Latest news with #CalArts
Hans India
7 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
From sketch to screen: Explore a career in web design
The digital world is expanding rapidly, and with it, the need for well-designed, user-friendly websites is higher than ever. At the heart of this transformation are web designers—professionals who blend creativity, design thinking, and technical skills to build engaging digital experiences. From small business websites to large-scale e-commerce platforms, web designers shape how we see and use the internet. A web designer is responsible for the layout, visual appearance, and usability of a website. They ensure the site is not only visually appealing but also easy to navigate, accessible, and aligned with the client's or company's brand identity. Designers often work with tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch to create prototypes and wireframes before turning them into fully functional websites with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, sometimes collaborating closely with web developers. Skills you need To succeed as a web designer, students should build a mix of technical and creative skills, including: • Graphic design principles • Typography and color theory • Responsive design and mobile-first layouts • Basic coding (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) • User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design Additionally, soft skills like communication, attention to detail, and problem-solving are vital when working with clients or cross-functional teams. Top courses for aspiring web designers There are many online and offline courses that can help students get started. Some top-rated options include: • Google UX Design Certificate (Coursera) • UI/UX Design Specialization by CalArts (Coursera) • Web Design for Everybody (University of Michigan, edX) • Responsive Web Design Certification (freeCodeCamp) • UI Design Course (Interaction Design Foundation) Design institutes and universities also offer diploma and degree programs in web or graphic design. Career Opportunities Web designers can work in many settings: • Freelance/Consulting: Designing for multiple clients on a project basis. • Startups and Tech Companies: Building user-facing websites and apps. • Advertising and Marketing Agencies: Creating campaign landing pages and branded experiences. • Corporate Design Teams: Managing internal and public-facing websites. As you grow, you may specialize further into UX design, UI design, product design, or creative direction. Web design is ideal for students who enjoy both art and technology. It offers: • A creative outlet with tangible results • Remote work and freelance options • Cross-industry demand, from fashion to finance • Opportunities to continuously learn and grow A career in web design offers the perfect balance between creativity and technology. For students who love to create, solve problems, and shape user experiences, this is an exciting and future-proof path. With the right skills and mindset, web design can be more than just a job—it can be a creative journey that evolves with the digital world.
Business of Fashion
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business of Fashion
Is the Art Market AI-Proof?
Welcome to Arts Radar, a monthly column by Marc Spiegler breaking down key developments in contemporary art and the wider worlds of design, music, cinema and television. There's no shortage of AI-catastrophising in the arts these days — and, frankly, it's justified. Sapping our attention away from culture with a capital C, the world is awash in AI slop such as the absurdist AI-generated Ballerina Cappucina and Cappuccino Assassino characters at the heart of the viral 'Italian Brainrot' TikTok videos. Amazon's Kindle marketplace teems with AI-generated facsimiles of bestsellers, just as Spotify has to constantly cull AI cover versions of hits uploaded by royalties chasers. Last year, Hollywood actors and screenwriters went on strike, in part to protect their livelihoods from generative AI, while in March, thousands of artists signed an open letter calling on Christie's to cancel an auction focussed on art made using artificial intelligence. All of which makes particularly bold Chanel's mid-April announcement that it will fund a new centre focussed on artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital imaging at CalArts — the Los Angeles art school whose alumni include John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Catherine Opie, Tim Burton and Sofia Coppola. 'In the ever-changing age of AI, the Chanel Center for Artists and Technology will enable and encourage creatives across disciplines to harness that innovation — to take human imagination further than ever before,' said Chanel's head of arts and culture Yana Peel in a statement. The budget? The French fashion giant isn't saying but CalArts president Ravi S. Rajan told Artnet: 'I'd hazard a guess it could be the largest for any art school ever. It's super meaningful and transformational.' To be clear, I'm not an AI optimist. There's no doubt that artificial intelligence threatens jingle-composers, movie extras, stunt people, catalog-essay writers, translators, graphic designers and countless other creative roles. And while AI will benefit creators already operating at the highest levels — allowing them to ramp up production while lowering costs — those breaking into the sector will suffer as it eliminates many entry-level gigs. 'When I started at Christie's, they would hand me a transparency of a Picasso and send me to the library to find all the books in which it was cited,' said Dirk Boll, now the auction house's deputy chairman for 20th and 21st century art. 'AI does that in a nano-second now.' But the culture sector's beef with AI is also philosophic, tied to the notion that the artist is an auteur not a mere content producer, and that their individual experience and unique pattern of thinking, as well as their technical expertise, is what makes an artwork valuable. Yes, AI may be modern-day magic, admit critics, but it's the kind of magic that destroys cultural value. This argument is only half-logical, however. Like the Renaissance and Old Master painters, artists such as Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami produce work using scores of assistants. And ever since Marcel Duchamp's seminal work 'Fountain' — a urinal he signed with the mysterious pseudonym 'R. Mutt' and placed in the 1917 Society of Independent Artists salon — artists have created valuable works by recontextualising found objects. So, who is the Duchamp of the AI age? 'This is new technology, and artists are still discovering its capacities,' said Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of London's Serpentine Galleries, which went deep on tech a decade ago when Obrist arrived there and installed the artworld's first institutional CTO. 'TVs were around for a long time before Nam June Paik started making them into art.' That said, there are already major artists working with AI. Lynn Hershman Leeson has been using nascent AI for a quarter-century in work exploring women's identity. Ian Cheng's 2018 AI-powered piece 'BOB (Bag of Beliefs)' interacted with gallery visitors, displaying a wide range of personalities, before going further. 'One morning at 6am, the Serpentine security called me to say that the video screens had suddenly turned on,' recalled Obrist with glee. 'BOB had decided to open the show early!' Currently running in Los Angeles at Sprüth Magers gallery, Jon Rafman's solo show 'Proof of Concept' overwhelms visitors with an unending stream of AI content from the fictional Main Stream Media network (MSM),' including videos from the AI popstar Cl0udyH3art, which Rafman created. In this sense, we see visual artists doing what they always do: engage with new developments in society, birthing new artistic content. But it's hardly the paradigm shift we see in other fields, where AI has led to unicorn companies, mass layoffs and entirely new business models. In the music world, for example, the most interesting AI-engaged artist is the avant-garde musician Holly Herndon, who in 2019 created Spawn, an AI singer that she wove into her album 'PROTO.' Two years later she released Holly+, a deepfake of her own voice and allowed other musicians to use it, sharing IP rights with Herndon. In 2023, as AI became widely available, Herndon and her partner Matt Dryhurst took things a step further, launching the software startup Spawning to defend fellow creators by allowing them to identify when their art had been used in training AI, so the they could demand their work be removed from the data set — unless they were paid. The art industry, by contrast, seems unlikely to be disrupted by AI. Per Art Basel and UBS's latest annual report, art is a $57.5 billion market, too small to justify giant AI investments. And given the personality-driven (and often highly irrational) nature of selling and buying art, where the human touch remains essential to justifying high prices, it's hard to imagine AI could play a real role — at least in the upper echelons of the market, which account for the lion's share of financial value and where the few hundred collectors that matter are wooed over lunch, not via algorithmic entreaties. 'Even if Warhol didn't produce every silkscreen with his own hands, collectors believe that each piece was his idea, and that's important,' said Boll. He recalls that a decade ago when German artist Anselm Reyle was among the art world's hottest artists, and thus producing a ton of work, 'a rumour circulated that he had his studio assistants make work 'in his style,' which he then approved after the fact. While this may not have been true, it damaged his market.' 'Sinners' Winners Made for a mere $90 million and starring Michael B Jordan as identical twins who launch a Mississippi juke joint, the vampire movie 'Sinners' came out surprisingly strong during its mid-April opening weekend, scoring the biggest post-pandemic debut for an original film. But in Hollywood, the big 'Sinners' story was the deal that director Ryan Coogler had struck with Warner Brothers. Leveraging the power that came with helming the hit 'Black Panther' films, the director pushed for a 'first-dollar' deal — meaning that he immediately made money when the film hit theaters, rather than only once the studio recoups its investment. In addition, all financial rights to the film revert to Coogler after 25 years. On the movie's opening day New York Magazine's Vulture site published a widely read piece titled 'Hollywood Execs Fear Ryan Coogler's Sinners Deal 'Could End the Studio System.'' The article anonymously quoted execs who implied that a struggling Warner had broken rank and caved to Coogler, then wrapped up by reporting that 'the Coogler deal has come to be regarded as Hollywood's latest (if not nearly greatest) extinction-level threat. In response, Coogler said the deal was catalysed by the 'Sinners' plot surrounding Jordan's twin characters' fight to establish a Black-owned club in the Jim Crow South. Getting first-dollar gross plus reversion-rights is rare even among A-listers. But white directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater have struck similar deals in the past, leading many commentators to suggest the furore was ignited as much by the colour of Coogler's skin as by the content of his contract. The good news is that the film had already grossed over $320 million as Arts Radar went live, far more than expected, so by now everyone involved is making money. A Venetian Tragedy With less than a year to go before its May 2026 opening, the Venice Art Biennial — easily the most important event of its type on the global art stage — is facing unprecedented challenges. Shortly before she was slated to announce the theme of her biennial, Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroon-born art curator who was set to artistic direct the event suddenly died, at age 57, of breast cancer. Insiders say that she planned to exhibit roughly 65 artists, a fifth as many as her predecessor Adriano Pedrosa, and many of those had already been chosen. The biennale is expected to announce the new director this week. But given the very personal way in which Kouoh planned to work with the artists she had picked, it will be a challenge for whomever steps into her shoes. Running such an important event, in a city where everything must arrive by boat, with a tiny allocated budget is already a tall order without having to use another curator's roster. There's also a strong political dimension here: Kouoh would have been the first African woman to lead the Venice Biennale (and only the second African, after Okwui Enwezor, who also died in his fifties). And to make the 2026 biennale run-up thornier still, the closely watched American pavilion is getting sucked into the Trump vortex: The pavilion application, only recently published, says that the US State Department seeks to 'advance international understanding of American values by exposing foreign audiences to innovative and compelling works of art that reflect and promote American values.' Of course, applicants can't have DEI programs in place — easy for most artists, but perhaps much harder for the institutional curator who proposes them. Regardless of who is chosen, they will be working on a radically shorter timeline than any of their predecessors, and the Trump administration has repeatedly suggested defunding the National Endowment for the Arts, which administers the pavilion. Will there even be a 2026 US pavilion? Kathleen Ash-Milby, who co-commissioned the American presence in 2024 told Vanity Fair: 'I honestly think it might already be past the point of no return.' What Else I'm Tracking Pharrell Williams's Auction Platform Joopiter Teamed with Martha Stewart for First Contemporary Art Sale [The Art Newspaper] Larry David's 'My Dinner With Hitler' Essay Pokes Fun At Bill Maher's White House Meal With Trump [Deadline] A$AP Rocky Shades Eric Adams, Says He's Going to Run for NYC Mayor: 'I'm Dead Fucking Serious' [Variety] Reunited Couple Kanye West and Bianca Censori Sue His Dentist for Malpractice, Providing Nitrous Oxide [The Hollywood Reporter] Having led Art Basel from 2007 to 2022, Marc Spiegler now works on a portfolio of cultural-strategy projects. He is President of the Board of Directors of Superblue, works with the Luma Foundation, and serves on the boards of the ArtTech and Art Explora foundations. In addition to consulting for companies such as Prada Group, KEF Audio and Sanlorenzo, Spiegler has long been a Visiting Professor in cultural management at Università Bocconi in Milan and recently launched the Art Market Minds Academy.
Time of India
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Pee-wee as Himself OTT Release Date: When and where to watch Matt Wolf's documentary series ft. Paul Reubens
Pee-wee as Himself OTT Release Date: This one's a heartfelt tribute to the man behind the bowtie, now coming to your screens. If you grew up watching the quirky, wide-eyed, and always-energetic Pee-wee Herman, then there's something special heading your way. Pee-wee as Himself, a touching documentary series about Paul Reubens, the man who gave life to Pee-wee, is all set to release on May 24, 2025, on JioHotstar. Directed by Matt Wolf, this two-part documentary dives into the colourful and complex life of Reubens. With never-before-heard interviews recorded before his passing, rare archive footage, and heartfelt stories, Pee-wee as Himself gives fans a close, unfiltered look at who Paul Reubens really was beneath the bowtie and red bicycle. From Pee-wee's playhouse to pop culture icon Paul Reubens was a creator, a performer, and a phenomenon. Pee-wee as Himself tracks how he developed the Pee-wee character while studying at CalArts and performing with the famous improv group The Groundlings in Los Angeles. Pee-wee Herman started as a stage act but quickly transformed into a household name thanks to the hit children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse and movies like Pee-wee's Big Adventure (directed by Tim Burton). This part of the documentary celebrates how Reubens broke the mould by creating a show that was whimsical, weird, and wildly ahead of its time. Where Pee-wee as Himself truly hits home is in its exploration of Reubens' personal life - his struggles, vulnerabilities, and battles behind the scenes. In recordings done before his death in July 2023, Reubens opens up about his identity, revealing for the first time that he was gay. He talks honestly about his relationships, his fear of public judgment, and the reasons why he kept many things private for so long. Pee-wee as Himself also doesn't shy away from controversies that affected his life and career, including his 1991 and 2002 arrests. Reubens addresses the pain of being misjudged and misunderstood and how the experience deeply impacted him. The documentary features interviews with collaborators and admirers, including Tim Burton, Judd Apatow, and others who reflect on his influence in comedy, children's television, and beyond.
Sharjah 24
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sharjah 24
Bancroft Brothers share insights on Disney's golden age at SAC
From Snoopy sketches to Disney dreams The brothers began the talk with a childhood anecdote, saying, 'According to our mother we started drawing at the very young age of three-years-old, and she still has these sketches to this day,' Tom grinned, projecting side-by-side sketches of Snoopy. 'Mine was technically accurate… but stiff as a board. Tony's looked like a clumsy dog mid-sprint.' Tony shot back, 'Hey, I was just preparing for my future animating warthogs and candlesticks!' Their early rivalry-turned-collaboration eventually led them to enrol in CalArts, the Disney-funded arts school Walt himself envisioned, but finances nearly derailed their dreams. 'Our parents told us unfortunately we would only have one year left, and we had to make a plan to somehow find employment,' Tony recalled. Undeterred, the twins crashed a Disney recruiter's portfolio review meant for seniors. 'We sweet-talked our professor with puppy eyes and a lot of caffeine,' Tom quipped. The gamble paid off, and both landed internships at Disney's studio in 1988. By 21, they became full time animators and were promoted to more senior positions by the age of 25. Creating beloved Disney icons Tony's breakout moment came with Beauty and the Beast, where he animated the neurotic clock Cogsworth. 'I related to him being constantly stressed, always ticking!' he joked. But it was his role as character designer and supervising animator for Pumbaa in The Lion King that cemented his legacy. 'Pumbaa's voice actor, Ernie Sabella, ad-libbed so much, we had to animate around his chaos. That warthog's flatulence? Pure improv genius.' Tom, meanwhile, became Disney's 'character whisperer,' designing the fiery dragon Mushu for Mulan. 'Mushu's sass was 90% me, 10% Eddie Murphy,' he deadpanned. The character's popularity stunned even him, saying 'I've even seen Mushu tattoos. Tattoos!.' Iron sharpens iron The brothers' chemistry shone as they debated their workflows. 'Tom's a perfectionist; he'd tweak an eyelash for days,' Tony teased. Tom fired back, 'Tony's 'done' when he's bored. That's why Pumbaa's tail end is half-finished!' Yet their rivalry fueled creativity. Tom stated a proverb they live by, quoting, 'As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another,' to which Tony added, 'Translation: We roast each other until the work sparkles.' Post-Disney, the twins pivoted to mentoring, and Tom founded Lipscomb University's animation programme in Nashville, with Tony joining him in 2021. Their most recent success is through hosting 'The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast', a #1 iTunes hit where they interview legends from the industry. 'It's like therapy, but with more doodling,' Tony said. They also continue to be pioneers in family-friendly animation, with Tony co-directing an ambitious faith-driven biopic, Light of the World, which was released this year; while Tom's Pencilish Animation Studios champions stories for younger audiences. 'We're still making art that lasts,' Tom said, 'But now with less deadline-induced panic.' Closing the talk, the twins advised aspiring animators to embrace terrible drawings, and keep on practicing. 'My first Snoopy looked like roadkill, and look at me now!' Tom added.
Los Angeles Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Appreciation: Joe Goode (1937-2025)
Is a painting an image or an object? Or reverse the order for a sculpture — is it an object or an image? It's both, Joe Goode's art answered as the 1960s began — something surely material but purely visual. And something else besides, something curious and engaging that you haven't ever seen before. In his strongest work, the Los Angeles-based artist — who died of natural causes in his sleep on March 22, a day before his 88th birthday — held the image and the object in eccentric equipoise. The result is an uncanny sense of vivid presence. In 1961, not long after the Oklahoma transplant left Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), where he studied with influential Light & Space artist Robert Irwin, Goode began an enigmatic series of 13 paintings of milk bottles. Most are roughly square, five-to-six foot canvases of seemingly monochrome color. A glass milk bottle from Alta Dena Dairy slathered with paint, either in matching or contrasting color, stands on the floor in front of the painting, which is hung about three inches off the floor — certainly an unusual height. Installed that low, the painting's scale is geared to the body of an average adult looking at it. The flat painting becomes a 'wall,' the slathered milk bottle becomes 'a painting.' Sometimes, Goode included a contour drawing of the bottle behind it on the canvas, suggesting that one is the projection of the other. (Whether the bottle or the painting is the projection remains a question.) Look closely, and often the monochrome canvas is gently brushed with multiple layers of color. The result is ethereal, further enhancing the image/object conundrum. Goode's knockout series arose from two primary sources. One was the contemplative, nearly monochrome still lifes of ceramic vessels by heralded Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, which caused a stir in 1961 at the painter's rare American gallery exhibition at Ferus on La Cienega Blvd. The other was the vigorous argument between abstraction and figuration as front runner of the avant-garde, then being hard-fought in the American art world. Which was more adventurous? Goode's painterly retort — still lifes that held the abstract and the figurative in taut equilibrium — brilliantly neutralized that argument, while adding depth to the object/image dichotomy. A third, less observable source was more private and personal: When Goode's first child was born, the milkman arrived at the doorstep almost daily bearing a fresh Alta Dena bottle. The artist launched the series. Art's spur came not only from the specialized art world, but from ordinary human experience. Goode's job was to bring them all into harmonious play. One work, a deep purple monochrome rising behind a vivid orange bottle, graced the sixth cover of the new Artforum magazine. In the 1960s, Goode's work was uncomfortably tagged as Pop art. It shared some attributes of paintings by Ed Ruscha, his childhood friend from Oklahoma City, as well as Southern California artists as diverse as John Baldessari, Billy Al Bengston, Wallace Berman and Vija Celmins, with whom he established the vigorous 1960s L.A. art scene. But those artists approached representational imagery in a wide variety of ways. As his career developed over the next five decades, and as art movements began to unravel as a way to characterize art, the term fell away. Goode almost always worked in a series — for instance, making multiple sculptures of staircases whose orderly repetition of rectilinear treads and risers put a domestic tongue firmly in the industrial cheek of Minimalist art's crisp geometry. (Carpeting softened the cold edges.) He hung painted paper and canvas on a line and blasted them with shotgun pellets, the random shredding establishing layers of color when the sheets were placed atop one another, or exposing the gallery wall as yet another painted layer. He painted clouds drifting through azure skies, then tore them up and reassembled the heavens to his liking. He splashed and poured liquid thinners over paint, causing chemical reactions to burn holes in the surface — 'Ozone Paintings,' he called them. Creative destruction was a regular theme. (Even in high school art class, Goode had delighted in making sculptures to be set on fire.) An element of violence was appropriate for an era torn apart by war, civil rights unrest and epic environmental degradation, but Goode redeemed the tumult through art. One result was an extensive exhibition record — more than 120 solo shows at museums and galleries internationally – as well as representation in nearly 30 museum collections, including extensive holdings at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art, New York's Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Goode is survived by his wife, Hiromi, and niece Yuki Katayama. No funeral for the artist is planned, but according to a spokesman at Michael Kohn Gallery, which represents the artist, a memorial celebration is being discussed for a later date.
