Thanks to Caitlin MacBride ‘05, who has reminded us about Home Studio Home, part of designer Todd Oldham’s “Place Space” series. In the most recent installment, Oldham focuses his keen eye and his camera on RISD students’ apartments/dorm rooms (bonus: essay by Amy Sedaris). Home Studio Home is a “testament to ingenuity on a budget […] and celebrates unique and unfettered creativity.” Sounds like it captures our RISD spirit perfectly.

Work by several young Industrial Design and Furniture Design alumni has been featured in news of late, with good reason.

A project by Adam Geremia [MID ‘07], Mike Hahn [MID ‘08] and Tom Weis [MID ‘08], in which they dissembled a Toyota truck and used the parts to build working prototypes for a neonatal incubator, was featured on the front page of a recent issue of The New York Times‘ “Science Times.” Adam, Mike and Tom were hired by the Cambridge, MA nonprofit Design that Matters, which creates new products that allow social enterprises in developing countries to offer improved services and scale more quickly. The RISD trio’s design fits naturally into the company’s mission, as the incubator is meant to keep vulnerable newborns in developing countries warm during the first fragile days of their lives.

The November/December issue of ID Magazine lauds the “holistic” approach to design manifest in the products produced by DBA, the design firm run by Leon Ransmeier [’99 FD] (that’s Leon in the picture in the animation above) and Erik Wysocan [’99 ID]. The magazine describes DBA’s approach as “wrest[ing] innovation from simplicity, creating products that are both obvious and necessary,” citing as examples their exquisitely uncomplicated (in design and name) Extension Cord, Humidifier and Notepads, among others.

Finally, the current issue of ID focuses on the “ID 40: Emerging Designers” and includes a profile of Rich, Brilliant, Willing, the firm whose principles are RISD Furniture Design alums Theo Richardson, Charles Brill and Alex Williams. In true RISD collaborative spirit RBW declares that their biggest creative inspiration is “each other.” (More on RBW here, in this earlier our.risd post.)

Alice Rawsthorn’s piece on Creative Solutions in Tough Times is an excellent example of the kind of thinking that will propel our world forward in 2009. Optimism is afoot and alive. Thanks Alice!

This was a recent gift from my mother-in-law. I had heard of this new Pixar movie and had wanted to see it, but alas it’s been a bit busy for me since I started as President here at RISD. Given that it was reviewed by The Boston Globe as the #1 movie of 2008 I had to watch it finally. As I perused the DVD extras I found a special short called “BURN-E” … penned by none other than RISD alum Angus MacLane. And not to forget … there rolling in the credits was RISD alum Jeremy Lasky as Director of Photography for WALL-E. It’s a particularly incredible movie for the fact that WALL-E is a serious story about ecology/sustainability. But it’s within the context of incredible entertainment and artistry so you let the message into your mind with great subtlety and even greater impact. WALL-E is a (robotic) thumbs up in my book. -JM

I hope this post finds you and your families in the best of health as we approach the upcoming new year of 2009. In the six months that I have been President here at RISD there have been memorable moments of celebration. For instance in September, we opened the Chace Center to great fanfare – bringing components of the college and the museum together under one roof. That same month I was inaugurated as RISD’s President around the empowered message to our community that we can all START HERE – alumni, supporters, and fans of RISD answered the call with hope and aspirations for the future of our RISD. And within the recent months, a global financial crisis of historical proportions has darkened our world and has engulfed the attention of the RISD leadership team and our community. Yet I still find on campus and in the city of Providence the ample expression of optimism and hope for RISD’s ability to weather what may come.

When I began this presidency, I started with the basic principle that I should strive to be an open and transparent leader. This philosophy was manifest in my blog to the outside world at our.risd.edu (December 21, 2007 first post) and to the inside community of RISD with two.risd.edu. In addition through jogs in Providence, carrying freshman luggage upon arrival to campus, serving food in cafeterias to hear how things are going, randomly sitting with students for lunch or dinner, engaging faculty across all disciplines by hitching onto a walk between classes, and via a myriad of other experimental endeavors to connect with our community, I am learning the unique wonders of my new home here at RISD. Through observing and experiencing RISD in so many ways, I have become resolute that as President I need to go beyond leading based upon the simplistic principle of being open and transparent, and to go one step further and lead with creativity in approach and clarity in context. Creativity and clarity are a promise that I intend to deliver as we move into 2009 and beyond.

Teamwork is often thought to be an ideal that is nonexistent within the palette of an art/design school education – where individualism and distinctiveness usually correlates to one’s future success. And although uniqueness in voice is a critical skill developed here at RISD, I have seen first hand how teamwork is implicit in the genesis of a young art- or design-thinker through the rigorous process of group critique where competitiveness takes back seat to collaboration. In the same way it is said that all great human developments “take a village,” a great student is manifest by the good will of his or her peers – starting with the students that surround, and turbocharged by the guiding hands and minds of faculty that truly care.

That RISD culture of caring and teamwork is something that I’ve seen in my own management team. From the tireless endeavors to connect and amplify the intellectual voices of our community of faculty and students across our many disciplines by Provost Jessie Shefrin and her team with Associate Provosts David Bogen and Barbara Feinman, to our Museum Director Hope Alswang and her team’s efforts to connect our expansive collections with our school, city, state, and region, to the surefootedness of our financial and operational teams as led by EVP of Finance+Administration Arnie Yasinski, to our inspired student recruiting and retention efforts as led by Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Ed Newhall, to a renewed intensity to engage our 20,000+ alumni and supporters as led by VP of Institutional Engagement Beth Garvin and her team, to our efforts to strengthen our culture of respect, teamwork, and inclusion as led by VP of Human Resources Candace Baer’s team, and finally to VP of Media+Partners Becky Bermont and her team’s passion for telling the curious and wonderful stories of our RISD so that individuals and industry can benefit from our 131 (soon 132) years of leadership in the fields of art and design. I am deeply honored to work on a daily basis together with Jessie, Hope, Arnie, Ed, Beth, Candace, Becky, David, Barbara and our entire team of gifted and giving people here at RISD.

So, I know that on this holiday eve of December 24, 2008, I became aware that in the year of 2008 I received the greatest gift of all – the opportunity to work with, and to represent, one of the world’s last bastions of the human creative spirit. The values that I have sought to articulate in my life through my own work as an artist, designer, engineer, scientist, teacher, student … are all here in abundance at RISD. Creativity. Clarity. Respect. Teamwork. Optimism. Resilience. Hope. Next year our story continues. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned! -JM

I interviewed Dustin Hostetler from Threadless.com to get a sense of how he became an artist-entrepreneur. Dustin is the one that invited me to put together our special RISD offering in the new Threadless Select series with a gigantic hand of assist from Michelle Ha in RISD’s Media+Partners unit.

Dustin’s interview is not dissimilar to what I hear from many artists and designers. The common thread I have found in all my conversations is that there are creatives that are open to earning, and those that are closed to earning. The good news is that it’s a conscious choice made by a creative person. You can choose to be a “starving” artist and be devoted only to your craft or you can be an “entrepreneurial artist” that is sensitive to market needs. You can also choose to do both — to change in your emphasis of the commercial or non-commercial during the span of your life. So go ahead and make that choice, and acknowledge that you can always change your mind along the way.

You’ve seen it everywhere since September: START HERE. With that beckoning space in the middle that invites your participation. What Starts Here? The presidency of John Maeda? The beginning of Foundation Studies? An impossible new idea? In the past month, we’ve been inviting alumni, parents and friends to start ENGAGING here - to engage with RISD to help recruit the next generation of students, to support the current students and to imagine a future where artists and designers lead in unimaginable ways. As the Vice President of Institutional Engagement, I have the privilege of encouraging everyone to engage in new and meaningful ways. At the moment, the most tangible and important way to engage is through a gift to the Annual Fund to support the ongoing needs of RISD and to increase the available resources for our current students’ financial aid. Participation of many really does make a difference for individual students today - so START HERE. And let me know if you have more ideas of how we should, collectively, start here in new and imaginative ways.

Beth Garvin
RISD Vice President of Institutional Engagement
bgarvin*AT*g.risd.edu

The posters designed by Shepard Fairey [RISD ‘92, Illustration] quickly became icons of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and when TIME named the President-elect “Person of the Year” for 2008, the magazine turned to Shep to design the issue’s cover. “Symbols are very important,” Shep says in this TIME video, where he also describes the process of creating his posters. “I have always made art about people empowering themselves […] and this is a perfect example of something that was created very humbly making a powerful journey. It may be the defining image of my career.”

(As you are reading the magazine you might notice that President Maeda is featured in a Q+A about “Designs on the Future,” as part of a Samsung-sponsored advertising section.)

Shep’s Obama poster is also on the shortlist of the 2009 Brit Insurance Designs of the Year competition, London’s Design Museum recently announced. The 93 nominated designs, which will be exhibited at the museum beginning February 12, are grouped into seven categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. A winner for each category will be selected by an international jury and one overall winner will be named Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009. Congratulations, Shep!

01/07/09: even more recognition for Shep’s work:
The National Portrait Gallery announced today that they have acquired one of Shep’s Obama posters for their permanent collection. The portrait, featuring the President-elect above the word “HOPE,” will be on display in the Washington, DC museum in time for Obama’s inauguration (January 20, 2009).

01/16/09: » watch Shepard Fairey on The Colbert Report (January 15, 2008)

RISD Industrial Design student Danny Kim wishes to save the American auto industry with a new kind of vehicle that he has designed. You can find him on Facebook in the event that you’d like to reach out to Danny and join his cause. His video is still a little raw, but it captures his energy and determination to invent a new future for a new kind of automobile. If he builds it, we may come. Good luck, Danny!

Play Power, a major new exhibit at the Providence Children’s Museum, wouldn’t have ended up nearly as playful or powerful without the input of five alumni and two current students. The brainchild of exhibit developers Karen Lambe [RISD ’68, Textiles/MAT ’69] - who just retired from the Children’s Museum after 23 years there - and Carly Loeper, Play Power also displays the talents of Exhibit Designer Chris Sancomb [RISD ’93, Sculpture] and Graphic Designer Valerie Haggerty-Silva [RISD ’83, Illustration], who designed and built the objects in the exhibition themselves. Jillian Barber [RISD ’68, Ceramics] contributed a hands-on sculpture that invites children to rotate cubes featuring 12 imaginative animals – a mix of real and mythical – to create crazy cross-bred creatures, and Margaret Middleton [RISD ’08, Industrial Design] worked closely with the exhibit team from the early brainstorming through the prototyping, troubleshooting and finishing touches. Work-study students Hillel O’Leary [RISD ’11, Illustration] and Erica Kim [RISD ’09, Industrial Design] also helped pull together the colorful exhibit, which is proving to be a big hit with its most discerning audience: the kids who are having fun exploring.