Admissions

Undergraduate Majors

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Undergraduate Degrees

Creative Direction—BFA

The creative direction major establishes your visual and verbal fluency in the languages of communication—including film, video, photography, graphic and interaction design, social media, digital engagement and app conception. With a strong and competitive foundation in advertising practices, our courses will help you craft compelling narratives in traditional and digital spaces to drive consumer interest.

Entertainment Design—BS

Learn from leading Hollywood concept designers, animators, and game designers in ArtCenter’s entertainment design major. Our faculty of creators are working at the top of their game for the most sought-after companies in the gaming, animation and film industries, including Blizzard Entertainment, Riot Games, Disney, DreamWorks, Marvel, Nickelodeon, Sony Pictures Animation, Treyarch, Santa Monica Studio, and Insomniac Games (to name a few).

These industry experts equip you with leading edge techniques and systems straight out of blockbuster films, AAA games and your favorite theme park experiences. Working independently and in collaboration with peers within our creative ecosystem, you’ll develop your portfolio, establish broad theoretical and practical skills, and produce entertainment projects that ignite passion in your audiences.

ArtCenter's Entertainment Design department offers three tracks:

Concept Track

Blend visual and conceptual design with thorough knowledge and practice in drawing, rendering, building models, sculpting, and using 3D digital tools. The concept track introduces you to everything from animal anatomy to costume design, light and color to digital painting, visual structure to world building.

Animation Track

Draw out the heart and passion of stories, interactive experiences and immersive games in the animation track. From concept art and previsualization to 2D, 3D, and CGI animation, you will hone your creative craft and technological expertise into the state-of-the-art skillset necessary to thrive in this lively, collaborative industry.

Game Design Track

Level up your creative and competitive mindset in the game design concentration. Explore, design and prototype in all aspects of game development, from software and user experience to immersive design and alternative controllers.

Film—BFA

Cultivate tools and techniques to thrive as a director, editor, or cinematographer in the film major. With broad skills in editing, directing, and producing, you’ll graduate as a strong storyteller across multiple mediums.

Studying film at an art school allows you to collaborate across disciplines, pairing your passion for film with expertise in advertising, interaction design, writing, and more. In addition to your track courses, you’ll develop foundational skills in the history and business of film, gain experience in other areas of filmmaking, and take interdisciplinary courses that flesh out your understanding of the world.

Fine Art—BFA

Discover your voice and sharpen your skills through rigorous courses in fine art history, theory and practice. Explore broadly across sculpture, photography, film and installation with a focus on Fine Art, or narrow your study in the Fine Art Illustration track. ArtCenter’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program is part of a community of global artists—including our distinguished faculty—whose professional networks and creative impulses become your resources and inspirations in the classroom, the studio and the world.

Graphic Design—BFA

On the road to a BFA in graphic design, you’ll blend and experiment with a wide range of media—coding, books, film, press kits, packaging, 3D motion graphics, apps and more. Through the process of research, strategy, concept development, prototyping and project execution, you’ll craft compelling brand imagery and graphics-based experiences for a range of classroom and real-world clients.

Under the guidance of our renowned faculty in state-of-the-art facilities, like our Archetype Press and Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography, your creative capabilities will flourish. The graphic design major equips you with robust visual and cultural literacy, remarkable craftsmanship, career-ready professionalism and a commitment to collaboration and ethical practice.

Illustration—BFA

With the guidance of award-winning artists and illustrators, you’ll master techniques in drawing, painting, and illustrating for emerging media, then specialize your craft in one of six tracks. In cross-disciplinary collaborations, you’ll sharpen your individual voice and prepare to work on dynamic team projects with leading game design, film, and commercial studios. Courses on business and professional practice will equip you to thrive as both an employee and an entrepreneur within fast-paced creative industries.

The Illustration major offers six different tracks:

Illustration Design Track

Sketch, draw, paint, and more as you prepare for a dynamic career as a visual storyteller. Immerse yourself in technical elements like perspective and drawing hands along with market-relevant skills for children’s publishing and illustrating for the New York Times.

Entertainment Arts Track

Generate interest and intrigue as an animator with skills in character design, storyboarding, developing action, creating backgrounds, and more. You’ll be prepared to work in all kinds of entertainment media, from films and TV to commercials and video game design.

Entertainment Arts Consumer Products Track

Craft stories and products that engage audiences. The consumer products track pairs expertise in entertainment arts with experience researching market trends and turning fresh ideas into real-life products.

Fine Art Painting Track

Ground your work in deep-rooted study of craft, technique, art history, and conceptual processes. In courses on materials, composition, color theory, narrative, and more, you’ll hone your skills and develop a portfolio of unique paintings.

Motion Design Track

Produce advertisements, public service announcements, music videos, and films informed by technical and artistic elements of motion design. From title sequencing to VFX, you’ll master sequential design and cinematic motion in order to excel in the industry.

Surface Design Track

Apply your touch to textile design and graphic illustrated imagery for soft goods, interior design, fashion, and gift consumers. Examine trends, materials, consumer products, and techniques for surface designs that pop in a crowded market.

Interaction Design—BS

At ArtCenter, the interaction design major draws on interdisciplinary expertise in graphic design, transportation design, entertainment design, industrial design, media design, and interactions across multiple technologies. In this way, coursework sparks creative innovation and inspires new styles of leadership by collaborating with other programs and departments at ArtCenter.

Here, you’ll learn new processes and establish versatile skills for mastering the technologies of the future—technologies that will go on sale next year, that will be in development in the next decade, and that are still just whispers in the minds of up-and-coming creatives. The interactive design degree equips you with core methods and tools to lead design teams and impact user experiences throughout your career.

Photography and Imaging—BFA

The BFA in photography and imaging provides high-level training in a close-knit, focused atmosphere. You’ll challenge assumptions about the medium of photography in yourself and in others, fostering new avenues for discovery and expression. You’ll apply traditional and digital photography tools in specific, personal, and broad-reaching investigations of cultural conditions and social innovations. At ArtCenter, we nurture and promote originality, co-create through collaborative projects, and encourage your unique approaches to your craft.

Product Design—BS

ArtCenter’s product design major prepares students to enter a workforce with the highly sought after design, research and analytical skills necessary to thrive as a creative mind in a variety of professional environments. Under the guidance of our faculty of working designers, you’ll develop products that improve lives while gaining a keen understanding of what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur or within an existing organization. If you’re especially interested in the business side of design, you can spend a semester in INSEAD business school’s top-ranked MBA program.

Our bachelor’s in product design program provides an immersive education in visual, creative, technical and analytical best practices. Deep-dive into special topics like 3D modeling, packaging design, and industrial design. Gain comprehensive expertise in design research methodologies, business principles, materials technologies, manufacturing processes, global trends and sustainable practices. Expand your marketable skillsets in our state-of-the-art research lab, CMTEL (Color, Materials and Trends Exploration Laboratory).

Spatial Experience Design—BS

At ArtCenter, we approach spatial experience and environmental design from a sensorial perspective, looking beyond single objects, moments and places to weave rich narratives in every environment where we live, work and play. We are invested in spatial justice and improving our creative processes to effect positive change in the world. With a spatial design degree, you can take on fresh challenges from branded retail and theme-driven dining to new hospitality, exhibition and residential design, all with an appreciation for empathy, sensitivity, equity, diversity and inclusion.

Transportation Design—BS

As a transportation design major, you’ll approach vehicles as vessels with distinctive personalities, wide-ranging social impacts, and high-performing functions. Here, you'll build on the traditional style aspects of comfort, safety and usability with fresh perspectives on sustainable mobility, product life cycle and brand integrity. You’ll gain expertise in drawing, physical and digital modeling, vehicle architecture, materials and aerodynamics. Build marketable skillsets in one of three concentrations: Vehicle Exteriors, Vehicle Interiors (including UI and UX) or Alternative Transportation (including aircraft, marine, motorcycle, personal mobility and public transit).

First Year Immersion

At ArtCenter, you can begin your undergraduate education before you’ve determined the design major and degree that best fits your passions. In the selective First Year Immersion program, you can join other undecided majors as you develop your creative skills, broaden your critical perspectives of the world, and discover the focus and specialization (and major!) that will allow you to flourish in your creative practices.

How It Works

You and your fellow undeclared majors in the First Year Immersion program will take courses in drawing, creative technologies, visual thinking, and humanities and sciences for your first two terms. These classes will equip you with core skills that apply to a wide spectrum of design majors. After gaining familiarity with ArtCenter’s design degrees, along with establishing critical and cultural awareness, you can pursue one of your top three choices of major and finish your degree in six additional terms.

Participating Majors

Through the First-Year Immersion program, you can complete a bachelor's degree degree in:

The Entertainment Design (Game Design track) and Film majors are not part of the First-Year Immersion program.