design disciplines as well as visual and applied arts. In addition to its top-ranked academic programs, the College also serves members of the Greater Los Angeles region through a highly regarded series of year-round educational programs for all ages and levels of experience. Renowned for both its ties to industry and its social impact initiatives, ArtCenter is the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. Throughout the College’s long and storied history, ArtCenter alumni have had a profound impact on popular culture, the way we live and important issues in our society.
Contact:
Teri Bond
Media Relations Director
ArtCenter College of Design
teri.bond@artcenter.edu
O 626 396-2385
M 310 738-2077
