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LSU Art Wins 2019 ADDY Awards

Art & Design, Students, Publications, Honors & Awards, Art, Digital Art, Graphic Design, Faculty, , ,

Student Nnamdi with program

Each year, the American Advertising Awards, also known as the ADDYs, the advertising industry’s largest competition, recognizes some of the best creative work in the country. The Baton Rouge American Advertising Federation annually recognizes “the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising” locally. In 2019 Baton Rouge American Advertising Federation awarded ADDYs to LSU School of Art students and faculty:

2019 Student Best of Show & Gold ADDY Winner

Black man in hood, red square obscuring face

Book cover of The Usual Suspects by Carrie Mae Weems

Book Design
Carrie Mae Weems: The Usual Suspects
Entrant: LSU School of Art | GDSO (Graphic Design Student Office)
Credits: Lindsey T. Henriques › Graphic Designer, Luisa Restrepo › Creative Director, Courtney Barr › Faculty Advisor, Kitty Pheney › Producer, Courtney Taylor › Curator, Carrie Mae Weems › Artist

Student Gold

Web page with map of Louisiana coast in background

Coastal Voices website design by GDSO

Website (Desktop or Mobile)
Coastal Voices
Entrant: GDSO | LSU School of Art
GDSO Credits: Nhu Dao › Interactive Designer, Delaney McGuinness › Map Designer, Madelyn Smith › Video Producer, Josh Jackson › Podcast Editor/ Marketing Director, Taylor Goss › Sound Producer, Hailey Andras › Graphic Designer, Michael Pasquier ›
Project Director, Courtney Barr › Faculty Advisor

“This project was an opportunity to participate in research-driven, grant-funded projects that involve the development of design deliverables over a long-term process,” said Courtney Barr, associate professor of art/graphic design and the project director. “Participation in collaborative research initiatives, for example, is a more complex challenge for the students, but from the challenge they gain a unique appreciation for research practice that gives them relevant skills for the future of design practice,” she said.

“Website design is increasingly becoming an area that GDSO is receiving requests for,” said Kitty Pheney, associate head of art operations & programs.

View the Coastal Voices website, designed by the GDSO team.

Animation or Special Effects & Judge’s Pick
“The Spaceman’s Commute”
Entrant: Nnamdi Anyaele (digital art student)
School: Louisiana State University
Credits: Nnamdi Anyaele

View “The Spaceman’s Commute”:

“The Spaceman’s Commute, is a combination of my two latest projects from last semester: in Moving Images I (Art 2220), I worked on an animated music video, and afterwards a 15 second animation. I combined them to attempt my most extensive and ambitious animation yet. The end result was this music video,” said Anyaele. “To my surprise, my first very first and only submission won two awards.  Gold for Student Animation/ Special Effects, and Judge’s Choice.” Anyaele went on to the district level.

“The Spaceman’s Commute has a simple premise.  An astronaut is engaged a very mundane routine on a desert planet, but life seems to emerge where least expected.”

“I’m so pleased Nnamdi received recognition for this great project,” digital art professor Hye Yeon Nam said.

 

Student Silver

Magazine cover with yellow and black pattern

Quad Summer 2018 Cover

Magazine Design
QUAD: LSU COAD Magazine 2018
Entrant: GDSO | LSU School of Art
GDSO CREDITS: Sarah Alexander › Graphic Designer, Dakota Banos › Graphic Designer, Rachel Hurt › Graphic Designer, Luisa Restrepo › Creative Director, Courtney Barr › Faculty Advisor, Kitty Pheney › Project Director, Elizabeth Mattey › Editor/Writer

Flyers, brochures, postcards with black and yellow

SPE “Material + Meaning” branded materials, by GDSO

Integrated Brand Identity Campaign
Material + Meaning: SPE Conference
Entrant: LSU School of Art | GDSO
CREDITS: Sarah Alexander › Graphic Designer, Dakota Banos › Graphic Designer, Hayden Nagin › Graphic Designer, Luisa Restrepo › Creative Director, Courtney Barr › Faculty Advisor, Kitty Pheney › Project Director

Lime green shapres, dog, Iphone screens

“So Fetch” by Donna Greaber

Integrated Brand Identity Campaign
So Fetch
Entrant/Credits: Donna Greaber, Studio Art student
SCHOOL: Louisiana State University

 

The art students are all so deserving of the recognition by the American Advertising Awards, Pheney said. “They all put a tremendous amount of work into all these projects.”

The most rewarding moment is seeing a completed project in use. “When students see their work – logos they designed used in the outside world, identities used in professional capacity, publications printed and distributed – they have a profound sense of accomplishment,” Pheney said. “They see that their assignments have a life beyond the classroom, exist in the real world. The first time a student has the experience of seeing something that [he/she] created come to life, it’s exhilarating.”

LSU Research Symposium Crosses Borders

Art & Design, Students, Research, Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Faculty, Doctor of Design, ,

The LSU School of Architecture hosted the Bordering On Symposium on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at the Manship Theater, Shaw Center for the Arts in Baton Rouge. Organized by architecture assistant professors Kris Palagi and Angeliki Sioli, the symposium featured speakers with expertise in the areas of architecture, urbanism, political science, design, landscape architecture, art, geography, sociology, anthropology, law, and more, exploring concepts of borders.

“Borders can be tangible, solid, concrete, palpable, impenetrable, aggressive,” the organizers stated. “They can be implicit, abstract, undetectable, tacit, porous and soft. Spatial borders – visible or invisible – define our encounter with the world around us, from the small scale of the neighborhood to that of the nation. They define our engagement with the public shared place of human interaction, and shape our social, political, ethical and personal stand as architects and world citizens.”

UC San Diego political science professor Fonna Forman, the 2019 Nadine Carter Russell Chair of the LSU College of Art & Design, delivered the keynote lecture titled “Unwalling Citizenship.”

“The convergence of geopolitical borders, climate justice, and poverty is the great challenge of our time,” Forman warned in her address. “Our world is veering dangerously away from human dignity.”

Forman’s work with urbanist and architect Teddy Cruz studied the San Diego-Tijuana border as a geopolitical site, the busiest checkpoint in the world and a microcosm of all the issues facing the globe. “Our work reimagines borders as a tissue,” Forman explained, describing how their research into geopolitics in the region has led to cross-border coalition and longterm partnerships between university researchers and surrounding communities. She then urged LSU architecture students to do the same: to think critically about how to connect with their own community to create positive change.

“The research symposium was unprecedented; never before have we hosted this kind of event,” said Alkis Tsolakis, Dean of the College of Art & Design. “It was a unique opportunity for scholars to meet with our students.”

“The symposium opens the conversation on what exists ‘past the buttressed, scavenged and policed’ understanding of borders in a local, national and international scale and aspires to look into borders as the possibility for a meaningful adjacency and spatial interexchange,” Sioli said.

“Being able to spend an entire day listening and talking to such a variety of people who has, in one way or another, addressed the issue of borders was amazing,” said MArch student Brittany Howard. “They came from so many different places, had different backgrounds and interests and it was fascinating to hear which kinds of borders they focused on, how they addressed it, and why.”

Professor Forman has conducted a workshop with architecture students in tandem with the symposium, exploring borders within the framework of an investigative case study. Architecture students analyzed communities in Baton Rouge to better understand the complex issues that border zones face.

Architecture students of all levels teamed up to study particular border zones in Greater Baton Rouge in the workshop, Professor Palagi explained. “The 30 groups each had a MArch student, 5th year, 4th year, 3rd, 2nd year BArch students, etc. working together,” he said. “This allowed students to bring different perspectives and skillsets, and let them have creative freedom, but also create really strong work.”

Architecture student were split into groups spanning all levels of studios and skills. “Together we created interventions to break down borders in some of Baton Rouge’s most divided and bordered areas,” Howard said. “Whether those borders were physical or metaphysical, students designed a plan and presented their ideas to visiting guests who then participated in Saturday’s symposium. We are beyond excited that we had this opportunity.”

"Shrinking Distance" diagram of Baton Rouge, "Bridging the Gap Between the Forgotten and the Secluded in the Cortana Mall Neighborhood"

Student work from the Bordering On workshop

The LSU School of Architecture students analyzed certain geographic zones, studying raw data courtesy of the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority, and Professor Forman directed the process by posting systematic questions to the groups to develop conflict diagrams to better understand these complicated communities.

“The students first worked to understand the context: they needed to understand the many concerns – social, political, physical – present, investigating not just the data, but the individual needs,” Palagi said. “Only then can one make thoughtful recommendations for community change.”

“The students produced beautiful, critical work about your own city,” Forman said.

“Professor Forman was such a good speaker and having the opportunity to learn from her and to learn the way she analyses problems was an incredible opportunity,” Howard said. “To have her and all of the panelists here at LSU was really exceptional and I hope it is something we can continue to do in some capacity.”

“The idea is design as citizenry,” said Ursula Emery McClure, professor of architecture. “It comes down to our role as designers in our community.”

LSU Graphic Design Program Ranked #1 in Louisiana, Top Tier Nationwide

Art & Design, Honors & Awards, Art, Graphic Design, Publicity

The Animation Career Review 2019 Graphic Design School Rankings, published in February 2019, ranked the LSU graphic design program first in the state, and highly nationally. The Animation Career Review, which provides public information on schools offering animation and graphic design education, considered over 700 schools with graphic design programs in preparing this year’s rankings.

LSU’s graphic design program ranked #1 in Louisiana, #9 in the South (top 6% of schools considered), #23 nationally among public schools and colleges (top 8%), and #44 nationally (top 6%) overall. The LSU MFA program ranked #22 nationally among colleges offering a graphic design related MFA.

“The LSU School of Art’s Graphic Design program has been on an upward trend for several years in terms of regional recognition of the work of our faculty and students at all levels,” said Rod Parker, School of Art Director. “However, this year’s ranking of #44 overall at the national level, and the rank of #22 nationally for the MFA program in graphic design signals that LSU is taking its place in the top tier of schools nationwide.”

“This is super news for the Louisiana State University graphic design program,” said Brad Prescott, founder of Animation Career Review.

Since 2012, the Animation Career Review has published rankings of the top animation and graphic design higher education programs in the U.S., with the aim of helping aspiring animators seeking advice and information.

Find full rankings.

Let’s Get Together: LSU Art & Design Alumni at AOS

Interior Design, Alumni,

Louisiana-based AOS Interior Environments joins LSU alumni from the fields of interior design and architecture – the firm currently has 12 LSU College of Art & Design alumni working there!

LSU Alumni at AOS

Mark Abry, BArch 2011
Brenna Baumy, BID 2013
Sean Chaney, BArch 2011
Rebecca Cooley, BID 2007
Hannah Hinson, BID 2016
Hillary Heidingsfelder, BID 2018
Jamie Langridge, BID 2013
Aimee McSpaddin, BID 2003
Stephanie Ricord, BID 1998
Matthew Rome, BArch 2011
Jessica Roy, BID 2007
Angelle Verges, BID 1982

* And 11 more LSU alumni in other fields!

Stephanie Ricord (BID 1998) is project manager & designer at AOS. “We provide contract furniture and other elements to work spaces,” she said.  “We offer ideas and consult with clients in terms of furniture and how to create a wonderful working environment for their employees.”

Once a specialty firm that designed and installed filing and storage systems, today AOS has evolved into the largest FF&E contractor in Louisiana and Mississippi. The 42-year-old company has positioned itself as a go-to resource for the architectural and design community. Projects include the LSU’s Patrick F. Taylor Hall and Gymnastics Training Facility, and The Center for Coastal and Deltaic Solutions at The Water Campus in Baton Rouge.

Cream couch and purple wall

Patrick F. Taylor Hall, LSU

“We are proud to employ the most dedicated and experienced professionals within our industry, many of which have graduated from LSU,” said Shelby E. Russ, Jr. (LSU BS 1980), AOS President + CEO. When we hire a Tiger, we know we are going to get a talented team player with passion, dedication and a well-rounded education.”

The AOS team includes designers, project managers, and a variety of specialists. Interior designers and architects routinely collaborate on projects, and the office culture of hardworking camaraderie echoes the atmosphere of design school.

“While at LSU, you begin to feel part of a ‘design community’ and that continues through professional development,” Ricord shared. “The stress you work under [in design school] is just a taste of what is to come, and I was well prepared. All the pressure you feel in school now is the best thing you will ever take away, in my opinion.”

This fall AOS held a popup showroom at the LSU School of Interior Design, bringing in furnishings for an interactive educational experience. “Popup showrooms give interior design students the chance to literally get their hands on different types of furnishings that they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to,” said school director Marsha Cuddeback. “The hands-on learning experience is so important.”

Cooperation is integral to a successful career in design, Ricord said. “An ability to communicate thoroughly, honestly and efficiently is critical. The LSU School of Interior Design prepares students for that.”

AOS was honored to be recognized in LSU 100: Fast Growing Tiger Businesses.

Meet a few LSU Alumni at AOS:

Woman sitting sideways in chairRebecca Cooley, BID 2007, AOS’ VP Manufactured Interior Construction, has been honored as a “Rising Star in Construction” by New Orleans City Business. Its “2018 Excellence in Construction and Real Estate” honor recognizes professionals that have created a positive impact in the New Orleans area. Rebecca was recently selected to the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute (NORLI)’s 2018-2019 class, which brings together business, civic and community leaders throughout the New Orleans area to collaborate and promote economic growth and community development.

 

Woman in red chair

Stephanie Ricord, BID 1998, AOS’ Project Manager and Designer, consults with clients to design work spaces. “While at LSU, you begin to feel part of a ‘design community’ and that continues through professional development,” she says. “The stress you work under [in design school] is just a taste of what is to come, and I was well prepared. All the pressure you feel in school now is the best thing you will ever take away, in my opinion.”

Bordering On Symposium

Art & Design, Research, Landscape Architecture, Events, Coastal Sustainability Studio, Architecture, Lectures, Faculty, Donors, Doctor of Design

The LSU School of Architecture will host the Bordering On Symposium on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at the Manship Theater, Shaw Center for the Arts in Baton Rouge. The symposium, which brings together international scholars, is free and open to the public.

Organized by architecture assistant professors Kris Palagi and Angeliki Sioli, the symposium features speakers with expertise in the areas of architecture, urbanism, political science, design, landscape architecture, art, geography, sociology, anthropology, law, and more. The keynote speaker is UC San Diego Professor Fonna Forman, the 2019 Nadine Carter Russell Chair of the LSU College of Art & Design.

“Borders can be tangible, solid, concrete, palpable, impenetrable, aggressive,” the organizers stated. “They can be implicit, abstract, undetectable, tacit, porous and soft. Spatial borders – visible or invisible – define our encounter with the world around us, from the small scale of the neighborhood to that of the nation. They define our engagement with the public shared place of human interaction, and shape our social, political, ethical and personal stand as architects and world citizens.”

“This event is an excellent opportunity to bring international scholars to Baton Rouge to exchange ideas,” said Alkis Tsolakis, Dean of the College of Art & Design. “It’s a truly interdisciplinary conversation.”

“The symposium opens the conversation on what exists ‘past the buttressed, scavenged and policed’ understanding of borders in a local, national and international scale and aspires to look into borders as the possibility for a meaningful adjacency and spatial interexchange,” Sioli said.

Professor Forman is conducting a workshop with architecture students in tandem with the symposium, exploring borders within the framework of an investigative case study. Architecture students will explore communities in Baton Rouge to better understand the complex issues that border zones face.

Symposium Program

Reed Hilderbrand Designs for LSU Master Plan

Art & Design, Landscape Architecture, Alumni, Doctor of Design
Cross-section of master plan design. Illustrated trees.

LSU Master Plan design. Images courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand.

Reed Hilderbrand, an award-winning design firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, collaborated with LSU on the university’s Comprehensive and Strategic Campus Master Plan, informing the landscape architecture plans.

Doug Reed, FASLA, received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from LSU in 1978, and is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He founded Reed Hilderbrand  in 1993, and over the years the firm has housed generations of LSU alumni.

The firm’s projects have been published in LandForum, Landscape Architecture, Garden Design, Garten und Landschaft, Designed Landscape Forum, and Architectural Digest. Reed’s role as a founding board member and co-chair of the Cultural Landscape Foundation affords him a platform for leadership in national debates that frame landscape architecture’s role in preserving and amplifying design heritage. The Architectural League of New York recognized Reed and Gary Hilderbrand in their Emerging Voices program, an honor bestowed on firms with distinctive voices that have the potential to influence the design fields.

Douglas Reed. (Man in jacket.)

Doug Reed, BLA 1978

“I had an exceptional undergraduate education that encompassed both broad liberal arts courses and comprehensive, rigorous coursework in landscape architecture, including design, landscape history, construction, ecology, plants and graphic representation,” Reed said. “The school was ranked at the top in the nation for undergraduate education in landscape architecture.”

A leader in the field, Reed Hilderbrand currently employs fellow graduates of the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture Lydia Gikas Cook (MLA 2014), Jeremy Martin (BLA 2008), and Garrett Newton (BLA 2011).

Jeremy Martin, man with beard in blue checkered shirt

Jeremy Martin, BLA 2008

“The connection to Louisiana and LSU among the alumni working at Reed Hilderbrand is strong in both our firm’s practice and culture,” said Martin, senior associate; he has managed numerous civic and academic projects, including the redevelopment of City Hall Plaza in Baton Rouge.

“With several projects in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas, alumni in the office have enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate on works that have special importance to us because we spent time there before we became professionals, like LSU’s campus, or City Hall Plaza in Baton Rouge and City Park in New Orleans. We also keep our LSU roots strong by sharing some of the best parts of its culture with our colleagues – filling the office with king cakes during Mardi Gras, taking the afternoon off to watch bowl games against our peers’ teams, or hosting crawfish boils and pig roasts every spring and fall.”

Lydia Cook. Young woman with brown hair, black shirt.

Lydia Cook, MLA 2014

“As a Baton Rouge native, I have watched the city grow and change over the years,” Cook said. As a senior designer, her projects in Louisiana include the Baton Rouge City Hall Plaza and the New Orleans Museum of Art Sculpture Garden. “During my time at Reed Hilderbrand, I’ve been able to contribute to the city’s progress in meaningful ways through our projects, like our continued work downtown and the LSU Campus Master Plan. These opportunities have been made even more rewarding through sharing in the work with fellow alumni, who are as passionate about these places as I am.”

Reed Hilderbrand’s connection to LSU has strengthened as the firm recently worked with the university: in 2016, Reed Hilderbrand collaborated with the university, architects, and other specialists on the LSU Comprehensive and Strategic Campus Master Plan, providing landscape architecture consultation to the project. Doug, Jeremy, and Lydia all contributed to the master plan design.

Working alongside NBBJ and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, the landscape architects created a practical and flexible framework for development of and capital investment in the LSU campus landscape over the next decade and beyond. The plan proposed contemporary solutions to traffic, pedestrian circulation and experience, open space, and maintenance, while maintaining the culture, heritage and diversity of LSU’s physical campus.

LSU campus map

LSU campus map, by Reed Hilderbrand

The Comprehensive and Strategic Campus Master Plan established “landscape spines as the primary connective tissue” of the campus, connecting existing landscapes of cultural and programmatic significance, informing pedestrian priority projects, enhancing stormwater management capacity, and defining future development zones. “Shade is a critical element of the circulation system, and the plan identifies gaps in the urban canopy and proposes diversified vegetation strategies to compliment the extensive mature live oak canopy,” the landscape architects stated in the project overview.

Martin said revisiting his alma mater’s campus as a designer was a unique vantage point. “As a student at LSU, even in a design program, there is often a tendency to accept the campus as-is, because so much of it is beautiful and powerful,” he said.

“Returning to campus as a design professional requires a different, critical approach, but one that is more informed than a complete outsider,” he explained. “The new opportunities for growth and improvements that seem obvious as a professional are balanced by our understanding of the systems and constraints that we experienced during 5+ years spent on campus every day. The resulting campus master plan is rich with new, exciting ideas but grounded and authentic to LSU and the special character of the campus.”

And for those LSU alumni that collaborated on the project, it felt like returning to their roots – and this time, giving back.

Digital Art Student Arden McMillin Awarded Discover Research Grant

Art & Design, Students, Research, Art, Digital Art, Photography, , , ,
Female student by equipment

Arden McMillin, Discover Scholar

Arden McMillin, BFA 2019, is an LSU Discover undergraduate research grant recipient for the spring 2019 semester, for her photography project “Home and History: an investigation into the complexity of small southern towns that never left the Civil War.”

Arden is from Natchez, Mississippi, a historic town known for the Spring Pilgrimage tableaux, and massive plantation homes. Her photography project intends to explore her hometown’s complicated history.

“As a visual artist and photographer, my research will begin with an investigation into the complexity of small southern towns that never left the Civil War and lead to a field documentation over several weeks of the town I grew up in that still struggles to let go of a problematic past,” she said. “I am exploring the idea that the antebellum townscape appears changeless—without history.”

“I am interested in the version of history the collective town portrays to those visiting as well as to those who have spent their whole lives there. As the nation becomes more sensitive to the racial issues that have long been glazed over, I wonder if Natchez can go on serving sandwiches at ‘Mammy’s Cupboard’ and crowning a queen of the Pilgrimage in full antebellum style with no mention of slavery in sight,” Arden stated in the project overview.

“I’m so pleased that Arden is receiving recognition for this innovative project,” said Kristine Thompson, associate professor of photography and the faculty adviser for the project.

Arden will use an analog camera for this series, and plans to shoot both color and black and white film. “I believe the color film will bring out the worn qualities of the town, giving it a visual age and placing it in time,” she said.

Arden is a studio art major with a concentration in digital art and a minor in photography. “I came to LSU with the intention of pursuing animation as a way to combine my love for acting and film,” she said. “When introduced to basic photography as one of my studio requirements, I instantly clicked with it and became obsessed with the storytelling I was able to do in a whole new way.”

Her fine art photography so far has dealt with issues surrounding feminism, false realities, and the ways we perform our personas to the world around us. After graduation she hopes to create a career out of photography in the branding and editorial industries.

See Arden’s work on her website ardenhale.com.

Dr. Michael Nitsche, “Make a Thought in Your Hand”

Visiting Artists, Art, Digital Art

Dr. Michael Nitsche, associate professor in digital media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will present a lecture titled “Make a Thought in Your Hand: Puppets, Prototyping & Interactive Design” on Friday, March 1 at 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the College of Art & Design in the Design Building Auditorium (room 103).