Art Center College of Design

Entertainment designers are story-tellers. They bring stories to life by designing novel characters and worlds. This requires an excellent imagination, a thorough understanding of how such things are created, and the ability to conceptualize within the parameters of a given story.

Within Entertainment Design are housed two tracks: Concept Design and Character Animation. Although many classes are shared, students apply directly to one track or the other.

Concept Design

Concept artists create the visuals we see in films, video games, animation, commercials, TV shows and theme parks, executing everything from environments and architecture to characters and vehicles.

Art Center’s Concept Design students specifically focus their creativity to master the skills required of concept designers in the entertainment industry. Our intensive curriculum blends and expands upon illustration and industrial design. You receive a rigorous education in drawing, rendering, model building, sculpting and the use of 3D digital tools. Near the completion of your degree, you research and develop an in-depth senior project emphasizing a personal focus within entertainment.

Each spring, representatives from top companies attend our Entertainment Design Intern Show to meet students and review individual exhibitions of work, with the goal of selecting students to join their team as interns.

An impressive roster of Art Center alumni and entertainment professionals bring their expertise into our classrooms as faculty and visiting lecturers. Graduating from the program with the ability to bring imaginary worlds to life, you join this network ready for a creative future.

Character Animation

This track will be launched in the Fall of 2015 and has been designed in close collaboration with industry specialists. Character Animation students will focus on the nuances, traits, and overall performances that bring particular definition to the characters that populate a story.

A simple tilt of the head, a gradual lift of the brow, a sudden straightening of the posture—how we say things is often more meaningful than what we say. Character Animation at Art Center is all about this how, teaching students not only to design outward appearances but also to activate those surfaces to bring out the soul of a character.

Through an immersive study of performance and storytelling as it applies to traditional animation, computer animation, and design, our students learn to breathe life into the characters that populate the story worlds of feature animation, live action film, TV, commercials, and games.

Our program develops students as animators, artists, performers, and designers, equipping them with a wide and deep skillset that delves into design theory, dramatic performance, and both traditional and digital drawing and painting, enabling them to become storytellers of the highest order.

Environmental Design is a human-centered discipline that focuses on the total spatial experience—from the first moment of encounter to the last moment of interaction.

We approach spatial design from the inside out and learn to look at projects as total sensorial experiences. Our students look beyond the single object, moment or place to see how collectively they make an impact in projects ranging from branded retail, theme-driven dining, new hospitality, exhibition and residential design—delivering effective, inclusive environments using responsible material choices and manufacturing practices. Our emphasis on spatial experiences also makes Art Center graduates leaders in the design of furniture, lighting and interior/exterior living components.

We pursue a global sense of industry-driven design that investigates every aspect of where and how people live, work and play. Our students gain global awareness through Transdisciplinary Studio courses, international study abroad and Sponsored Projects classes with industry-leading com-panies, corporations and organizations. Our students also investigate Designmatters sponsored projects on behalf of humanitarian organizations globally. All of which amounts to a rich and diverse educational experience for students aspiring to be influential and impactful spatial designers.

The Film program at Art Center prepares you for an evolving industry in which one fact remains constant: filmmakers must be strong visual storytellers. Here in Los Angeles, the world’s entertainment capital, you begin shooting immediately, with access to the latest production and post-production tools. The curriculum focuses on mastering filmmaking skills in order to serve the narrative.

Our faculty of distinguished working filmmakers and small classes foster close, mentoring relationships. In addition, the complex industry tapestry of L.A. gives us access to studio heads and A-list talent who, as guest lecturers, share their intimate knowledge of the business.

Success in the entertainment industry requires a broader base of knowledge than ever before. We believe in learning by making. Only when you’re fully immersed in making films do you truly learn your craft. Our production center maintains a generous supply of industry-standard equipment, and our post facilities offer most everything you need to fulfill the technical and creative vision of your story.

Our three main tracks of study are in directing, cinematography and editing. Also, for approved students, we offer specialty courses of study with an emphasis in screenwriting and producing. Throughout the program, you discover and refine your artistic style and distinctive voice, and collaborate with students from other disciplines. You will develop a thorough understanding of the entire filmmaking process.

You enter as an apprentice artist and leave ready to reach an audience through your storytelling.

The continual exercise of imagination and discipline is the basis for a career in art: a life of compelling vision that questions and transforms our way of seeing, thinking and engaging the world. Art Center prepares students by training them in the rigorous foundation skills they need to be highly adaptable visual problem-solvers, with particular attention to aesthetics and conceptual dexterity. We foster a healthy fearlessness undeterred by conventional boundaries—experimentation, risk and complexity are embedded into the very fabric of student work. Such versatility and adaptability are paramount in preparing artists to excel in a continually changing global environment.

Two of the biggest questions young artists face are: What is my unique voice? and Where does that voice fit into the world? At Art Center, it is our job to help you discover these answers by engaging in a rigorous process of training, questioning and self-discovery.

Fine Art supports a spectrum of disciplines including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, film/video, photography and digital imaging, as well as an array of art-and-design hybrids. Our nationally and inter-nationally recognized faculty members work to create a program that is both broad in its scope of interests and small in its well-woven community. Learning occurs in the context of small classes and a high degree of mentoring that allows for a more one-on-one education.

The new Artmatters concentration, which stands as a counterpart to the college’s successful Designmatters program, focuses on the intersection between art and social space.

Graphic design has evolved to become much more than ink on paper; it has left the page to conquer space, motion and interaction. To stay ahead of the curve, you’ll need to expand your creative skills in an integrative learning environment that crosses all media.

Our Graphic Design curriculum integrates the definitions of designer, artist and entrepreneur. Guided by faculty members who are noted professionals in their areas of expertise, you’ll develop sophisticated typographic and image-making skill-sets working across both emerging and traditional media—everything from letterpress to data visualization and from packaging to spatial experiences—to create emotionally resonant messages.

You’ll learn how to anticipate and react to the technological and social changes affecting how we communicate with one another. You’ll have the opportunity to study abroad and to participate in high-profile collaborative projects with industry partners, nonprofit organizations and students from different majors. And with our innovative transmedia area of concentration—which allows you to manipulate and transcend mediums—you’ll be empowered to create new media categories.

Since we want our students to design experiences that serve a purpose, we’ll encourage you to work outside your comfort zone and to engage with culturally relevant content using every possible tool at your disposal. In the process you’ll discover new things about yourself and the mediums that you’re pushing to their limits.

We’ll challenge you with this ambitious endeavor—one whose potential is being fulfilled by our graduates, who have gone on to work for cutting-edge organizations like Google, Facebook, IDEO and Local Projects.

Today’s illustrators are image makers and storytellers. Conceptualizers and problem solvers. Provocateurs and culture mavens. Illustration now is moving beyond the literal interpretation. It is creating mood and atmosphere, communicated via accomplished personal technique, for an array of commercial and social impact projects.

Illustration connects everything from high fashion and retail environments to animation and computer games; from political, editorial and street art to mainstream publishing. Illustration’s unique ability to define social, political and cultural ideas makes it an ideal solution for an unparalleled scope of creative and communications projects.

At Art Center, you certainly master drawing skills. But you also increase your business knowledge and develop your understanding of illustration’s impact on contemporary culture. After a thorough grounding in foundation classes you focus on a curricular track that best suits your talent and career objectives. Illustration Design blends hand and digital practice for licensing, print, publishing and motion. Illustration for Motion is for students interested in storyboarding and motion design. Illustration/Fine Art takes imagery beyond illustration to the gallery environment. And Entertainment Arts prepares you for a fast-paced career in TV and feature animation. Our new Surface Design program provides opportunities to explore style and aesthetics in the realm of fashion, textile and apparel design.

Additional enrichments within the program include study abroad opportunities, Transdisciplinary Studios—in which illustrators work collaboratively with students from other majors—and dynamic guest lecturers.

However you tailor your curriculum, you graduate from Art Center with the potential to translate your creative gifts into engaging and meaningful career paths.

Interaction design is all around us—mobile apps, wearable technology, games, websites, social networks, art installations and public spaces are just a few examples. If you’re interested in designing interactions that are useful, innovative and delightful, there’s no better training ground than Art Center.

Although this is a new major at the College, we have a rich history in interaction design, spanning the fields of graphic, transportation, entertainment, industrial and media design. Art Center graduates hold leading positions in companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft and IDEO.

With the field of interaction design experiencing a period of tremendous growth, in 2012 we launched a degree program dedicated to creative innovation and professional leadership. We have crafted a course of study in which you think deeply about the user’s experience, apply technology creatively and invent new approaches to interaction and design. Our curriculum emphasizes core methods, tools and processes that prepare you to lead as new technologies emerge.

But it’s not all about technology. After all, people interact with every object or system in our world, be they human-made or natural. In our program, you focus on the user experience and study how people think, feel and behave when they use any product, environment or system. By considering human factors, cognitive sciences and psychology, you learn how to design cohesive systems that can deeply impact people’s lives.

And that’s a skill that can have lifelong applications.

In the 21st century, the development of unprecedented avenues of communication, innovative research, and advances in hardware, software and media have impacted nearly every traditional means of image production and distribution. Photography continues to be the driver of many of these technological and perceptual changes in politics, culture, the marketplace and global conditions. As a result, image makers today are challenged to be more technically capable, conceptually knowledgeable, professionally confident, ethically responsible and culturally aware than ever before.

Within a rich transdisciplinary educational environment, the Photography and Imaging Department is taking photographers into the future. Our strong relationships with industry, long tradition of integrating photography with other design disciplines, and deep experience designing new technologies and applying creative solutions to social impact problems have opened professional doors for countless graduates.

Art Center offers an intimate and intense atmosphere of study that challenges assumptions about our medium, nurtures and promotes originality, and encourages individualized practice in student work, whether your goal is to become a commercial photographer, an artist, or both. Here, you learn to apply the tools of photography—traditional and digital—in a specific and personal investigation of cultural conditions or questions. Our program stresses conceptual development and social awareness aligned with the integration of professional technique and strategies, in the development of a dynamic career in image making.

Images are the new global documents. They represent a new literacy and currency of this time, and will continue to be the most essential component of compelling stories in a world with an insatiable need to be informed.

While the core of what we do as product designers involves understanding people’s needs, identifying opportunities for innovation, visualizing ideas and realizing solutions, it’s imperative that we understand and embrace the limitless array of opportunities we have to shape our future.

As the role of design continues to expand and diversify, emerging techno-logies and platforms for innovation are enabling "design entrepreneurs” to take ideas from concept to marketplace. And design is increasingly recognized as crucial to achieving commercial and organizational success, and vital in improving lives.

Product Design at Art Center provides you with a foundation in the design process, grounded in a human-centered approach and in professional practice. This ethos is crystallized in the Department’s many social impact projects created in collaboration with Designmatters Department.

Along with core visual, creative, technical and analytical skills, you gain a comprehensive understanding of design research methodologies, business principles, materials technologies, manufacturing processes, global trends and sustainability through our state-of-the-art research lab, CMTEL (Color, Materials and Trends Exploration Laboratory). Our partnership with the international business school INSEAD enables students interested in the intersection between design and business to immerse themselves for a semester in an MBA program. Students also benefit from participation in DesignStorms® and other Sponsored Project courses commissioned by corporate partners seeking to explore new frontiers in design and innovation.

Good design is about combining functionality, relevance and commercial viability with visual and emotional appeal in a marketplace that demands products that minimize environmental impact, from production to disposal. You emerge from our program prepared to meet these needs on both local and global scales, having developed the tools to visualize the future and the skills to become a creative leader.

The challenges facing the transportation and automotive industry present tremendous opportunities for transportation designers. Art Center has long served as a globally recognized catalyst for innovation. As transportation designers, our students grow to become passionate problem solvers focused on developing design solutions to address these challenges.

With dozens of advanced automotive design studios and companies leading the emerging fields of new mobility and alternative energy located in Southern California, we are positioned at the heart of trans-portation design’s future. Our instructors are professional designers and successful entrepreneurs working in the industry and serving as experts on important topics being debated in the field. Thanks to this vibrant current of energy passing between the campus and the "real world,” students gain an insider’s perspective of this rapidly changing and highly competitive profession.

Known for more than its longstanding influence in automotive design, our program can prepare you for a career in motorcycle, marine, aircraft, commercial transport, personal mobility and public transit design, as well as vehicle interiors. Exploring the balance between form and function, you will develop the ability to create vehicle concepts with distinct personality, improved function and broad social impact.

In addition to traditional elements of styling, comfort, safety and usability, our curriculum emphasizes vital topics such as sustainable mobility, the implications of brand, and product life cycle. You will gain fluency in drawing and in physical and digital modeling skills, plus develop an understanding of vehicle architecture, materials, process and aerodynamics. And you will join the next generation of designers tackling problems that may not be articulated yet, creating the future and participating in the innovation economy.

Graduate Art is an interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts program that encourages divergent ideas and methods. It provides degree candidates with a comprehensive understanding of art history, art making and contemporary art. Students are given the freedom and support to become any kind of artist they imagine, and to make any kind of art there is—or that they can invent.

Studies are led by a core faculty of seven artists (including the department chair), supplemented by five other full-time faculty and an adjunct faculty of approximately 15 artists, critics and theorists. Students spend the majority of their time in one-on-one studio visits with faculty members, balanced with rigorous critical, academic, and practical coursework. Through its Graduate Seminar course, biannual conference series, and annual artist-in-residence partnership, the program also welcomes internationally recognized artists, historians and writers to the College who address the cultural, historical and political currents that shape art making and the creative process.

In their last two terms, candidates work towards a final show and written thesis under the guidance of a committee comprised of three senior faculty members, culminating in a public defense.

Among the many resources available to students, the Graduate Art Complex at Art Center’s South Campus provides students with individual artists’ studios, indoor and outdoor tool shops, gallery spaces, dedicated computing and video production facilities, and a student lounge.

Our Master of Science degree in Environmental Design focuses on the parameters of sensory-based design and its ability to deliver a complete user experience on a variety of scales. The program takes candidates beyond the confines of style to consider the links between the psychological, physical, emotional and sensory effects of design. Our graduates become uniquely qualified to advance the impact and discipline of environmental design.

Drawing from a diverse array of fields, the Environ-mental Design Department investigates the dynamic qualities of story-driven design to conceive staging and sequencing which captures the dramatic qualities and needs of a specific spatial experience. The graduate program concentrates on conceptual rigor crossed with professional practice and a focus on theoretical thinking, technical innovation, manufacturing, fabrication and project execution. Rather than merely following trends, students define the future of our living environment.

Graduate Environmental Design is a two-track program that enables degree candidates to specialize and obtain advanced knowledge of theory and practice. The Spatial Experience track addresses the relationship among body, materials, space and emotions, and our approach dictates that we work in a multidisciplinary way; this program is for students interested in elevating a multiscale spatial design direction with a strong industry focus and application. The Furniture and Fixtures track investigates the relationship among space, place, function and application of furniture and fixture design, emphasizing innovation, industry standards and the manufacturing process; this program deepens understanding of production furniture, case goods and fixtures and their relationship to manufacturing, materials, market and brand.

Art Center also offers an undergraduate degree in Environmental Design for students looking to explore the relationship between space, object and emotion.

The graduate Film program at Art Center provides developing filmmakers an immersive opportunity to refine and expand their visual storytelling abilities under the mentorship and guidance of top Hollywood talent and decision makers. Our location in Los Angeles, the heart of the entertainment industry, enables us to build a faculty of working professionals and a constant flow of guest lecturers from all corners of the industry.

At Art Center, students have the opportunity to create and own their personal work. They can focus on directing, screenwriting, cinematography, editing or producing. Faculty mentors are working professionals who guide and assist students in the design, development and production of their projects.

Our program attracts a diverse community of storytellers. Traditional disciplinary boundaries melt away. Collaboration among students and faculty from other disciplines allows ideas to flourish.

In a program that provides industry solutions for all phases of production, filmmakers are encouraged to network and seek out professional relationships early on. The Art Center culture of exploration encourages filmmakers to stretch as they find personal, inventive solutions. They are expanding the possibilities of the existing media landscape into as yet unexplored directions.

Our graduates join a large extended family of creative professionals who are widely recognized for bringing a unique approach to every project they tackle.

Art Center’s "Grad ID” program offers a Master of Science curriculum focusing on theory and practice for the production of insightful research, development of human-centric innovations and the creation of new business opportunities.

We combine the pursuit of extraordinary visual design and making skills with the knowledge, theories and methods essential to developing design solutions for complex and unstructured problems. In doing so, we prepare students to assume leadership roles throughout creative organizations. Our faculty of internationally renowned educators—accomplished professionals across a range of design, technology and business fields—help our students develop their abilities through projects and critical dialogue in a design studio environment. The program prepares graduates with an optimal combination of knowledge, skills and experience to lead innovation for enterprise and to create the future.

We design with a consciousness that our innovations exist in a larger context. Our methodology, Strategic Innovation, takes a systems-level view and strives to balance the business, technological and human aspects of any challenge. This broadly applicable creative process produces empathetic solutions to essential human needs and allows designers—and enterprise—to be resilient and to grow.

Grad ID also has joined forces with Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Management to offer a dual MS/MBA degree in Innovation Systems Design (ISD). The two-year program prepares tomorrow’s innovation leaders by combining business strategy, leadership and management acumen with the rigorous development of creative skills and design innovation methodology.

We also offer a dual degree program with the Drucker School of Management, which results in an MS in Industrial Design from Art Center and an MBA from Drucker; this is the Innovation Systems Design Program. For more information, please visit artcenter.edu/isd.

How do designers operate in a world of perpetual change? What is the relationship between future speculation and today’s very real, very immediate challenges? And how might such conditions generate new practices in design? These are the issues students raise and tackle head-on in Media Design Practices (MDP).

Our interdisciplinary MFA is grounded in media—graphic, visual, interactive, spatial, experiential—and technology. We explore the role of design in the world through two different but related contexts, reflected in the names of our tracks: Lab and Field.

Lab track students use design to explore the implications of emerging ideas from science, culture and technology. Students design potential futures to grapple with issues such as digital privacy or connected bodies. Projects and partners change every year, and may include NASA scientists, offbeat Los Angeles cultural institutions or Silicon Valley engineers.

Field track students study local practices and global systems in diverse international contexts, from refugee camps to corporate boardrooms to urban slums. Using a mix of ethnography, prototyping and speculation, students design in the context of urgent social issues, working abroad for up to three months. The Field track partners with Designmatters, Art Center’s social impact program.

When these two tracks come together—in the studio, classes and reviews—a vibrant dialogue emerges. What results is an array of student perspectives that recast the role of technology in society in surprising new ways. Upon graduation, students are ready to launch a design practice that is uniquely suited to the challenges of our time.

Our Transportation Systems and Design students are developing compelling, sustainable and viable transportation and mobility solutions for an inspired future.

For people passionate about the automotive industry and the expansive field of transportation and personal mobility, our Master of Science program encourages creativity and strategic thinking beyond the sketchpad to impact the vehicle manufacturing industry, and to create better, compelling transportation solutions at a systems level, rather than a product level.

Because design brings value well beyond the areas of product and service development, our curriculum encompasses a combination of design methodology, strategic innovation, systems thinking, customer-driven research, political insight plus entrepreneurial and communication skills. The program’s community of students—with prior degrees in subjects such as design, architecture, urban planning, business, engineering, anthropology and economics—brings diverse perspectives and stimulates the transdisciplinary culture that is essential to advance transportation design throughout the coming decades. Degree candidates participate in international conferences and conduct rigorous research; in collaborative teams they explore how to create the ideal user journey while preserving precious environmental resources. The College’s strong ties to government and industry provide direct access to organizations pushing the emerging fields of new mobility and alternative energies.

This course of study encourages graduates to become agents of change prepared to reinvigorate industry across a broad landscape, from design studios and manufacturers to organizations responsible for transportation systems solutions at the national, state and local levels.

Practicing graphic design is a process of creating change. In their pursuit of great ideas, our change-making students follow a simple path—they See, Do, and Lead.

Art Center’s MFA Graduate Graphic Design (MGx) program educates graphic designers who will lead the next global generation of our profession by influencing companies, communities and society at large and extending the boundaries of communication design.

Expanding upon the College’s internationally recognized undergraduate graphic design curriculum, this MFA program provides an immersive education in craft, design leadership and strategic thought—all within a socially responsible transmedia platform that includes print, interaction, motion, packaging and mediatecture. We emphasize entrepreneurship, leadership and management, with a focus on practical, yet exquisite, professional design solutions.

Our regular two-year program consists of four full terms, a summer term reserved for studio-based independent study and an internship. If appropriate, we also offer a three-year program that includes two additional terms of undergraduate graphic design courses tailored to individual students’ needs.