Where do SCAD students and alumni show off their inventive work beyond the classroom, gallery or their personal website? On Behance Portfolios — a social platform for artists to not only share their online portfolio, but also join a creative community where artists support and encourage their peers. Each day, newly uploaded projects by our students and alumni are hand-selected for a feature in SCAD’s Behance Gallery. Here are five recently spotlighted works we love:

"Roll-Top Backpack" by Renee Cuny (B.F.A., fibers)

"The Dark Side" by Amanda Penley (B.F.A., illustration)

"Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' Book" by Chaaya Prabhat (M.F.A., graphic design)

"Inhabited" by Alexis Hagestad (B.F.A., photography)

"Vendobox" by Holly Chisholm (B.F.A., industrial design) and Shreya Mehta (B.F.A., service design)

Every year, SCAD becomes a home away from home for thousands of bright, talented students. A unique place of creative culture and kinship, it’s where lifelong bonds are formed while working, collaborating and dreaming big!

For some students, these bonds already exist upon arrival — more than 800 siblings have come to SCAD to pursue their goals alongside each other, to grow the strength of their innate alliance. For hundreds of other family members, not just students, SCAD provides a foundation for more enduring connections. From professors and staff members and administrators to alumni and external partners and esteemed guests, SCAD’s roots run deep. Just like some of the most renowned creators, innovators, and change-makers in the world — the Coen brothers, the Kennedys, the Laurens — SCAD family members often work together to achieve a more brilliant future.

SCAD is Family is our way of celebrating those whose households have become so beautifully blended with SCAD’s domain — those unique yet united individuals who have found their place within SCAD’s creative community. Our SCAD is Family stories begin with student siblings whose experiences span the full spectrum of SCAD programs, exemplifying how SCAD makes it possible for families to discover distinct directions and build a lasting legacy. Their stories can be heard at the new SCAD is Family page, where these star siblings share inspiring and touching testimonials of encouragement, support, and success.

If you are a part of a SCAD family, share your story on the website and join the #SCADisFamily conversation on Instagram and Twitter. Keep visiting SCADworks to hear more from our spectacular sibling sets!

SCAD’s annual Career Fair is just around the corner — this Friday, Feb. 19 at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center. Are you ready?

Select Works for Portfolio

When talking to one of more than 150 employers set up for Career Fair — including Amazon, IBM Design, Microsoft, MTV and Nickelodeon — you’ll want to show them the best you have to offer. Your portfolio should show variety, creativity and quality. It’s not too late to ask a professor for feedback and polish up the areas that might need improvement.

Free Wi-Fi will be available for everyone, but you should save your portfolio offline to make sure you can present your work. Also, have a few copies of sample work you’re willing to leave with your employer, along with your résumé and contact information.

Your résumé should fit only on one page and print well in color or black and white. Bring extras; you never know how many you’ll need.

Strategize Your Day

Do your research ahead of time and pick which employers you want to talk to. Then, familiarize yourself with where their booths are located.

You will want to prioritize which company’s booth to visit first. Have your top five booths to visit as soon as you enter and a second tier list to follow. Prepare yourself for long lines and waiting times to talk to a representative from the company, but remember it’s always worth it for face-to-face time.

For the full list of employers and fair schedule, visit the website.

Succeed

For a Career Fair success story, look no further than SCAD alumna Gabby Manotoc (B.F.A., graphic design). Just one month after Career Fair 2015, Manotoc was hired by R/GA Digital Studio, an international advertising agency with offices around the world.

After choosing her top 10 list of companies to approach, she prepared 20 copies of her résumé, as well as leave behind materials that showcased her work. Finally, she hand-coded an app version of her portfolio for the recruiters to peruse on her iPad. The recruiter from R/GA was especially impressed.

Just after spring break, the recruiter emailed Manotoc. After two interviews, she was offered a contract. She moved to New York in June following commencement and has been working as an associate designer at R/GA since.

“Going to Career Fair every single year made me realize that there’s no time to be scared about just putting myself out there,” Manotoc said. “Things don’t always work out, and other times they do. I’m glad that I was the type of person who took it seriously because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten a job months before graduating in a city that I wanted to be in and with one of the top agencies in the world."

How do you celebrate Georgia Day in Savannah, the first city in the last of the 13 original colonies? By commemorating some of its most distinguished women from history and modernity, of course! The Savannah Women of Vision dedication ceremony at Arnold Hall is open to the public. 

When SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace noticed the lack of women in the 1930s’ Works Progress Administration mural in Arnold Hall’s theater, she decided it was time to elevate the traditionally underrepresented demographic. The Savannah Women of Vision portrait installation celebrates the remarkable ideas, insightful leadership and distinguished service of 10 women who have profoundly sculpted the city of Savannah and beyond.

Carved cameos paying tribute to each of the following honorees will permanently line the walls in Arnold Hall’s theater:

• Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth
• Abigail Minis
• Mother Mathilda Beasley
• Juliette Gordon Low
• Flannery O’Connor
• Nancy N. Lewis
• Emma Morel Adler
• Frances Wong
• Alice Andrews Jepson
• Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears

The larger-than-life portraits honoring these women were created by none other than SCAD alumnus Michael Porten (B.F.A., illustration; M.F.A., painting). But Porten isn’t the only alum taking part in this historic event; the following alumnae will speak during the ceremony:

• Susan Laney (B.F.A., photography)
• Meredith Sutton (B.F.A., metals and jewelry)
• Clare Ward (B.F.A., performing arts)
• Nontra Yantaprasert (B.F.A., fashion)
• Zoe Leung (B.F.A., historic preservation)
• Osayi Endolyn (M.F.A., writing)
• Ayeola Johnson (M.A., arts administration)
• Felicia Bell (M.A., historic preservation)
• Capucine Gros (B.F.A., painting)
• Amy Lind (B.F.A., illustration)
• Elva Jiang (B.F.A., fashion, fashion marketing and management)

SCAD invites the public to join the celebration at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12 at Arnold Hall, located at 1810 Bull St.

Huge congratulations are in order for alumnus Bradley Bowers, winner of the first challenge of the new season of Ellen’s Design Challenge! He is one of eight designers competing for a $100,000 cash prize and a feature of their work in HGTV Magazine. Each week, the competitors will sketch, design and build innovative furniture to be named the show's best designer.

So proud of @BowersB taking home challenge #1 on #EllenDesignOnHGTV - beautiful bed my friend! @hgtv pic.twitter.com/eceYw0GVGu

— Matt J Muenster (@MattJMuenster) January 19, 2016

Now a furniture designer and owner of Alpaca Group in Miami, Bowers completed both his undergraduate (B.F.A., industrial design) and graduate (M.A., furniture design) studies at SCAD. A more detailed look at Bowers' design is available on the challenge website.

We are so proud that a SCAD talent won over the judges for the first round. Tune in Mondays at 8 p.m. to watch Bradley shine!

Since 1956, Manuel’s Tavern has been a popular hangout for multiple generations of Atlantans –—with decades’ worth of photographs, art, maps, and bumper stickers on its walls to prove it. When a developer recently purchased Manuel’s and announced plans to renovate the dive bar’s interior, patrons feared the artifacts would be lost forever.

Enter Ruth Dusseault, a long-time Manuel’s customer and a lecturer at Georgia State University. She hatched a plan to document the bar’s interior through an online research project called Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern. After recruiting a voluntary team from SCAD, Emory, University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, they set out to photograph the entire bar and create an online 3-D virtual tour where visitors can learn all about the 59-year-old watering hole.

Given SCAD’s extensive expertise in historic preservation and photography, Dusseault reached out to Michael O’Brien, SCAD Atlanta’s associate chair of photography. O’Brien in turn recommended SCAD student Hastings Huggins, who received a B.F.A. in photography in 2012 and is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in photography.

Hastings was responsible for lighting the Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern project. Here, Hastings chats about the tribulations, triumphs, and idiosyncrasies of the work.

NorthaveRmGoProFilm from Ruth Dusseault on Vimeo.

SCAD: Can you take us through the shooting process?

Huggins: The technology we used was a GigaPan system, a mounted camera that can articulate up and down, left and right, and every axis in between for a nice, fluid pan.

We had tracks set up that were parallel to the wall that we were documenting. The tracks had a dolly and tripod with this GigaPan system set on top. We would march the tripod and dolly along every 32 inches left to right, and at each stop, we would take as many as 22 images from the very top of the wall where it met the ceiling.

SCAD: What was the biggest challenge?

Huggins: There were six rooms, and every room has characteristics that made things a bit challenging. One room wasn’t perfectly flat. It had ramps for access and metal railings that were fixed into the floor that couldn’t be moved.

Another challenge was the fact that a lot of what we were photographing gave off reflections that would obfuscate the images. We had PVC pipes that we’d throw some black material over and just raise as high as we could to block whatever the GigaPan system was catching as it marched along. That was probably the most frustrating and awkward part of the process.

SCAD: What were some of the most interesting pieces of memorabilia you photographed?

Huggins: One work of art on the wall – a beautiful, impressionistic painting of a woman’s figure – could easily be in a museum. We asked the bar owner’s son about it, and he said it was from a customer who was an accomplished painter [Dean Chapman] but couldn’t pay his tab. So he paid with this piece of work, a painting of his wife who also frequented Manuel’s.

SCAD: Any other fun stories?

Huggins: Well, at one point I was standing in the bar area and I looked up and saw this mobile. I said, “Doesn’t that look just like a Calder mobile?” A guy behind the bar said, “It is.” Then I said, “Yeah, right. If that’s a Calder, you would have had an appraiser in here and probably would have gotten some sort of…” The guy finished the sentence for me: “A six-figure appraisal? That’s exactly what we got.”

They had this Calder mobile hanging in the bar and it was filthy – covered in tar from cigarette smoke! I said, “Well at least clean it!” And he said, “Oh no, if we clean that thing, we won’t hear the end of it.”

Photo by Hastings Huggins.

Critics are calling “The Good Dinosaur” the most visually stunning Pixar movie to date. A big part of that technical accomplishment comes from brilliant lighting and the intricate work of SCAD alumnus Max Bickley, who served as Lighting Technical Director on the film. A 2008 graduate of SCAD’s visual effects B.F.A. program, Max first interned with Pixar the same year. After a stint with Tippett Studio, Max returned to Pixar where he has remained for nearly six years. Lighting 2015’s “Inside Out” and this past weekend’s box office smash, “The Good Dinosaur,” Max also counts “Monsters University,” “Brave,” and “Cars 2,” among other credits, during his time at the famed animation studio.

Here, Max takes SCAD behind the scenes of “The Good Dinosaur” and the visual challenges involved in lighting an animated feature. He also discusses his time at SCAD, his experience at Pixar, and his artistic inspirations.

SCAD: Tell us what exactly your job entails — how do you “light” 3D character animations and illustrations?

MAX BICKLEY: When you’re lighting a shot, you’re trying your best to influence the viewers’ emotions and attention. We go after these with color and contrast, using color to evoke mood and contrast to guide your eye to what’s important about a shot. Emotions come in lots of forms: sadness, nostalgia, confusion, foreboding, excitement. We can tell you a lot about how a character is feeling by changing their lighting. Attention is key to moving the story along, and keeping you invested in what’s on the screen.

SCAD: What were some of your biggest challenges in lighting “The Good Dinosaur”?

BICKLEY: We spent a lot of time crafting a gorgeous river that appears throughout the film, and I got to spend a considerable amount of time working on some of those shots. We had a lot of character interaction with water, and it was challenging to light Arlo [the film’s protagonist, an Apatosaurus] while he was half submerged. Your skin actually looks pretty different even when it’s submerged in the clearest water, and crafting those kinds of small details adds to the believability of our movies. We almost never get these details for free, so executing them well winds up being very rewarding.

SCAD: As a visual effects major, how did your time at SCAD prepare you for your career as a lighting technical director for Pixar?

BICKLEY: The introductory courses to cinematography and compositing were excellent primers to how film works, and that’s really an essential piece of knowledge. Toward senior year, the more complex lighting and rendering classes helped solidify my technical skill set. Also, a lot of our job is pure troubleshooting, and I can definitely think back to some late nights in Montgomery Hall troubleshooting some new tool or technique I was trying. Being constantly challenged and always having to troubleshoot wound up being an essential skill.

SCAD: Who and what are the greatest influences in your field?

BICKLEY: This list changes all the time. Recently I’ve really been digging back into old Kubrick movies, as well as picking apart more recent work by guys like Emmanuel Lubezki and Robert Elswit. I also find a lot of inspiration from great designers like George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, and Naoto Fukasawa. Sometimes lighting animation is about finding an elegant, efficient solution to a technical or visual problem and there are lessons about that to be gleaned from a lot of different mediums.

SCAD: What advice can you offer prospective and current SCAD students who may want to work as lighters?

BICKLEY: Take time to focus on the people, places and media that inspire you and do everything you can to learn why they inspire you. Being able to extract what makes a piece of art so great is essential to collaborating with other people on a single visual goal.

“The Good Dinosaur” is currently in theaters everywhere.

Follow Max on Twitter and Instagram at @maxbickley, and visit him online.

It's no surprise students spend their whole time at SCAD learning and preparing for their creative careers, but learning goes beyond the classroom. As alumni, we looked back at what we've learned during our time here. This week, we have a list from Amanda Surowitz (B.F.A., writing).

1. When you're respectful to everyone and give a fair, thorough critique of their work, whether or not you like each other becomes irrelevant. You can focus on the craft without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings.
2. Just about everything has an ugly baby stage: a drawing, a short story, even your career. It's revolting and disheartening, but it doesn't last forever. The lines will create a form, the words will form an image, and you can move up from menial tasks. It just takes time.
3. Save apologies for things you actually regret, which should never be your work or your opinion. Your presentation of either, however, is fair game.
4. I decided on a writing degree thinking exactly what everyone told me: there are no stable, well-paying careers in writing. SCAD's been saying otherwise since my first day of class. Now I'm living proof that writers can be successful.
5. You can spend the rest of your life fixing and refining any project; know when to call it quits before you sacrifice sleep and personal health.

It's no surprise students spend their whole time at SCAD learning and preparing for their creative careers, but learning goes beyond the classroom. As alumni, we looked back at what we've learned during our time here. This week, we have a list from Maelyn Divinski (B.F.A., photography).

1. Look for summer internships and jobs in the fall. More than likely, whomever you are applying to inspects resumes on a rolling basis. It might say the deadline is April 1, but they might start contacting and lining people up for interviews starting in December.
2. Study hard. Work hard. Craft remarkable work. Socialize with your peers. They are with you out in the industry. They are the ones you are going to contact for a professional collaboration. You want those relationships.
3. Learn how to correctly and professionally write. Although it might not be necessary to write in proper English among your friends, it will be necessary when writing to a potential employer or connection. It’s easy to ignore someone who cannot capitalize proper nouns and punctuate sentences. It doesn’t make you look hip.
4. Learn everything you possibly can. No matter your major, go take a studio class that doesn’t involve your exact skill set. This is the only time you will have the opportunity to explore other crafts with a professional guide.
5. Take risks. Risks with your art. Risks with internships. Risks with jobs. They will define you for the better and shape what kind of artist you become.

Photography is more than a snapshot; it's an expression of a personal vision. But do you know what it takes to turn that vision into an award-winning piece of art? Students in SCAD's photography programs do — as a result, they are among the most renowned up-and-comers in the industry.

Students and alumni have been spotted in eminent places, working and interning for big names such as Annie Leibovitz, Turner Broadcasting, Vanity Fair, Vogue, CNN and Google, just to name a few. Just last month, Elliot Ross (B.F.A., photography) was featured in National Geographic’s Daily Dozen series.

Feast your eyes on a sampling of work from SCAD's stand-out photographers:

Click here to request more information or apply to SCAD.