Degree: Master of Fine Arts

artcenter.edu/mdp

Art Center’s graduate program in Media Design offers a two- or three-year Master of Fine Arts curriculum that helps ambitious designers from a variety of backgrounds become design leaders and researchers in emerging fields.

We are looking for risk-takers with hybrid interests who can integrate innovative design with intellectual investigation, who can synthesize theory and practice, and who can pursue their research and making with depth, intelligence and passion.

At the start of the 21st century, we named the program Media Design, because our students’ projects no longer conformed to the disciplines of the time.

Some projects were graphics-based, others were objects; some engaged, others performed; some stayed still, others moved—and some you moved through. We invented the program name because the old ones no longer fit. In the process, we created an entirely new discipline.

Media Design is now a recognized field, but still young enough that our students can define it on their own terms.

Our students are guided by a faculty of design visionaries and thought leaders who bring knowledge, experience and rigor to their critiques.

We challenge our students to push design in new directions by following their curiosity, refining their expertise and inventing new practices within a context of cultural and technological change.

This adaptability is essential as we prepare designers to lead in amazingly diverse contexts, from scientific research labs to futurist think tanks, from leading corporations to nonprofits and design studios.

In 2009, our department moved into a 14,000-square-foot former supersonic wind tunnel at Art Center’s South Campus.

A dramatic setting conducive to inspiration and experimentation, this dedicated space houses our students’ workstations, faculty offices, the New Ecology of Things research laboratory and gallery space.