Digital Badges

Introducing Digital Badges

Digital badges are now available for select offerings through ArtCenter Extension (ACX) for students seeking professional development and continuing education courses.

With ArtCenter College of Design's new digital badges, you can now share your skills and learning achievements with potential employers, educational institutions, and peers.

What is a digital badge?

A web-enabled representation of a collection of learning achievements.
A new, trusted way to share your learning achievements online.
Evidence of your skills and your capabilities, easily verified in real-time online.

A badge gives you the ability to share your accomplishments online in a way that is simple, trusted, and can be easily verified in real time. Badges provide employers and peers evidence of what you can do as a result of your education through newly acquired, specialized skills. You can display badges you've earned on social media, your website, a digital resume, LinkedIn, and in your email signature.

Badges are earned based upon the successful completion of a sequence of selected courses. Badges currently available:

Surface Design
Graphic Design
Product Design/Designing Everyday Products
Creative Direction

Surface Design

Gain an understanding of surface design concepts and collections, terminology, basic knowledge of software, technical requirements for reproduction, licensing and print on-demand, and build a professional quality portfolio for job search, freelance and licensing presentations. To earn a badge, complete the following courses with a grade of B or better:

Surface Design 1* (course length: 12 weeks)
Surface Design 2 (course length: 8 weeks)
Monetizing Artwork: Licensing & Print On-Demand (course length: 4 weeks)
Surface Design 3** (course length: 12 weeks)

Graphic Design

Develop a foundation of layout, design and typography through projects that provide an understanding of hierarchy, grid systems, logo forms, design thinking, design research, visual communication, color, and printing. Students will learn how to document process and professionally present their work. Complete the following courses with a grade of B or better:

Intro to Graphic Design (course length: 14 weeks)
Mastering Color for Artists and Designers (course length: 7 weeks)
Essential Typography (course length: 14 weeks)
Intermediate Graphic Design (course length: 14 weeks)

Product Design/Designing Everyday Products

Learn basic sketch, rendering and presentation techniques rooted in dimensional form, observation and materials. Students will work on projects that create an understanding of designing products including project framing, research, concept, development, refinement and presentation. Complete the following courses with a grade of B or better:

Product Design: Basics (course length: 7 weeks)
Sketching for Designers (course length: 14 weeks)
Product Design: Process (course length: 7 weeks)
Product Design: Intermediate (course length: 10 weeks)

Creative Direction

Engage in the culture of a creative agency as you learn to work and thrive in a stimulating environment rooted in advertising. Learn how to utilize forms of traditional and emerging media to reach consumers, exercise design practices that tap into an audience and culture, construct brand identities, and produce multiple and varied creative campaigns with powerful copy ready to be presented in a final book or portfolio. Complete the following courses with a grade of B or better:

Intro to Creative Direction (course length: 14 weeks) or
Be the Creative Director (BtheCD)
Art Direction for Creative Directors (AC4CDs) (course length: 9 weeks)
Crashvertising (course length: 2 weekends - Saturday, Sunday)
Bookcamp (course length: 14 weeks)
Copywriting - coming soon

How to Earn a Badge

Take and pass with a grade of B or better the designated course sequence in Surface Design, Graphic Design, Designing Everyday Products or Creative Direction.

If you've already taken any of these courses in the sequence through ACX within the last 3 years (since Fall 2020), you're eligible to complete the series and earn the badge.

Course Changes and Cancellations

ACX reserves the right to cancel any class, limit class size, change times or substitute instructors for those listed in the class schedule as deemed necessary. Class cancellations will not be announced until the end of the registration period. If ACX cancels a class you have registered for, you will receive a full refund of course tuition.

How to Request and Claim your Badge

Once you successfully complete the sequence of courses, submit a request for your digital badge at: Claim my Digital Badge
Once verified and approved, your badge will be issued through Credly Credential Network.
There is NO charge to claim and share your badge.
Every badge you earn is securely stored on Credly and can be verified with a single click.

Share Your Digital Badge

Share the badges you've earned on social media, your website, a digital resume, LinkedIn, and in your email signature.