Newsroom

The latest at CCA

From student spotlights and faculty stories to recent media coverage and current events, catch up on what’s new.

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Story

MFA Design launches the Design Futures Lab

Led by Assistant Chair Sara Dean, the Design Futures Lab provides students with the resources they need to practice speculative design and propose alternate futures.
Photograph of MFA in Design student Sarah Bonnickson as she demonstrates her drawing machine.

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Decolonizing design

CCA’s Decolonial School focuses on how to relate diversity, inclusion, and equity to artistic and design practice.

From the As, Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes exhibition at CCA.

Media coverage / Dec. 19, 2022

Undergraduate Interior Design student receives 2022 Lighting Design Award

Celebrating lighting designers for their creativity and innovation, the LIT Lighting Design Awards recognizes CCA undergraduate Owen Fernando Patia (Interior Design) as Emerging Lighting Designer of the Year.

Photo of a large, digitally rendered gallery with figures draped in blue and green lighting.

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Can graphic design be political?

Postcards to the President, a project that encouraged attendees to write messages to POTUS, Vice President Pence, state reps, and local leaders.

Collection of postcards for the president and rubber stamps

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Design pedagogy for collective work

The Design division explores three different educational opportunities at CCA that transcend individual learning through teamwork.
Assistant Professor Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera (center) teaches his Decolonization & Design course in 2019.

Media coverage / July 1, 2019

Tish Evangelista, Graphic Design alum, on the moral responsibilities of branding and design agencies

Creative Director and founder at Character, a San Francisco-based agency, Tish Evangelista (BFA Graphic Design 1998) strives to work with clients who enhance lives and society through their products.
Tish Evangelista is a creative director and founder at Character.

Media coverage / Nov. 24, 2019

Erik Carter, CCA graphic design faculty member, discusses teaching and his independent design practice

Animator, illustrator, graphic designer, and CCA faculty Erik Carter has a profile on It's Nice That, a publisher of inspirational stories focused on creative design. View the article for examples of Carter's work.
Selected works from Erik Carter.

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Interior design junior wins major scholarship

CCA interior design junior Antonia Widodo awarded $30,000 from the Angelo Donghia Foundation.
Portrait of Antonia Widodo, CCA Interior Design junior.

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Design division welcomes two new chairs

Two new chairs join CCA's Design division, Erin Malone, Chair of Interaction Design and Sara Fenske Bahat, Chair of MBA in Design Strategy.

A faculty member trying out a student project.

Media coverage / Sept. 13, 2019

California Home + Design profiles alum Gary Hutton and his four decades in the interior design field

Learn about alum Gary Hutton, a 1975 CCA graduate in Environmental Studies, who has spent his career working on myriad commercial and residental interior design projects throughout California.
Interior design for a home by alumnus Gary Hutton.

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VP of Design at Fitbit and graduate of CCA's Industrial Design program talks about his career journey

Fitbit's VP of Design Jonah Becker shares how his industrial design degree from CCA helped him get there.
VP of Design at Fitbit and Graduate of CCA's Industrial Design Program Talks About His Career Journey.jpg

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Graphic Design Students Create BART Etiquette Posters

Graphic design students work with BART to encourage better rider etiquette.
BART game over poster.png

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A decade of design strategy at CCA

We celebrated a decade of the Design Strategy MBA program at CCA with a day spotlighting speeches and presentations from some of the talented people responsible for molding the program into what it is today.
Decade_of_DMBA_Quote.jpg

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Should I get an MFA in Design?

Second-year MFA in Design candidate Winston Struye answers prospective students’ most urgent question.

Should I get an MFA in Design?

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Interrogating boundaries: hybrid practices in MFA Design

Five examples of how collaborative, multidisciplinary design can unlock new possibilities in unlikely places.
IF/THEN, San Pablo Avenue Ramble, 2019

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How architectural design can improve social equity

Today, thought leaders in the field are approaching architectural design with an eye not only to aesthetics and environmental sustainability, but also to social equity.

Drawing of people of all ages and ethnicities gathering for picnics and barbecues in a green space surrounded by houses.

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CCA wins San Francisco Design Week award

CCA’s new webpage on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) shares how our community cultivates impact and action.

deib-listing_thumbnail-Jl

Media coverage / Sept. 27, 2018

Alumni-founded design studio champions local production

Dezeen reports on Yield cofounders Andrew Deming (MBA design strategy) and Rachel Grant (BFA industrial design) and their launch of US-made furniture and household goods.
Ceramic pitcher by Yield

Media coverage / July 29, 2020

Alum Miriam Hillawi Abraham (MFA Interaction Design 2019) wins prestigious Graham Foundation Grant to develop her MFA Design thesis

Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus seeks to activate architectural landscapes while it uncovers and reinstates the presence and power of those marginalized by the dominant conservative ethos of Ethiopian society.
Miriam Hillawi Abraham, 2019. Exhibition of thesis work, “Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus,” at the Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco.

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DMBA alumna employs design strategy to launch musicians

When Vinitha Watson (MBA Design Strategy 2010; now a trustee) first enrolled at CCA’s DMBA program, she wasn’t sure what would come of it.
Vinitha Watson (headshot)

Lindsay Wright

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