Designing for a Changing World
How does a creative, curious person prepare to work in a career that uses fluid, rapidly-changing technology?
The Digital Media Arts (DMA) concentration recognizes that creative students today are preparing for a myriad of possible creative careers the details of which are impossible to predict. It presents students with a foundational grounding of a traditional art and design skills, theory and history, and then teaches students to apply their understanding and skills in a range of creative disciplines (animation, interactive design/web design, digital design for theater, digital music, communications, and television film arts).
About the Concentration
Preparing for a Changing World
The technology and the world are changing too rapidly to accurately predict what specific skills any creative career will require. The DMA concentration is designed to foster a forever-learner mindset and encourages dialogue, tinkering, and creative experimentation to create a versatile and socially-responsible creative worker who has agency over their creative career and life.
Current trajectories in the creative industries point to multiple convergences of skillsets: image-making (digital imagery, animation, video, film), experience design, interactivity/game design, communication, and storytelling.
The Foundation
The Digital Media Arts concentration presents students with a foundational grounding of a traditional art and design skills, theory and history, and then teaches students to apply their understanding and skills in a range of creative disciplines (animation, interactive design/web design, digital design for theater, digital music, communications, and television film arts). Students then work with an advisor to produce a capstone project that sets the stage to begin their career or move on to graduate studies.
Career Options
- Web Design
- Television and Film Production
- Motion Graphics or Visual Effects Design
- Video Game Development
- Copywriter
- Front-end Development
- UI/UX Design
- Advertising and Marketing
- Theater Design
- Graduate studies
Interdisciplinary Insights
An effective undergraduate degree gives a developing professional the intellectual capacity to become an industry-leading expert. As a Digital Media Arts concentration in the Art & Design B.F.A. degree program, students experience learning, modes of thinking, and different forms of creative problem solving from a diverse gamut of professionals.
The DMA is a studio-intensive degree path in that students spend more than half their class time in a studio environment working directly under industry experts from a wide range of creative disciplines. Innumerable hours will be spent researching, collaborating, and making. Over time, a person changes in this environment.
Having daily direct access to industry professionals and their years of experience affords students the opportunity to gain wisdom and make more informed decisions as they build their portfolio and begin their career.
As students matriculate through the DMA curriculum and learn to make work, solve problems, and communicate with a large array of peers and professionals, they will see their practice in a larger context. This capacity to perceive how their work relates to other fields and conversely other people informs their decision making such that the work created can be more relevant, effective, and meaningful to both the designer and the viewer.