For the first time in the series, we are turning the design of the next master designer series at UCLA Extension over to design students, across the world.  We would love you to participate. Poster and Cover is for: Spring Quarter, 2023

Theme: What does “Diversity” mean to you?

About the series: 

The series started in 1990 with Paul Rand and continues with luminaries in the design world. 

The Masters of Design series of covers/posters communicate the scope of UCLA Extension’s continuing education program. Paul Rand launched the series in 1990, creating a snow-capped orange for the Winter Quarter 1990 cover. The rest is history. Rand not only set the quality standard for the covers, but his participation also encouraged other noteworthy designers to follow his lead. Such legends as Saul Bass, Lou Danziger, Frank Gehry, Ivan Chermayoff, Eiko Ishioka, Henry Wolf, George Tscherney, and Milton Glaser are among the dozens of designers who created UCLA Extension catalog covers.

The impressive collection has been shown in exhibitions, and top designers consider the invitation to design the catalog cover an honor they are unlikely to refuse.

About this call:

We are inviting students from around the world to participate in creating a poster for the series. The series celebrates lifelong learning through taking classes at UCLA Extension and celebrates curiosity, trying new things, openness, and joy. The series is not political or commercial; it is focused on the joy of learning and the lifelong pursuit of knowledge.

Some sample cover over the years can be viewed here:

https://www.scotthutchinson.com/project/ucla-extension-master-cover-series/ 

The world is getting richer by the minute. Even twenty years ago, before the internet, we did not have the luxury of instantaneous access to the entire bank of global knowledge, and neither we had the ability to reach practically any person from any corner of the world. Because of this unprecedented interconnection of humans and their data, we are much more often introduced to things and experiences we’ve never seen, felt, or encountered before. This ever-increasing exposure to the unfamiliar makes what once

felt foreign, strange or threatening to us much more acceptable, familiar and enjoyable. That is the epitome of diversity – our ability to embrace different cultures, unique belief systems, and opposing points of view on various subjects, regardless of their place of origin, thus making us more tolerant of those different from us.

This is where the young generation is light years ahead of us, which is beautiful. Born in the digital age, they only know the world where practically any border can be crossed with a mouse click. They know no barriers – zooming with a friend across the globe is as natural to them as talking to a neighbor down the street. They do not see any difference. Unlike us, for whom having a friend that looks different from us might have been an oddity, for the Millenials, each of their friends could look unlike every other. This is a great new world, and we invite everyone to embrace it with open arms.

Topic

What does “Diversity” mean to you? We invite international design students to participate in this call and share their visual ideas with us!

Willingness to openly collaborate with your peers and your colleagues’ diverse cultural backgrounds allow for a free exchange of new and different ideas. It helps the number of these ideas to grow exponentially. This development of unique artistic styles based on the ideas of tolerance, inclusiveness, and diversity is an integral part of any form of creative expression. Only by welcoming different points of view can one become a truly versatile artist, capable of thinking and creating outside the box.

In the first round of the call, a short-list of entries will be selected from the submitted works. In the second phase of the selection process event organizers or a jury panel will pick a set of 9 design finalists, all of which will be on the Spring 2023 UCLA Extension Cover. The short-list selection will be presented in a traditional venue at UCLA and published on the posterterritory media platforms and other virtual galleries. Traveling exhibitions of the short-list selection are currently in the works. Importantly, all submissions that the judges determine meet the poster requirements and university standards will be shown on our website.

You can submit two posters per entry.

For more details, visit https://visual.uclaextension.edu/master-designers-series-open-call/.