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The Los Angeles Public Library on Friday released a new card design: a mythological Japanese child of superhuman strength whose fiery red body is attired in Dodger blue.

The art is the work of Gajin Fujita, a Los Angeles artist known for merging contemporary street art with the centuries-old style of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. His card artwork centers on Kintaro, the folklore character also known as Golden Boy, usually depicted wearing a bib with the kanji character for gold. “I gave him a twist,” Fujita said.

Over the weekend, there’s a good chance your social media feeds were flooded with photos and video from Coachella.

Over the past two decades, the music festival has become a kind of unavoidable cultural juggernaut, famously spawning not just scores of imitators, but also an entire season on the fashion calendar. 

Graphic Design USA has released its annual list recognizing the rising talent of undergraduate, graduate or continuing education students across the nation. Kate Manos (MFA Graphic Design '18) and Chase Shewbridge (BFA Graphic Design '19) were recognized for 2019.

“Weekend With” is a new series that explores the world of design through the eyes of a designer on their days off. Our last installment took us on a typographic tour of Chinatown with Tracy Ma. This week, Silas Munro, founder of poly-mode, assistant professor at Otis College of Art and Design, and an advisor and chair emeritus at Vermont College of Fine Arts, takes us through a typical weekend in his adopted home of Los Angeles.

Two days before Christmas in 1916, Los Angeles Times publisher General Harrison Gray Otis gifted his Wilshire Boulevard home—aka The Bivouac—to Los Angeles County so it could be utilized “continuously and perpetually for the Arts and advancement of the Arts.” In September 1918, when the Otis Art Institute opened its doors as part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, it became the city’s first art school.

Otis College of Art and Design‘s new in-house Creative Director, Sheharazad Fleming, is as passionate about her work as she is her city. We decided to catch up with Sheharazad to learn more about her trajectory as a designer thus far, the kinds of projects she’s most excited about, and the things she does when she’s not busy launching Otis’ new Design Lab, a place where students will be part of an on-campus, in-house design studio.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Lotería is to the pastel drawings of Judithe Hernández ('74) what the I Ching was to John Cage’s avant-garde music after World War II or the “Three Standard Stoppages” were to the Dada objects of Marcel Duchamp a century ago.

Many artists claim that their work is multidisciplinary. But Eduardo Sarabia’s (BFA Fine Arts '99) varied practice includes painting, sculpture, mezcal making and even treasure hunting. “There’s a lot of fantasy and imagination involved in my work,” he says, seated in his studio on the first floor of a 1950s industrial building in the Zapopan district of Guadalajara, Mexico. He shows me the handcrafted, blue-and-white Talavera-style ceramic tiles he’s produced for an upcoming solo exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium.

Seven years after the breakup of Sonic Youth, the godmother of grunge has carved out the unconventional career in music and visual art she always hoped for.

Winners of the 2x8 Exhibit Design Competition, a student awards program by the AIA Los Angeles chapter, have been announced with Sally Park 's "Collage City" taking first place. 2x8 is a competition, exhibition, and scholarship fund for architecture students at institutions of higher education throughout California. Academic institutions select two projects by student teams, which is then considered by a jury of architects and designers.