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New art prof is a former Billabong designer

New art prof, Daniel Chang, comes to Biola after working for Billabong, Boeing and Entertainment Weekly.
New art prof is a former Billabong designer

Knowledgeable and experienced in art design, assistant professor Daniel Chang comes to Biola directly from a position at Billabong USA. While at Billabong, Chang worked as the Art Director of Retail, but decided to change his career path.

“This is a big change of career for me, personally,” said Chang who still does art design on the side. “I am a freelance illustrator and designer. I have my own practice; I have an agent who fields my illustration work.”

“But aside from that, I was an art director at Billabong for a little over five years and always desired to come into teaching. I always knew that was something that I wanted to do,” he said.

Chang is currently teaching three art courses at Biola: 2-D Design, Graphic Design Forms I and Integrated Design II.

“I approached my classroom setting very much like I would approach my studio practice. I try to deal with my students as I would deal with a junior designer and work with them through these assignments as I would in my professional setting,” said Chang.

He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine and his master’s from Westminster Seminary. Chang was then hired as a financial analyst with Boeing, who was willing to pay his further college tuition so long as his classes did not interfere with his work schedule.

It was because of Boeing’s program that Chang was able to take night classes and receive his bachelor of fine arts from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. After having a job at Entertainment Weekly, Chang formed his own freelance practice in late 1999 where he had such high profile companies as clients including Time magazine and Sony Music.

“I’ve just been fortunate that the right people have seen my work and they remembered me,” he said.

During his career, Chang had the chance to broaden his scope in art with many different opportunities presented to him. While Chang was working with Billabong he also had the chance to work with Element, a Billabong-owned company.

“The owner of Element saw some of my paintings and really liked them and invited me to do a couple skateboards for them, which was a lot of fun,” said Chang.

As part of his job with Billabong, Chang oversaw the stores and also worked on apparel and with the marketing department. He also participated in the opening of a chain of stores known as Beachworks Shops, which feature much of his artwork.

Aside from art and teaching, Chang spends much of his time with his family. Together he and his wife Julie have three children, Noah, nine, Natalie, six, and Christian, three.

“My kids love to make art, so they love to draw. They’re constantly making things and building things, so we do that as a family,” he says.

Chang was born in Cheltenham, Penn. but grew up in southern California. Surfing is among his hobbies although he says it has been an on and off activity over the years. Growing up he also played volleyball, and for 12 years, the violin, though he said he dreaded playing the violin and now casually plays guitar when he has time.

One of Chang’s more unique interests from his past is his collection of indie comics.

“I was really into … indie comics for a while, so there were moments in my life where I would just buy a lot of comics, indie comics, and then old science books because I use a lot of that stuff in my art-making,” he said.

After a long career in art, Chang can trace his interest in the field as far back as early childhood.

“As a kid, I just loved to draw. I drew on everything,” Chang said. “In high school, I didn’t even really take art classes until my senior year. It’s not like I was recognized by my teacher as an art star … but she said that I was good but I never took it seriously; I didn’t think that I could.”

Chang’s advice to Biola students about future careers is to “love the work that you’re doing, and because you love the work that you’re doing, you’re doing it well. If you are working hard, and you’re diligent and you’re passionate, everything else will sort of fit into place.”

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