Friday Fright Night

In honor of our brand new (color accurate) projector, the Design Associates club hosted a monster movie night. During which, many of us enthusiastic design types participated in things such as pumpkin carving  (or in Morgan's case, pumpkin sculpting), snack eating, singing, dancing (most especially to Psy's Gangnam Style) , scaring Junior, and of course, viewing a super cheesy, black and white, 50's era monster movie, The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

by Lauren DuBose

Design Associates Media Officer

National Design Week Celebrations

Munny Monday

We kicked off this year's annual National Design Week with none other than Munny Monday.To elaborate, a Munny is a vinyl toy, which can be customized through airbrushing. This was a lunchtime event in which students of all skill sets pick up a template in Schaller's room, grab a seat, and draw themselves a Munny. Once the drawing is done, the students then submit the Munny which will then be judged during the art show, each winner is then awarded their own Munny to customize.

Paper Toy Tuesday

The second day of National Design Week is celebrated by the construction of adorable little paper craft characters. In Room P-1, during lunch, students pile in and pick out their soon-to-be paper toy, starting out with a printed template, the paper figurine is the cut out, folded, glued, then enjoyed. 

Mural Wednesday

A relatively new edition to our National Design Week line up is the mural. This being our second year doing it, we chose the theme of Zombies at the Beach, which produced a most creative and hilarious result. Our best and pretty okay artists came out of the woodwork to add their touch to our great big mural of awesomeness!

Feast Thursday

On Thursday, we celebrated National Design Week in the best way possible, with delicious food! We had the culinarily talented tri-tip expert, Bruce Nix cater our lavish affair. Each student happily piled into Schaller's room, and quickly into line to receive their delicious lunch while the other students outside cried a river tears wishing they could be a part of the festivities. Upon finishing our super awesome tri- tip, salad, bread, chicken, and beans we then feasted upon the delicious desserts brought in by students, after which we concluded the feast with casual conversation and much laughter.

Art Fight Friday

Arguably one the most exciting events, Friday consisted of a fast paced and competitive art fight, which is a head-to-head battle of art skill where each artist is given paper, a pen, five random objects to draw, and a time limit, and the one who gets the favor of the audience advances to the next round. This year, after 3 rounds or so, ROP I student, Eryka Cervantez walked away as our champion! Thus concluding National Design Week.

by Lauren DuBose

Design Associates Media Editor

Why CCA is our college of choice

Once again, the California College of the Arts has scored big on PayScale's salary survey. The survey looks at graduate's starting income and mid-career income. Based on their survey of 1058 colleges nation wide, CCA ranked an impressive 65 (tied with UC San Diego) and was the #1 art college in the nation. While a private art school education costs a small fortune, knowing that you will be able to pay that bill and still thrive is comforting to most of my students. For the complete listing, go to the survey at:
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools

by Scott Schaller

Design Associates Button Sales

This year's first  button sale of the year went off phenomenally! Under the direction and order of our Button Master, Jack Hogan, a crew of our best button makers excitedly constructed a whole slew of brand new buttons for this year's students to purchase. Some of this season's newest buttons included designs from Jamie Hedges, who designed a set of NFL logo buttons, Jose Diaz, who created a very popular set of buttons honoring the Hip-Hop collective; Odd Future, and of course, Button Master Jack and his NFL jersey buttons.

by Lauren DuBose

Design Associates Media Officer

NAHS Kicks Off

For our overachieving artsy people we have the lovely National Arts Honors Society, a club dedicated to all that is fine art and creativity, in other words, something that looks really good on our resumes and allows to wear really nifty multi-colored tassels if we graduate in good standing with the club. Our first meeting of the year took place on the eighteenth of September. During this particular meeting we elected our wonderful officers. First and foremost, we voted in our president, Morgan Williams, who has been a member of this NAHS chapter since it began her sophomore year. Secondly, we voted in our vice president, Charlie Wiswall, who has been involved with NAHS since his junior year and is also known as Mr. Wizzles. Thirdly we voted in our secretary, Lisa Lu, who has been involved with NAHS previously. And finally, we voted in our treasurer, Jamie Hedges, who has just begun to be involved with NAHS this year and she has tremendous amounts of ginger swag. Upon finishing up our elections, we then discussed our upcoming events, such as art shows and future meetings. The meeting then adjourned.

September 18, 2012

 By Lauren DuBose

Handskills Hellweek Completed

This year's ROP graphics started off the new year with its most grueling and tedious units in its existence. Hand. Skills. Hell. Week. This incredibly challenging part of the coursework tests the expertise and dexterity of each and every student, and in doing so, separates the masters of craftsmanship from the weaklings. On average, we tend to see a decrease in the size of the class as the week goes on. Now, "what is it that sends these design hopefuls running with their tales between their legs?", you might ask, well, the week kicks off with the Cutting Exercise, which test ones ability to measure, draw straight lines, then cut said lines with an X-acto knife. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Each of these steps must be done with computer accuracy. and if the product does not comply, the student repeats the step until perfection is achieved. Once one has managed to complete that, there is then the Box Making Exercise, which again tests one's ability to measure and cut, but also tests how competent a student is at following instructions and folding. During this exercise, two boxes must be constructed from scratch using only blank card stock and a list of measurements. Once the boxes have been perfectly folded and turned in, one moves on to the Binding Exercise, which consists of utilizing all our on-hand methods of binding, spiral-bound, glue-bound, rivet-bound, and fancy spiral bound (which involves cutting a framing mat for the booklet). When one has completed their binding, they move onto the Postcard Project, which involves freehand cutting imagery out of magazines and spray mount them in a collage format on one side of the card and then write a message on the other side, making it look as authentic as possible. Upon finishing the postcard, one has successfully survived the torture that is Handskills Hellweek. At the very end of this unit, the students that are still remaining that have completed all of the exercises are acknowledged and rewarded for their triumphs, their winnings include either a brand new X-acto knife or sparkling new scoring tool.

By Lauren DuBose

Design Associates Kick-Off

Back to school for our most savvy design kids also means the start of another fantastic year of Design Associates! This year's first meeting was jammed packed with students eager to decide the fate of our DA leadership. For president, it was a landslide of an election resulting in a sweet victory for Morgan Williams, our one and only ROP III student this year. We then had a couple rounds of voting for our VP, and after a final run-off vote, Sandeep "Junior Mints" Sidhu, who cried weepy tears of joy, came out victorious. Our next election was for the position of Secretary, and in a close race, junior Kyle Moore won the vote. We then held a vote for who would get the position of Treasurer, and after yet another close vote, Jillian Johnson triumphed. Afterwards, we held a vote for the position of Media Officer, and  in a close race, I, Lauren M. DuBose, was voted in as this year's Media Officer. Finally, we held our last election, for which, as every position, Jack Hogan ran for, and finally he was voted in as Button Master, the job we made solely for him. The meeting then concluded with announcements regarding our annual Disneyland trip, hoodies, and other awesome events on the horizon!

September 4, 2012

By Lauren DuBose