CENTER FOR COMPUTER ART AND ANIMATION

Leslie Nobler Farber
Digital Art and Illustration

Professor Farber is a practicing artist and designer who actively exhibits, publishes and “screens” her work both in the fine and applied arts. She works in digital and mixed media art, producing online illustration, artist’s books, surface design, and alternative prints. Her artworks have been exhibited extensively in the US and abroad, including the Visual Arts Museum of NYC, Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey State Museum, Morris Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art - Kansas City, and Franklin Institute of Technology of Philadelphia - and in Computer Art Exhibits in Spain, Australia, Switzerland, England, Italy, Thailand and South Africa. She has been chosen for acceptance in the prestigious SIGGRAPH Art Gallery and Technical Exhibition many times, and included for several years in SIGGRAPH’s Traveling Art Show.

Farber’s work won a place in two sequential years of the International Digital Art Awards on-line and traveling show, which travels throughout Australia, China and the US. Leslie Nobler Farber recently had solo exhibitions at Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters Gallery in New Brunswick, the PCFL Gallery of Franklin Lakes, Leonard J. Hansen Gallery of Englewood, and Gallery Eclectica, all of Bergen County. She has been/will be exhibiting at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Booksmart Studios and several other metropolitan area corporate galleries.

Professor Farber received her BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art, her MA in Computer Graphics from the New York Institute of Technology and her MFA from Hunter College (CUNY). Her work has been published or reviewed in The New York Times, the Star Ledger, SIGGRAPH 95- 2006 International Computer Art & Research Catalogs, Surface Design Journal, DIGITAL SALON/Leonardo (MIT Press), Australian Design '05, and The Review/Midwest USA 2003, in addition to various arts publications. . She spent years designing for the trade and continues to consult on fashion-surface design and illustration. She has won grants and awards from Eurographics, the Noyes Art Museum (NJ), Surface Design Association, and CUNY. Leslie Nobler Farber has also exhibited and lectured widely at art and design schools/programs including Kansas City Art Institute, Rutgers University/Newark, University of Northern Colorado, Wellesley College, Wayne Art Center (PA), and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She was recently awarded a grant to research and apply her investigation on historical interactive books to digital book design and creation. At William Paterson, she has taught all levels of Computer Paint and 2D Art, Senior Thesis, and 2D Design. Contact Professor Farber.

Lauren Razzore
Interactive Media

Professor Razzore is a web designer, animator, and graphic designer who has taught in the Art Department since the spring of 2006. She specializes in entertainment, sports and kids' design, working mainly as a web designer and flash animator. Professor Razzore teaches Web Design 1, Interactive Multimedia (Flash), Interactive Multimedia DVD and Introduction to Electronic Publishing.

Professor Razzore graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1998. In 2004, she received her M.S. in Communications and Packaging Design with a concentration in Digital Media from Pratt Institute. She spent 10 years working throughout high school and college as graphic designer before transitioning into web design and animation. Professor Razzore has worked for several large-scale companies such as Lycos and The Topps Company as the lead web designer and continues to do many freelance projects for high profile websites and animation clients. She also currently serves as the Director of Technology for the Mount Holyoke Club of New York City.

Professor Razzore's work can be seen in various places on the web, including www.topps.com, www.garbagepailkids.com, www.hollywoodzombies.com, www.wackypackages.com, www.topps.cardclub.com, www.bazookajoe.com and www.lycos.com. Contact Professor Razzore.

Steve Rittler
Animation

Steve Rittler is an independent Animator, Illustrator, Designer and Educator, who specializes in 3D character animation, visual storytelling and figurative art. He graduated with honors from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1990 with a BFA in Illustration and an Animation minor. After launching a career as an illustrator in Philadelphia, Steve moved to New York City in 1991 and a year later enrolled in the MFA Computer Graphics Animation program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Becoming a member of the Pratt Faculty in 1993, Steve embarked on his career as a 3D character animator in NYC in 1995, moving to Los Angeles for a year in 1996 to work for the Walt Disney Company. Returning to New York in 1997, Steve resumed his faculty position at Pratt Institute and his character animation career in the city. Steve was invited to join the faculty of the SVA MFA Computer Art Department in 1999 to teach character animation, and completing his MFA thesis in 1999, received his MFA in Computer Graphics Animation With Distinction from Pratt Institute in 2000.

Today Steve has his own independent animation studio, MuseMachine Productions, is a freelance animator, designer and illustrator, and a tenured Associate Professor of Animation at the William Paterson University Department of Art, where he joined the faculty in 2001. Films featuring his work as an animator have been screened and won awards nationally and internationally, including the Annecy Animated Film Festival in France, and his own animated film, Nor Gloom of Nyght, has been screened at the International SIGGRAPH Conference, The first Beijing International New Media Arts Exhibition and Imposium and at BUDi 2005 in Seoul. Elected in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, he currently serves on the board of directors of New York City ACM SIGGRAPH, local chapter of the Special-Interest Group for Graphics of the Association of Computing Machines, and has presented courses on animation production at the 2003 and 2004 International SIGGRAPH Conferences in San Diego and LosAngeles, and at the 2008 SIGGRAPH Asia Conference in Singapore. He served as chair of MetroCAF 2006, the New York Metropolitan Area College Computer Animation Festival, and was also the principal designer, illustrator and animator for the event opener, titles and promotional materials. Steve lives in New York City, plays electric bass guitar and sings in a rock band. Contact Professor Rittler.