Satellite Office

At Sputnik, a small pack of students juggles the pressure of art school with the responsibilities of a working design studio

by Colin Berry

Inside a cramped conference room on the California College of Art's San Francisco campus, six students and three instructors sit shoulder-to-shoulder around a table. On her MacBook, senior Heidi Berg is presenting her idea for a high school recruitment poster. The class presentation is called a "bakeoff," and Berg is one of three students competing for the assignment. Her idea is simple and effective: a distressed page with old-fashioned line drawings and an eye-catching splash of CMYK.

Her peers, even her competitors, are supportive. "I really like the colors," one says, and the rest murmur assent. Bob Aufuldish, the class's adviser this semester, squints across the table. "Where's the CCA logo, though?" Turns out it's flipped up on its side, in one corner of the poster, in a 10 point font. "Better make it bigger," he says.

This is Sputnik, CCA's prestigious, upper-division design course in which students are given responsibility for creating and producing most of the 100 year old art school's collateral. These half dozen fledgling designers make posters, postcards, brochures, books, magazines, invitations, and other materials—50 or 60 projects per term—for the school's admissions, financial aid, architecture, fashion design, extended education, and other departments. And although the class reboots with eight new students each semester, Sputnik has proven itself a windfall for CCA's communication needs. Equal parts internship, classroom, and working studio, this crowded room may represent the best idea for an art school since Photoshop.

Sputnik started 12 years ago, shortly after CCA hired publicist Chris Bliss to oversee a capital campaign. "In 1995, I did an audit of our printed materials and [almost] everything looked terrible," says Bliss, now CCA's VP of communications. "It didn't reflect the quality of the program." Bliss discovered that while the school had money to print projects, it couldn't afford designers to actually design them. So, with the help of Aufuldish, professor David Meckel, and design department dean Michael Vanderbyl, she launched Sputnik, where students would do the work. "They were volunteers, really," Bliss recalls. "I bought the print and coordinated with their clients, and Bob supervised their work and production. Part of the challenge was getting clients to buy into the idea, but once we had printed materials to show, it made my job easier."

One of the first Sputnik students, Eric Heiman, now a partner at Volume Inc. in San Francisco, remembers it began modestly. "We co-designed the alumni magazine and maybe two other projects," he recalls. "My big lesson was to get out of my graphic design bubble and actually learn to deal with limits. With Sputnik, you didn't have time to waste—it was, 'I need this magazine in two weeks.'"

The first few Sputniks, as the chosen students are called, were selected by faculty; these days, a nomination process precedes an extensive interview and portfolio review. "We look for meticulous, well-rounded designers, not hotshots," says Erin Lampe, CCA's director of publications and Sputnik's faculty liaison, along with Aufuldish. "We choose students based on a combination of faculty recommendation, design talent, interview, and pure responsibility." Still, Sputnik has always had serious cachet:

G. Daniel Covert, who roared out of the program into a gig at MTV before founding Dresscode, his own New York studio, with Andre Andreeve (another former Sputnik) says making the class was one of his major goals at CCA. "I saw all this great work come out of Sputnik and said, 'I need to be a part of this,'" he recalls.

Once they're accepted, Sputniks enjoy a variety of educational opportunities beyond the typical class. For Jon Sueda (1997), it was at the print shop: "I learned one of my big lessons during a press check," Sueda says. "The job was supposed to be in red, and the printout looked red, but I was too nervous to double check anything. I signed off, and when the piece came back it was magenta. With Sputnik, I had the benefit of making my mistakes in a safe environment."