EVENT & EXHIBITION: Bob Poe iMages by iPhone
Opening: October 25, 5:30 – 7:30pm

Please join us as we announce a brand new name for the University of Bridgeport Art Gallery at the Arnold Bernhard Center. Wine and cheese reception on Thursday, October 25, at 5:30pm.

Discover Bob Poe's imaginative and thought-provoking iPhone photography. Poe has an award-winning, long-time career in the broadcast industry, an influential and fascinating rol in Democratic politics and a pioneering spirit in innovative artistic initiatives.

RSVP to Mary-Jane Foster. 203 576-4696 or mjfoster@bridgeport.edu

EVENT: VAUGHN FENDER

Vaughn is a very talented designer and illustrator who loves making hand drawn lettering and zines. He works at small agency Taylor Design in Stamford, but also accepts many freelance assignments and creates self-initiated projects (including the art/design magazine Peculiar Bliss http://www.peculiarbliss.com/). As a rather-recent Hartford Art School graduate, Vaughn will offer our students insight on possible pathways after graduation.

Please share with your students! Require attendance, offer extra credit if students go + write a report, etc. etc. I've received a lot of positive feedback from students for Adam Smith's talk, so it seems the students who do attend find these talks really beneficial.

NEWS: SASD student wins Silver and Excellence awards in CADC Show

SASD graphic design student, Kevin Corrado won a Silver and an Excellence award for the two photos seen here in the Connecticut Art Directors Club Annual Awards show.

NEWS: SASD students offer fresh concepts for the Bridgeport library

During last semester SASD Interior Design students have been working under the direction of Professor Seung Park architect, developing concepts for the eventual renovation of a library wing. Part of this renovation is the introduction of a bank and a Cafeteria within the space.

The exhibition of their work will be held during a reception on Thursday May 24 at 5:30pm at the library's downtown Burroughs and Sadden Branch.

NEWS: SASD Student Wins ASID Prize

The ASID Challenge was to design an exhibit for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland to commemorate an artist who has passed away.

The competition was sponsored by ASID and Fabulous Floors Magazine. Danielle Anderson entry featured an exhibit for Ray Charles that was selected as the winning entry for which she will receive an award of $1500 in honor of Founder Sonna Calandrino.

EVENT: CADC Student Conference comes to SASD

The Connecticut Directors Art Club is proud to present the 2012 Student Conference and Scholarship Competition for students in visual communications, graphic design, new media, illustration, and photography programs. It is a fantastic opportunity for students to hear real-life perspectives on creative careers.

The Conference features five 30 minute presentations from leading design professionals offering advice and inspiration. Topics will include the how the speakers got started in design, how they got their first job and advanced in their careers, skills that are in demand today, what inspires them, and types of work they and their firms create. There will be time after each presentation for Q&A.

Undergraduate students have the opportunity to win scholarship money by submitting a portfolio of 8-10 pieces for judging. Portfolios from accredited design, multi-media, visual communications, photography, and illustration programs in Connecticut are eligible. Students must be in their first, second or third year of study. Students in their fourth year may participate in a one-to-one portfolio review session with members of the CADC. Scholarship winners will be announced at lunch and scholarship checks will be presented at the CADC Annual Award Show. If winners are unable to attend the Award Show, checks will be mailed to the winners. Judges are members of the CADC.

9:00am, Registration and free breakfast. Meet and great members of the CADC.
9:20am,Conference begins, CADC President's Welcome. Deadline to submit portfolios for Scholarship competition.
9:30am-12:45pm, Speaker presentations.
12:45, Free lunch and Scholarship Awards announced.

Contact: Amber Maddox, Executive Director, 860.303.0273, amber@cadc.org, or Rachel Rowan, Student Conference Chair, 203.919.0291, rachel.rowan@yahoo.com

NEWS: SASD students win ParkFest Furniture-Design Competition

Two teams of student designers from the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design (SASD) at the University of Bridgeport have won ParkFEST Furniture Design Competition by creating outdoor seating and other structures that will be used by the City of New Haven park system.

Sean Evelich and Josh Sikora, both 19-year-old industrial design majors, beat out more than two dozen teams, including professional designers and architects, and captured first place by creating a hybrid picnic table/bike rack/trash can.

Second place went to SASD interior design major Raeha Chung, 26.

ParkFEST was organized by the New Haven chapter of Architecture for Humanity, an international nonprofit that creates affordable habitats and structures for needy communities. Some of its current or recent projects include housing modules for individuals displaced by natural disasters in Haiti and Pakistan, as well as community centers, schools, and open spaces in Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Japan, and the United States.

The ParkFEST competition in New Haven invited designers to develop low-cost picnic tables, bike racks, and trash cans that were easy to build, sustainable, and most important, affordable Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ up to $300. The three units could be built separately or as a hybrid structure.

Evelich and Sikora distinguished themselves because their composite-lumber furniture, which married the bike rack, picnic table, and trash can into a single piece, came as close to the $300 budget requirement as you can,” said Patrick McCauley, one of the competition’s four judges who is an industrial designer at Centerbrook Architects near Essex, CT.

“There were submissions you couldn’t make for less than several thousand dollars. But their design was the most practical. It also addressed the need for function, use of common materials, and ease of fabrication, which were important,” McCauley added.

Winning is always wonderful, but the real satisfaction, said Sikora, was the opportunity to work on something for the real world; that was great motivation.”

NEWS: SASD gets its own billboard.

Check it out at exit 33 on Rte 95 inStratford, CT.

NEWS: Italian by Design

It was, by all accounts, l’estate perfetta — the perfect summer — for Shintaro Akatsu School of Design students Carla Chavez, Gladys Erazzo, and Elizabeth Kohler, who studied at the much-celebrated Istituto Superiore di Architettura e Design (Institute of Architecture and Design) in Italy.

The three interior design majors were assigned to develop plans for the renovation of the Hotel Bulgari in Milan. They also traveled throughout Europe to view the architecture of Barcelona, Paris, Venice, and Germany.

John Kandalaft, the chairman of SASD’s interior design program, created the unique training program with the Institute when he was in Italy a year ago to develop the requirements for a tasting pavilion at a winery that is associated with UB alumnus Shintaro Akatsu.

“We felt that it was important to provide our students with an opportunity to study interior design overseas and expose them to a different cultural context,” Kandalaft said. “They had to go to the Hotel Bulgari, photograph it, and develop concepts for the renovation. It’s a real-life project in hospitality design that’s part of the practical training at SASD. We’re also hoping to create a teaching- and student-exchange program with professors from the Institute.”

Work at the Institute was “intense” said Chavez. “It was like doing a semester’s work in a few weeks. But the professors were very good.”

When not in a studio, Chavez hit the streets. “You walk for hours and hours and everywhere you look, there’s art and design, architecture, fashion, style. It was such a crazy, exciting trip!”

Carla Chavez and Elizabeth Kohler near Heart on the grounds of Juliet's Tomb in Verona.

EVENT: ConnCreatives Breakfast Breakthrough Lecture —
Lost in Translation: Aligning Strategy & Design To Win and Keep More Clients

October 25, 2011
7:30 - 9:30 am

SASD at the Arnold Bernhard Center , University of Bridgeport

Free Admission

In the first installment in the ConnCreatives Breakfast Breakthrough series, presenter Amy Perry will talk about the link that strategy plays in aligning client business goals with great creative allowing designers to do their best work while assuring successful outcomes, building lasting relationships, and making lots more money.

She'll demonstrate how asking the right questions of a prospective client transformed a request for a new logo into a rebranding assignment at six times the fee and how a skeptical (and cynical) CEO came to embrace the creative process. SheÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ll share some real life scenarios for the group to work through, and provide tips on how you can position yourself as a strategic partner in the eyes of your prospects and clients.

For more information: ConnCreatives

Event location will be posted at all entrances to the ABC building.

NEWS: Summer at SASD 2011

Shintaro Akatsu School of Design (SASD) at the University of Bridgeport hosted a summer session for high school students interested in developing their design portfolios from July 11 to 15, 2011.

The curriculum was designed so students could explore various fields including graphic, interior, and industrial design. The summer classes were college freshman level based exercises taught by the same leading art professionals who teach the undergraduate courses at SASD.

The faculty were:
Professor Dan Becker, 2D/3D design and Computer Design/Photoshop
Professor Don McIntyre, Drawing
Professor Peter van Geldern, Portfolio Preparation

State of the art air-conditioned computer facilities and design studios were provided along with all art and design supplies needed for the week.

Jennifer Miller, SASD Secretary, was on hand to supervise drop off and pick up, lunch break, and other breaks during the day. SASD provided lunch and snacks for all students.

Each student finished the program with an 11 X17 hard copy portfolio comprising 15-20 design projects. In addition, each student's work was scanned or photographed creating a digital portfolio installed on a flash drive for each student to take home.

For more information, visit Bridgeport.edu/SummerAtSASD

NEWS: SASD Industrial Design student wins Grand Prize at New York International Auto Show

A Shintaro Akatsu School of Design student from the University of Bridgeport (UB) captured the $4,000 Grand Prize at the 2011 World Traffic Safety Symposium Competition at the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (GNYADA) International Auto Show.

The World Traffic Safety Symposium is a featured event at the annual New York International Automobile Show, which was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City from April 22 to May 1.

Junior Ben Wisoff, a junior industrial design major at UB‘s Shintaro Akatsu School of Design (SASD), won the highly competitive prize with his entry, Track Points, an award system that uses GPS devices to promote safe driving and reduce vehicle fatalities.

Wisoff was advised by industrial design professors Richard W. Yelle, Luke Johnson, and Jeff Mullally.

In addition, SASD students won the following prizes sponsored by Volvo, AAA Foundation, National Road Safety Foundation, and GNYADA:
2nd Prize — Bennett Minchella for Blind Snow Man, a detection system penetrating deep snow banks alerting drivers to unseen on coming traffic
4th Prize — Matt Joffe for LED & Reflector System, a highway signaling system use by emergency vehicles to warn drives of road hazards
5th Prize — Ergin Mus for Snow Removal System for Semi-trailers

This is the 13th year in a row that SASD design students have entered the GNYADA competition. Recently UB has won first prize in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2011.

Wisoff‘s Grand Prize-winning TrackPoints tackles the problem of driving over the posted speed limit, which contributes to over 15 percent of fatal crashes in the U.S. Specifically, TrackPoints allows drivers to earn or lose points toward gift cards, depending on their driving habits in relation to posted speed limits.

TrackPoints system would utilize GPS to track the driver‘s speed and location. That information is then compared to a database of posted speed limits. Points are earned for every mile the driver travels under the speed limit.

The posted speed limit and accumulated TrackPoints are displayed in real time on the dashboard and as the driver accelerates, a glowing gauge follows the needle to highlight the driver’s speed. To make the TrackPoints concept more intuitive, the gauge glows blue while the driver is under the speed limit, but would turn red to indicate a breach of the speed limit.

The TrackPoints system also has potential applications with commercial vehicles, such as trucks and taxis.

For her academic achievement, UB chose Abigail Zambon, senior in Graphic Design, for citation in the Connecticut legislature's annual College Academic Day. She and students from colleges and universities throughout Connecticut were presented with certificates and were introduced to the House of Representatives as "Connecticut's next leaders" by Rep. Richard Roy in a ceremony in the State Capitol Building.

Students of the Junior and Senior graphic design and Illustration studios designed letterforms for the NEA Big Read exhibiton, Art of Deception in honor of this year's book, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett. The works were exhibited in the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport.