The Design of Everything

Astrophysicist, Cameron Hummels discusses his greatest creative success and greatest creative failure.

After gaining recognition for his musical talents, Lee Duck dropped out of college, signed with an agent, and began touring with his band full time. At just nineteen years old, he never imagined gaining any level of fame from music and gave even less thought to concert lighting. Dissatisfied with the lighting options that were available to a band on a shoestring budget, he took it upon himself to learn about and design lighting for his own band, drastically changing the trajectory of his career.

Screenprinter and illustrator, Dave Kloc, discusses his biggest failure, what he learned from it and his greatest success.

Have you ever stared into the night sky and wondered how it was created? What would be your best scientific guess? Listen to astrophysicist, Cameron Hummels, who researches the formation of entire galaxies (Big, huge, ginormous, galaxies!) explain how they are formed and how he uses creative thinking, facts, and evidence to arrive at complex conclusions. As a scientist studying structures that are billions of years old Cameron is consistently humbled by his place in history and hopes to make a worthwhile contribution to humanity’s understanding of nature and the universe.

Artist Dave Kloc goes with the flow to inspire his creativity and his career.

As a former elite sprinter with a Type A personality, coaching didn't initially come easy to USC Director of Track and Field, Caryl Smith Gilbert. She had to learn that while competing requires a somewhat selfish, inward, singular focus, coaching is just the opposite. It demands altruism and self-sacrifice so others may achieve their personal goals. Coach Gilbert's creativity lies in the design of her team; assembling athletes she can mold and motivate to triumph both on the track and in classroom, while ushering them into adulthood with the promise of success well beyond their years as USC student athletes.

Lisa Gaeta is the founder of IMPACT, a self-defense training and personal safety program in Los Angeles. When the news of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of abuse, sexual harassment, and rape broke this week, women took to social media sharing accounts of sexual abuse in their own lives using the hashtag #metoo. The outpouring of stories was alarming, but sadly not that surprising given the frequency of high-profile sexual assault scandals that have dominated the media just in the past year. Reports like these give credence to the importance of Lisa Gaeta's self-defense training which isn't simply about fighting off an attacker, but becoming more assertive though communication in everyday life.

Drag queen Tony Soto discusses his biggest creative failure and success

Will we all eventually just live in a virtual reality? KJ Knies and Sara Biel are virtual reality designers, entrepreneurs, and a couple. In the past few years, with the release of various headsets and advances in video technology, virtual reality has become more and more accessible to the public, but as a medium it has had a difficult time becoming mainstream. KJ and Sara are in the midst of creating experiences that make the technology relatable, consumable, interactive, and fun. Hear how they are creating exciting content, navigating a relatively unknown medium, and navigating working together as a couple.

Performance pianist, Ian Houghton, discusses his biggest creative failure and success.