The Graphic Student

“Ringling College of Art and Design is a private, not-for-profit, fully accredited college offering the Bachelor’s degree  in 13 disciplines: Advertising Design, Business of Art & Design, Computer Animation, Digital Film, Fine Arts, Game Art & Design, Graphic & Interactive Communication, Illustration, Interior Design, Painting, Photography & Digital Imaging, Printmaking and Sculpture.”

And they produce incredible work (which I can’t link to - so click on Student Art on their homepage). Not only is the student work incredible, but they showcase it beautifully. The website invites you to check out the campus, which sounds beautiful, and have lunch with some of the students and faculty. I think I’m in love.

When Maryland Institute College of Art’s new Pentagram designed identity was launched last year, the design community went crazy. It was when I first took notice of the school. Since then, I’ve always come back to the identity as inspiration, but I never really looked into the school itself. Fortunately, MICA does what all art/design schools should do - they post student work on their website. What better way to judge the abilities of a program than to see what they’re producing? Go have a look at all the work from graphic design, to experimental animation. There’s some beautiful work!

Stumbled across some potentially great material tonight. The Alberta College of Art & Design is featuring a number of blogs from their students. Ever wonder what design school is like in Alberta, Canada? This might be the place to find out. Not as pretty as it could be, and still early on in their life, the blogs will hopefully be an interesting look into the design world where most people, well, don’t think there is a design world. I’ll be following these for sure. The image(s) above are those of ACAD student Inger Marthe.

The Academy of Art University in San Francisco is putting out frighteningly great work from their students. Beautiful work in print, packaging, industrial, and many more genres. Not only is the work smart, attractive, and well executed - the production level is incredible. I would love to see the facilities they have to make such great work. You can find student work from all majors on their website - just click on the major. The piece above was created by student Sharlene Chia-Lin Tai in the Visual Communication course taught by Brody Hartman.

I know they’re not the only school to do this, but the Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada has a great online shop which sells student and graduate artwork, clothing, and accessories. There’s some great stuff - go have a look and support some students.

University College Falmouth’s website is incredible. It doesn’t have the intimidating “artsy” look of other design schools, but doesn’t have the same low-budget look as the rest. It’s easy to navigate, and full of useful information for current and prospective students. But besides all that, what I really like is how much work they show. There is plenty of work from current students and graduates - from an incredible number of genres (e.g. Press Photography, Textile Designs, and many more).

It’s worth spending some time there and having a look around. There is some really beautiful work!

Students at the Bauhaus took a six-month preliminary course that involved painting and elementary experiments with form, before graduating to three years of workshop training by two masters: one artist, one craftsman. They studied architecture in theory and in practice, working on the actual construction of buildings. The creative scope of the curriculum attracted an extraordinary galaxy of teaching staff. Among the stars were Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Schlemmer, the painter and mystic Johannes Itten, László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers and Marcel Breuer. Bauhaus students were in day-to-day contact with some of the most important practising artists and designers of the time.

Go here to read up on the school you wish you were attending. (via)

More often than not, when you’re playing, something wonderful comes out of it.
This great part 1 of a 4 part series of Designing Minds, features the students of The Art Centre of Pasadena. The graphic design students collaborated with the illustration students to put out a magazine, wrap, with some fantastic results. Watch this episode, and then catch the next 2 here, here, and part 4 should be released onto Youtube any day now.

I’ve always loved the idea of collaborating with students from another department. We have an advertising department somewhere in our school - I would love to receive art direction from them and see what happens… But I think what would be most exciting, is to team up with kids who publish our school paper. Send the graphic design students in for one issue, and see what happens. This video series really shows what potential collaboration has with students. Inspiring!

At the Institute, we envision a place where students, teachers, industry and community experts come together not only as creators and designers but also ambassadors of hope. We imagine how to live, learn, work, and play together as a global community. Our goal is to find alternative development patterns and a viable path to a sustaining future, and allow the world to re-envision the designer as a problem solver with the ability to effect positive change for humanity.

How incredible does that sound? Institute Without Borders is a program run out of the School of Design at George Brown College where students interact with professionals to solve world problems. Their first project, Massive Change, explored all things about the future of global design. Their second project, World House, explores methods and practices to developing sustainable shelter for the future. Incredible projects, and what I can only imagine would be an incredible experience. This program is an opportunity for students to learn an incredible amount, and to apply what they’ve learned in a meaningful way. They can step away from using their talents to sell shoes, and do something they are honestly passionate about. 

If you can see yourself doing this, check out the website. Students must have an undergraduate degree, and the tuition is around $13,000 - $22,00 (depending where you live). 

This is a showcase of what the School of Media Arts‘ students put out in 2007. I don’t think the work is very great. It looks like another class heavily trained on where to click and drag the mouse - but not why. Have a look for yourself and tell us what you think.