Brent Barson Archives - BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications

BYU professors’ design projects featured in top graphic design journal

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 20:07:38 +0000

Two animated projects from BYU professor Brent Barson were recently accepted into the Communication Arts 2020 Design Annual, a prestigious graphic design journal. Out of the 2,900 total entries, just 126 were accepted. “It is a gratifying validation of all the hard work we pour into our projects,” Barson said in response to his projects’ acceptance into the journal. With art direction and illustration by Linda Reynolds, another BYU professor, and animation by Barson, the two designed and created one of the accepted projects, a short film titled “The Get.” The project was commissioned by KUER’s RadioWest Films in Salt Lake City, which presents unique stories with a focus on Utah. “There is so much satisfaction that comes from having others love a project you feel so passionately about,” Reynolds said. Read the full article at news.byu.edu.

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The College of Fine Arts and Communications Announces Chair and Director Appointments

Brendan Gwynn — Fri, 01 May 2020 15:58:55 +0000

Joe Ostraff, Diane Reich and Brent Barson will begin their new leadership roles in the college in July, with Curt Holman continuing on as Department of Dance chair Ed Adams, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, has announced the appointment of two new chairs and one new director, as well as one reappointed chair for the college. Joe Ostraff will replace Gary Barton as chair of the Department of Art, Diane Thueson Reich will replace Kirt Saville as director of the School of Music and Brent Barson will replace Eric Gillett as chair of the Department of Design. All of the appointments will take effect July 1, 2020. In addition, Curt Holman, who has been serving as chair of the Department of Dance, has been reappointed for another three years. “I have great appreciation for those who have filled these leadership appointments so diligently,” Adams said. “Each has made sacrifices and taken the time to serve the needs of the students, faculty and staff in their respective areas. We have all been blessed by their leadership, and I know they will continue to have a significant impact on the college. We also look forward to the contributions of those in new leadership roles.” Joe Ostraff received an MFA from the University of Washington. He taught at Snow College as well as Timpview, Alta and South Sevier High Schools before coming to BYU in 1993. During his career, Ostraff has primarily taught painting, drawing and advanced studio courses. He has directed or co-directed numerous collaborative projects between BYU and international programs, which has involved hundreds of students and faculty and resulted in more than 30 international, national and regional exhibitions. Ostraff has been the recipient of numerous art awards and artist residencies. In 2017, he received the College of Fine Arts and Communications Excellence in Scholarship/Creative Works award. In addition, he has been awarded the Utah Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship three times and was recently the recipient of an international fellowship, which included a two-month artist residency in Ballinglen, Ireland. “Through his almost 27 years as an art faculty member at BYU, Ostraff has developed a deep understanding of the programs, curriculum, and educational needs of the department,” Adams said. “His dedication to creativity, art making and collaboration is motivating. He is an enthusiastic and impassioned educator who cares deeply about students and works tirelessly to assist them in their growth and development.” Diane Thueson Reich studied as an undergraduate at the University of Arkansas and graduated from Utah State University Magna Cum Laude. She went on to earn her master’s and doctorate degrees from the Indiana University School of Music. During her studies, Reich taught at Utah State and Indiana and later became the director of opera at Central Washington University in 2002. Reich has been the winner of regional and national vocal competitions, as well as an invited soloist and clinician in international venues. She came to BYU in 2007. During her time in the BYU School of Music, Reich has made many contributions, including eight years as vocal division coordinator. Since 2013, more than 40 of her students have received top placements in regional, national and international competitions or auditions, and have been awarded professional singing roles after graduation; others have gone on to prestigious masters and doctoral programs. “Through our interviews with the faculty in the School of Music, it was evident that Reich has the respect and admiration of her colleagues and staff of the school,” Adams said. “She is a prime example of one who exemplifies affirmative support of the university’s mission and Aims of a BYU Education. Her outreach in the community, regionally, nationally and internationally indicates a vocal and musical authority worthy of esteem and station.” Brent Barson graduated from BYU in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design prior to receiving an MFA in media design from the Art Center College of Design. He returned to BYU in 2004 as a visiting assistant professor and became an assistant professor in 2007. Since beginning at BYU, Barson has become the graphic design program leader, where he advises more than 100 first-year non-major students each year regarding their application portfolios. He also assists graphic design students by helping to place them in internships and jobs. In 2014, Barson received the Randall L. Morgan Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellowship at BYU. He has also received awards for his opening titles created for a variety of independent films and motion graphics for the Typophile Film Festival, which work has also been exhibited internationally. In addition, Barson was recognized at the 2017 London Film Awards for his film “Ghost Beats,” which was awarded Best Animated Film. “Barson has been a bold advocate for the needs of the department and students,” Adams said. “The level of trust and rapport Barson attains with students goes beyond the normal classroom experience, and is an exceptional example of his commitment and service. He is active in the graphic design professional arena and has shown his dedication to the Aims of a BYU Education and university mission.” Curt Holman attended BYU for his undergraduate and graduate schooling, receiving a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1989 and a master’s degree in dance in 1996. During his time as an undergraduate, Holman was a member of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company, and he and his wife later competed professionally as ballroom dancers for seven years. The couple were the US, British and World Finalists in Professional Cabaret Dancing numerous times. In more than 25 years as a dance faculty member at BYU, Holman has served on numerous committees, including ballroom area administrator, associate dance department chair and Ballroom Dance Company artistic director. Holman is Dual Licentiate with Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance and is certified as a national and world class adjudicator with the National Dance Council of America. “So many good things have happened during Holman’s first three years as chair,” Adams said. “The Leona Holbrook Endowment, the BFA in Dance, helping strengthen the MDT program, the new lobby space, working to protect and preserve mid-semester tours, working to strengthen CDT and many excellent faculty hires. And there are more great things to come.”

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Four BYU Design Professors Claim Juror Award at the Design Arts Utah 2019 Exhibition

Alexis Carver — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:40:51 +0000

Designers explain the thought process behind their project “Unity & Division” Four BYU professors in the Department of Design — Brent Barson, Douglas Thomas, Eric Gillett and Linda Reynolds — won the Juror Award for their project “Unity & Division” in this year’s Design Arts Utah 2019 exhibition. “We’re hopeful that this project doesn’t end,” Thomas said. “We made a book and posters which were designed to be both pages in a book and also posters by themselves, and we hope that this will go into more shows and exhibitions.” Their design project began in response to conflicting ideologies and division in today’s news and social media. From the beginning, “Unity & Division” opened the doors for enlightening experiences and dialogue between the group of professors. “It was exciting to interact with my colleagues on so many different levels,” said Thomas. “Sometimes we were able to work late at night printing the book and binding it together. Other times, we were working together to make the exhibition materials. We wanted to see if we could come up with a visual format that honored the kind of communication where ideas could come together, clash, juxtapose and mix with each other.” Throughout the project, each designer would explore questions like, “What is unity?” and “What is division?” supplying prompts for the faculty members as they united in their common beliefs in the importance of allowing people to experience new ideas — learning from them and recognizing the importance of respectful dialogue. “Some of the most exciting things were when we approached issues differently,” Thomas said. “We would put our ideas together which would form new compositions, allowing us to come up with different ways of thinking about information we hadn’t thought about before.” The unique approach to the project symbolized the impact peaceful collaboration has in finding new ideas and solutions. Learn more about the Design Arts Utah exhibition at sltrib.com

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Interdisciplinary Student Team Merges Critical Analysis, Creative Production in Mobile Game “Dark Ride Disneyland”

Martha Duzett — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 20:44:14 +0000

BYU students across academic disciplines invite Disneyland guests to see the park with new eyes The digital world of new media is constantly changing the way we produce, consume and think about our entertainment. In a manner fitting this fast-paced medium of study, BYU students from multiple disciplines recently applied unconventional methods to their research into Disneyland storytelling, creating a mobile game to bring their critical take on the park to the public. “Dark Ride Disneyland,” which was released by BYU and media production company Western Lights on iTunes, is a mobile game played in the theme park that uses augmented reality and geolocation technologies to help guests dig deeper into the history, technology and culture of the park and think more critically about the stories being told. The project was conceived when media arts professor Benjamin Thevenin visited Disneyland while in southern California for a media literacy conference. “I realized the contradiction between these two experiences, the conference and the park,” explained Thevenin. “I’m involved in this community that’s invested in encouraging the public to be more careful and thoughtful in the ways that they’re engaging with media and how that media is affecting us and representing our world. But in Disneyland, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just eating it up.” Thevenin began brainstorming ways to educate park visitors and encourage them to see and understand the park differently. Ultimately landing on a student research project and accompanying app, Thevenin approached BYU faculty members Jeff Parkin and Brent Barson and industry professionals Jared Cardon and Ontario Britton, who joined the project as mentors. Together they opened up an application to students across campus. Around 20 students were selected, representing disciplines including media arts, illustration, graphic design, advertising, business, computer science and mathematics. From there, each student was placed into two groups, one according to their skill set and the other serving as an interdisciplinary collaboration focused on creating game elements for one of four themed areas of the park—Adventureland, Fantasyland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland. This allowed all students to be involved on some level in every aspect of the project, including the research, story development and game mechanics. “I think the best part was working with people who were passionate about what we were creating,” said graphic design student lead Connor King. “It was the first group project I’d worked on in my 16-plus years of school where everyone actually cared and wanted to work hard to create something amazing. We all really became a family just in the course of a semester.” The level of collaboration required by the project created a rare but deeply valuable experience for the involved students. “The Laycock Center provides a means of collaboration within the College of Fine Arts and Communications,” said Thevenin. “They gave us the space to meet and quite a bit of the funding to create this project, but we had the added benefit of working with students in computer science and mathematics. We’re overcoming even bigger disciplinary boundaries, with the hard sciences working with the arts.” With this meeting of vastly different fields, students worked to understand and respect the abilities, limitations and knowledge of their peers. “Students from different disciplines essentially speak different languages, so we had to learn to communicate,” said Thevenin. “At the same time, they created a kind of balancing force. The student writers, for example, would come up with a fantastic idea, and the programmers would help them come up with simpler, more feasible means of accomplishing the same goal.” “In turn, the writers developed an understanding of the logics by which the programmers were operating,” Thevenin continued. “They learned to generate ideas according to those logics in a way that complemented the programmers’ abilities. This was not just interdisciplinary collaboration, but a kind of multi-modal learning.” “I loved collaborating with a team from across multiple disciplines, especially when we were all working together in the same room, answering each other’s questions and quickly solving each other’s problems,” added research lead Christopher Bowles, now graduated from the media arts program. “It was fun to pick up new skills from each other and create a common vocabulary. Many times across departments, we’d be saying the same things without knowing it, so we would listen, try to understand and always end up on the same page.” The bulk of the work for the game was done in the fall of 2016. The selected students enrolled in a course together and took several trips to Disneyland for a critical study of their surroundings. The project mentors provided the student groups with a list of key media literacy questions developed by the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), intended to spark conversation about the history, purpose and effect of media. The research and ideas collected over the semester were organized and articulated by the student team through the development of original characters and storylines for the game. They hoped to stir thought and conversation among guests, sharing their own experiences and conclusions in an accessible, entertaining format. “I hope it opens their eyes,” said King of future park guests who download the game. “It’s so easy to go into Disneyland and sprint for Space Mountain, then just ride rides all day. Disney built so much story and detail into the park that often just gets walked past by millions of people, without anyone the wiser. I want people to not just go to Disneyland, but really know Disneyland.” Though the team is excited to bring the game to the public, the heart of the project for Thevenin was the academic experience for the involved students. “I was really pleased with how positively students responded to that merging of critical analysis and creative production,” he said. “As faculty, we make efforts to create that unity, but it’s difficult to achieve. This project provided a means for the jump between knowledge and a practical application to happen easily.” “We wanted students to engage with the research, engage with the park, create educational objectives and develop a story and gameplay that meets those objectives,” Thevenin continued. “The fact that the students not only succeeded in doing that, but really enjoyed the experience, was heartening for me.” This level of involvement and engagement for the students was largely facilitated by BYU’s [...]

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BYU DESIGN PROFESSOR RECOGNIZED BY PRESTIGIOUS DESIGN MAGAZINE

Mason Graham — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:38:49 +0000

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INTERDISCIPLINARY CFAC PROJECT CONTINUES TO WIN AWARDS

Beau Jones — Fri, 22 May 2015 19:28:50 +0000

Breaking the Class Ceiling, a College of Fine Arts and Communications interdisciplinary project, has continued on its award-winning run by receiving a gold recognition in the 45th Creativity Student Media & Interactive Design Awards. Across the world, economic and social disadvantages continue to hinder the advancement of hard-working men and women, a concept known as a “glass ceiling,” or the “class ceiling.” A group of BYU students would argue that for Chile, one of the biggest obstacles is free, quality public education. Motivated by personal connections to the people and a sense for the gravity of the situation, an interdisciplinary team of students and faculty from BYU’s College of Fine Arts and Communications, in conjunction with the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts, traveled to the country for two weeks and gathered information about the reform of higher education from students at Universidad Mayor, a Chilean private university. “Being from Chile, this was a great opportunity for me to cover something that I have personally been involved in,” said Ricardo Quintana, one of the students who participated in the project. “This is an important issue and society should be involved in its improvement.” Since compiling and presenting the gathered information, the project has won numerous awards and highlights the learning opportunities available to students at BYU’s College of Fine Arts and Communications. Quintana added, “Our work is significant because it shows how coveted education is outside the U.S., where it typically is not nearly as accessible. Kids and young adults are raising their voices against the government through different forms of protest because they feel they have a right to free education.” This project explicitly asks: should a college education be an implicit right for everyone? No doubt due in part for the hard questions that it asks, Breaking the Class Ceiling has recently been announced as a national finalist of The Society of Professional Journalists 2014 Mark of Excellence Awards and a gold winner in the 45th Creativity Student Media & Interactive Design Awards. “It is great to see that our work is being recognized,” said Shelbi Anderson, another student participant. “I was gratified to hear these stories firsthand, but getting recognized a year after we actually went to Chile makes it feel like we have had an impact after the fact.” These awards were given based on excellence in challenging criteria. For the Creativity International Award alone, entries came from 16 countries, 2 Canadian Provinces and 20 U.S. States. Student participants included: Shelbi Anderson (Journalist) Ricardo Quintana (Cinemaphotographer) Jared Jakins (Cinemaphotographer) Jeff Wade (Graphic Designer/Web Support/AV Support) Faculty advisors included: Brent Barson Jeff Sheets Ed Carter

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Department of Design Takes Home 19 Graphis Awards

Jacob Erickson — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 18:48:44 +0000

The BYU Department of Design wrapped up this year’s Graphis awards with 19 of their 21 entries selected to be featured in the Graphis magazine. Graphis, the International Journal of Visual Communication, has been around since the 40’s. Graphis’ prestigious award for New Talent Annual acknowledges some of the best and brightest up-and-coming graphic design artists. Each year, designers from all over the world submit their work to be featured in the journal. This year, BYU had 21 entries and 19 of them were chosen. “There’s an index in the back of each annual and it lists the schools and how many awards they have listed,” said associate professor Brent Barson. “Each year a couple of schools tend to submit hundreds of entries and if they’re lucky they maybe get 20 of them. For us to submit 21 and get 19 is huge for the program. It helps with our name recognition, prestige and it looks great for both the students and faculty.” The faculty focuses on teaching their students hard work and tries to help develop the talent that they have in their program. For the students, it is quite a feat to get into such a competitive program, but once admitted they have the full support of the faculty. “Our role as faculty is to encourage and critique our students,” said Barson. “If that means students are re-doing and re-doing and hardly getting any sleep the week before something’s due, so be it. Many of our students might tell you that they’re stressed and exhausted, but pushing them to the highest level of quality that they are capable of is how we best prepare them.” For the students that received a Graphis award, this is a major accomplishment and is a great boost for their resume and portfolio. “I think that it’s important that students get recognized for their work, not just by their professors, but by professionals currently working in the industry,” said BYU graphic design student Emma Vidmar. “Winning a Graphis also helps set us apart because we have been judged by our peers and they recognize our talent and skill.” BYU faculty and students featured included Adrian Pulfer, Tyson Cantrell, Bomi Lee, Sam Wood, Nicolina Brown, Kristen Rogers, Emma Vidmar, Kaeli Wood, Eric Gillette, Rachel Asplund, David Bowman, and Hayden Davis.

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