Otis College Caps 2024-2025 Academic Year with Successful O-Launch Event
The Otis Community celebrated many achievements and milestones this year.
Otis College’s event-filled 2024-2025 academic year culminated with its annual O-Launch Exhibition Weekend May 9–10, during which over 4,300 family members, friends, and guests from the community celebrated the work of graduating BFA and MFA students. The campus became a giant exhibition space for work across all disciplines—Animation, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Environmental Design, Game and Entertainment Design, Illustration, Product Design, and Toy Design—and lit up the night sky with the annual fashion show. Alumni from near and far regrouped at a special reception, and over 300 industry professionals mingled with a new generation of emerging artists and designers ready to enter the workforce.
The weekend came to a celebratory end with Commencement, during which graduates heard about resilience from President Charles Hirschhorn, who was impacted by the Palisades Fire earlier this year. “I don’t think I ever used the word ‘remediation’ before this year. It means to heal or cure. To stop something that is damaging,” Hirschhorn said during the ceremony. “Much like the people remediating my home from toxic to welcoming, you have the talent to remediate the world around you. Whether an artist or designer, you are now ready to pursue your creative ambitions, to express beauty, style, and vision in the world around you. There is no shortage of damage out there, but you have the talent to remediate it.”
This year’s honorary degree recipient, Ann Philbin, shared galvanizing words for the Class of 2025, rooted in her experiences as the
former director of the Hammer Museum of UCLA. According to The New York Times, “Under Philbin, the Hammer…embraced contemporary art and became an important platform
for emerging and underappreciated artists with an emphasis on social justice.”
“Art—and I use that word in the broadest sense of the word—doesn’t save us. It doesn’t feed a starving child or hold back floods or fires. But it does something else. Something no less urgent. It reminds us that we have a soul. It tells us who we are, and what we’ve done, and how we’ve survived,” Philbin said. “You are not just artists and designers, you are witnesses and truth tellers of the stories that will last beyond your own lifetimes.”
A Year of Celebrations and Milestones
Otis Atelier
A week prior to O-Launch, the College hosted its fourth annual Otis Atelier scholarship benefit at a private residence in Beverly Hills. Over 175 guests, including Sharon Stone, Katherine Ross and Michael Govan, stylist Elizabeth Stewart, TV personality Tai Beauchamp, designer Rod Beattie, and others helped raise critical funds for first-generation scholarships at Otis. Stephanie Horton, Senior Director of Global Consumer Marketing and Strategy for Commerce at Google, received the Creative Innovator Award, and Hector Muelas, the Chief Brand Creative Officer of Tiffany & Co., a LVMH Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton company, received the Creative Visionary Award. Fashion Design junior Madison Bigger was the second recipient of the Mandy Einstein Fashion Scholarship, which recognized her boundary-pushing designs and passion for sustainability.
Otis College Report on the Creative Economy
Otis College’s thought leadership on the impact of creative industries was on full display at the 2025 launch event for the Otis College Report on the Creative Economy at Snap Inc. headquarters on May 27. Patrick Adler and Taner Osman from Westwood Economics and Planning Associates, which partners with Otis College on the report, presented on shifts within California’s dynamic creative economy through the third quarter of 2024 and provided an overview of the latest updates to the Otis Creative Economy Dashboard, which launched last year. The program included a panel discussion, “Design Hub L.A.: Powering the Creative Economy,” moderated by writer and broadcaster Frances Anderton that delved into Los Angeles’s role as a global design capital. Panelists included Barbara Bestor, Founder & Principal, Bestor Architecture; Chris Down, EVP, Chief Design Officer, Mattel, Inc.; Dana Flowers, Senior Creative Lead, Movies and Series, Amazon MGM Studios; and Jackson George, EVP/Head of Brand Creative, Disney+, and Co-head of Creative Marketing, Walt Disney Studios.
MFA Fine Arts Thesis Shows and Speakers
Otis College’s second-year MFA Fine Arts candidates exhibited thesis shows from January through April in the Bolsky Gallery on campus, after which the exhibitions were available for online viewing in virtual galleries. New shows were installed throughout Spring semester and students were available to discuss their work at in-person receptions held during their respective exhibitions.
The Fine Arts program also welcomed several guest speakers to campus, including: artist Dawoud Bey, who delivered the annual Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture in conversation with Provost Colette Veasey-Cullors in February; architect Xu Tiantian, who shared a lecture followed by a Q&A in March as this year’s Donghia Designer-in-Residence; and Darby English, who spoke in April as this year’s Fine Arts Critic-in-Residence.
Design Lab Graphis Award
Otis College’s Design Lab, the only design studio in Los Angeles that functions as a collaboration between students, staff, faculty, and external clients, won a 2025 Graphis New Talent Gold Award in the Design/Product Design category for its upcycled tote bags made from street banners. This marks Design Lab’s third Graphis award and its first Gold (the previous awards were Silver). The New Talent Awards “highlight the visionary work of students and tomorrow’s creative leaders, showcasing fresh perspectives and groundbreaking ideas,” according to the Graphis website.
Netflix x Otis Access Program Graduates First Cohort
Launched in 2023, the Netflix x Otis Access Entertainment Certificate Program provided emerging creatives with a pathway to exciting careers in entertainment marketing. Combining the expertise of Otis instructors and professionals across the entertainment industry, the 20-month career preparation program, which graduated its first cohort, taught students the skills required for jobs in entertainment marketing, with courses such as Introduction to Trailer Editing and Writing for Visual Communication. The program also introduced students to the soft skills of interpersonal communication necessary for career success. The program culminated in a six-month paid apprenticeship with one of Netflix’s creative agency partners. Students received full-tuition scholarships that included all required program materials, a computer, and software applications. They also received access to one-on-one mentorship with entertainment industry professionals and top art and design instructors.
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