CCA BFA Programs

Animation

Our Animation faculty and visiting artists prepare you to become a masterful observer of human behavior and emotion. You’ll receive feedback and visual storytelling advice from actual industry animators and directors of such animated films as Toy Story, Star Wars, and the 2013 Oscar-winning Brave. You will hone your technical expertise in timing and spacing, weight, and animation principles. And renowned artists — in disciplines such as illustration and sculpture — will help you extend your artistic reach.

Architecture (BArch)

The five-year, NAAB-accredited* professional degree program is committed to experiments in alternative models of practice, design, and fabrication. The curriculum accordingly brings developments in culture, media, and technology to bear on the process of architectural production, allowing students to capitalize on new opportunities in a rapidly changing profession.

Ceramics

In our Ceramics Program you’ll explore everything from cultural objects and traditions to functional ware and industrial applications. You’ll establish your voice as an artist by combining influences from the world around you with personal identity and symbolism to graduate with a body of work that matters.

 

CCA Ceramic STUDENT WORK  top- Fetters Yeon Joo Lee, bottom Bookshelf  Brandon Jones

Community Arts

The Community Arts Program (COMAR) is an interdisciplinary, community-based academic program devoted to creative practice in the public sphere. The program focuses on the ways artists and designers interact, collaborate, and intervene in a variety of social networks in order to build sustainable community relationships, engage cultural diversity, and stimulate social transformation.

Fashion

Want to see your creative vision come to life in tomorrow’s clothing and apparel designs? Our Fashion Design faculty pushes your critical design thinking in the classroom, while nurturing your craftsmanship in the workroom — so you graduate equipped to design the future of fashion.

Film

In the Film Program at CCA, mastering the fundamentals is only the beginning. We help you move beyond convention to break new ground in storytelling and the art of filmmaking — on the big screen, on small screens, and beyond. Your BFA in Film prepares and inspires you to become a creative visionary of the future. (SeeNotable Film Alumni »)

Furniture

Our Furniture Program lets you immerse yourself in an interdisciplinary approach and allows you to explore furniture in the realms of studio art, craft, and design. Through the physical act of making, coupled with thoughtful collaboration and critique, you’ll learn to trust your design instincts. You’ll apply them to your craft. And you’ll see the world of furniture design in all new ways.

Glass

The program acknowledges the value of a traditional academic structure while also incorporating diverse subject matter and interdisciplinary approaches. The curriculum focuses on contemporary fine-art practice and embraces drawing as an integral element in all projects and critiques.

Visit notable Glass alumni to see how CCA influenced its glass artists.

CCA Glass STUDENT WORK, Reality Colin O’Reilly

Graphic Design

Our Graphic Design Program trains you to translate complex ideas into inspired designs. You’ll make art that matters as you explore current social issues. We teach you to design original and elegant solutions that strategically move audiences to feel, think, and act.

Illustration

In our Illustration Program you’ll learn the language of visual storytelling to inspire you to respond creatively to the issues that matter most to you today. Our program challenges you to explore everything from deeply personal  to larger social issues — and to make sense of it all on paper, canvas, and the digital screen.

CCA Illustration Student Work, Clara and the Magic Brush, Monica Garwood

Individualized Major

The Individualized Major (INDI) at CCA provides an opportunity for students to design and follow a personalized program of study. Students must write and present a proposal (e.g., “What I want to do and why I want to do it”), which must be approved.

Industrial Design

In our Industrial Design Program you will hone your own groundbreaking ideas and designs as you work alongside those who are inventing the future.

Interaction Design

While engineers make technology faster, smaller and more reliable, interaction designers make it more meaningful, usable, and delightful. Want to create the next-wave mobile experience? Reinvent social networks? Pioneer new ways to work and play? You have a future in interaction design.

Interior Design

In CCA’s Interior Design Program you’ll explore materials and space as you’re challenged to create beautiful, functional spaces that merge environmental, social, and architectural elements. You’ll learn how to design interiors that transform organizations, change communities, and make a lasting impression.

Jewelry/Metal Arts

Discover our Jewelry / Metal Arts Program, where traditional and contemporary art practices meld. We’ve offered metal arts courses for more than a century, encouraging you to fabricate a range of refined metal works — from wearable art to experimental sculpture — and develop your craft. Our notable alumni are creating truly meaningful pieces that expand the boundaries of the metal art form.

Drawing & Painting

Explore the traditions of painting and drawing, while taking bold new risks as an artist. Our Painting/Drawing Program celebrates the power of painting and the mark of the human hand, which are our traditional methods and craft, while also embracing an innovative and expanded definition of the discipline. Here you’ll be challenged to work both on and off canvas, to push into the experimental, the digital, and the handmade, and to redefine the rules of painting itself.

Photography

In our Photography Program, you’ll discover inspiration all around you, whether you’re capturing the small, human details of everyday life or exploring larger, abstract ideas about culture and identity. As you map this creative territory, you’ll also be developing your technical digital and analog skills. You will make images that have a real impact on your personal and professional communities.

Printmaking

Develop your craft as a printmaker and refine your voice as an artist. In our program, you’ll explore both traditional and experimental printmaking techniques, while also diving deep into contemporary art theory and cultural dialogue.

Sculpture

Inside our expansive studios, which offer everything from traditional bronze casting to computer-aided 3D rapid prototyping, you’ll make sculpture at any scale, in any material imaginable. You’ll also experiment with installation, video, performance, and public art. Most importantly, you’ll discover how your practice as an artist can actually help transform society.

Textiles

Immerse yourself in the world of contemporary art, while you explore one of the oldest aesthetic traditions in the world. In our fine arts-based Textiles Program, you’ll develop a strong historical and theoretical knowledge of the field. You’ll also build a diverse creative practice in which you explore everything from weaving to textile printing to sculptural fiber. Once you earn your bachelor of arts, you’ll be equipped to challenge others to think differently about textiles, crafts, and fine art.

CCA Textile STUDENT WORK, Li Chin Ng

Visual Studies

Want to explore beyond the boundaries of traditional art history? As a major (or minor) in our Visual Studies Program, you’ll examine everything from painting and sculpture to gaming and social media. We prepare you to think, write, and speak eloquently about the visual culture that surrounds you, and how it affects our lives.