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The Art and Design Department is uniquely located in the Visual Arts Center, a one-time church that has been transformed into a complex of studios where students have complete access to tools, space and collaborators. The Visual Arts Center studios are custom built for both traditional artmaking and modern digital production. This includes drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and woodworking studios as well as a computer lab, flexible spaces for photography, video and audio production and space for gaming. Studios are equipped with the necessary tools and materials to make work, from paint, paintbrushes, printing presses, saws and potters wheels to computers, iPads, digital photo and cinema cameras, lighting, varieties of gaming consoles, and laser and 3D printers.

The faculty, staff and students in the Art and Design Department are dedicated to creating a safe, fun, creative environment in which everyone encourages everyone else to succeed.

• Faculty stay late and often make their art in the same studios as the students, demonstrating our lifelong approach to creative development.
• Due to the friendly, collaborative nature of our programs, student's form quick bonds with classmates and faculty, starting in the first semester.
• Art and design clubs, on-campus student exhibitions and museum/gallery trips downtown provide multiple opportunities to form lifelong friendships and to immerse yourself in diverse cultures.

By the completion of the program, students should be able to:  

• Apply fundamental graphic design principles such as form, positive/negative space, balance, color, etc. to create effective visual compositions across a variety of visual communication media in the context of serving the needs of people, community, industry, and society.  
• Demonstrate technical proficiency in the use of  industry tools alongside traditional art training to produce graphic design work (digital imagery, computer graphics, typography, layout, publishing, printing).   
• Create design solutions through the process of research, concept development, experimentation, critique, and problem solving and aesthetic refinement through iteration.  
• Synthesize and integrate design theory and historical, social, and cultural contexts into developing concept-driven visual communications.  
• Develop and present a representative portfolio of graphic design projects.
  

The ever-expanding digital marketplace and increasingly visual culture ensure that a student dedicated to expanding their graphic design skills will find a place to enter the workforce.

• Chicago is a major hub for commerce including commercial design.
• Students from our Art and Design programs are operating in a wide range of industries across Chicago and the nation.
• Due to multimedia nature of our program, our alumni design graphics for print, web and animation.