Have you ever had a year-long homework assignment? How about one that involves designing a float for the iconic Rose Parade in Pasadena, California?
For Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student and Templeton local Jordan D’Acquisto, that’s an everyday reality.
“I plan to work in theme design, whether in theme parks, museums, restaurants, or experimental marketing,” D’Acquisto said. “It is my passion to design live experiences that immerse people in a story or world, and working on the float has given me the opportunity to do that.”
The 21-year-old fourth-year industry management major and 2020 Templeton High School alumna spent the entirety of 2023 designing and refining the concept for the electrifying “Shock n’ Roll” theme in this year’s Rose Parade. Students at both Cal Poly SLO and Cal Poly Pomona work together to bring the float to life each year.
“With my co-chair Ashley Yeaman, we have led a team to design ‘Shock n’ Roll,’ worked with our team to create scale drawings and our rendering, and then worked with our design leads to create all of the artistic elements shown on the float,” D’Acquisto said.
Those designs included eels holding electric guitars, floating manta rays, clams, and vibrant coral.
The only student-made fully floral float debuted to nearly half a million in-person parade attendeesāwith more than 50 million watching digitallyāin Pasadena on New Year’s morning.
“I was very much looking forward to sharing with the world what we’ve been thinking about and creating for an entire year,” D’Acquisto said before the parade. “It is incredibly gratifying to share something of this caliber and be able to claim a piece of it as my own.”
But before their float hit the streets, D’Acquisto and her fellow float decorators had a massive task to tackle. From Dec. 26 to 31, the team raced against the clock alongside volunteers to bring their vision to life in Pasadena.
“Spending that week with a team I have been with for my entire time at Cal Poly and seeing my last float come together as a whole was something I was looking forward to,” D’Acquisto said. “When the deco is being put on, you get to see deco, design, and construction all showcased in our amazing float and we come together as one team.”
It’s a time-honored tradition for the school as the float is the school’s 75th annual contribution to the parade, and it’s also a big tradition for D’Acquisto’s family. Her father, Josh D’Acquisto, is an advisor for the float program and has brought Jordan along since she was 4 years old.
Once she graduated from Templeton High School in 2020, D’Acquisto attended Cal Poly in SLO and gravitated toward getting officially involved with the floats.
“Joining the Rose Float Program in 2020 allowed me to implement the design process [from my degree] for multiple floats,” she said. “I have combined my passion for building with my passion for designing and executing experiences that create lasting memories.”
D’Acquisto worked on the school’s “Stargrazers” float in 2021-22, first as a design team member assisting in coming up with the space-cow crossover themes, then as a worker where she welded one of the final cows onto the front of the float.
In 2022-23, she took on a more prominent role as the assistant design chair and element lead for that year’s “Road to Reclamation” float.
D’Acquisto’s favorite experience is seeing everything come together in that last push around mid-December.
“By the middle of December, we have each of the individual pieces mounted onto the float to get the mechanisms [for the moving parts if we have any] tested,” she said. “The day we do our first full mechanism test, with the hard work of design and construction coming together, is when I feel most grateful to be part of the program.”
With this year being her final floatāas she is expected to graduate in spring 2024āD’Acquisto is more involved than she’s ever been.
“The ability to engage in the design-build process on such a large scale is what got me into it in the first place,” D’Acquisto said. “The fact that the entire float is built by students and the trust that the advisors and universities give us to create something incredible to represent our campuses in a nationally televised event is what keeps me coming back.”
Her involvement with the design-build process is something that D’Acquisto hopes to continue after she finishes her Industry Management degree. By experiencing Cal Poly SLO’s mantra of “learn by doing,” she feels she is ready to contribute to the theme parks, museums, and experimental arts of tomorrow.
“Being a part of the Rose Float Program at Cal Poly has been the best career-building for me, as it allowed me to put all of my learning and skills into practice,” D’Acquisto said. “As well as lead a team of incredible individuals to build something that most college students don’t have the chance to.” Ī
Staff Writer Adrian Vincent Rosas is listening to ‘Rose Parade’ by Elliot Smith as he writes this. Hum along with him at arosas@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 4-14, 2024.