Degree: Bachelor of Fine Arts
At Art Center, Graphic Design students learn to infuse words and images with life and meaning, whether they are creating motion graphics on the latest digital equipment, or setting type by hand in Art Center’s letterpress shop.

Our program begins with an accelerated education in the formal principles of design, aesthetics and craftsmanship, after which students may specialize in a single area of graphic design or explore the full scope of communication design.

This approach is consistently validated by the awards our students win in many of the nation’s top competitions, including the Adobe Design Achievement Awards and the Broadcast Designers Association awards.

Traditional manual skills, such as hand lettering and drawing, and sophisticated graphics software are part of the same spectrum of tools available to today’s graphic designers.

We challenge students to develop their design solutions while experimenting with a wide range of media, including product packaging, book and magazine layouts, interactive communication, 3D graphics, virtual environments and the creation of graphic identities and branded experiences.

Through Transdisciplinary Studios, often sponsored by corporate clients, and Designmatters projects sponsored on behalf of humanitarian organizations, our students apply their skills to commercial and nonprofit causes while collaborating with product designers, photographers, illustrators and students from other majors.

Their education is further supplemented with courses on design history, the language of the moving image, and design research.

By learning to create solutions that are innovative, coherent, beautiful and engaging, we prepare students to become leaders in communication design—whether they plan to join an established firm, or launch a studio of their own.

Find out more about our department at artcenter.edu/gpk.