“I was impressed with the mix of backgrounds within  the department. I had classmates from Japan, Korea, Canada and South Africa; from different age groups; and from fields outside of design. Everybody brought something different to the table. When we tossed ideas back and forth, sparks flew and concepts were born.”
Dan Winger ’07

GradID’s facilities define a design studio environment with individual workspaces for students and conference rooms for scheduled classes, group projects and presentations. All of Art Center’s educational resources and facilities are available to students, including: editing bays; printmaking, photo and computer labs; the shops, including 3D Rapid Prototyping technologies; the Color, Materials and Trends Explorational Laboratory (CMTEL), and the James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library, which features an unparalleled collection of art and design reference materials.

Situated just 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena is a vibrant and sophisticated city. Best known to Americans for its sunny weather and its annual Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl college football game, Pasadena is also known as a “City of Learning,” containing the second-highest concentration of art, cultural and educational institutions in the United States. The city has a rich architectural and design history that includes works by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Greene brothers, Wallace Neff and artisans of the Arroyo Craftsman style. It also hosts an impressive collection of cultural institutions including the Norton Simon Museum; The Huntington Library, Art Collection & Botanical Gardens; the Armory Center for the Arts; and the Pacific Asia Museum. Pasadena has long been a center for scientific and aerospace innovation, and is home to both the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Many of our students and alumni choose to live and launch their businesses here. Renowned new business incubator Idealab and Honda’s Advanced Research Studio are also located nearby in the Old Pasadena district.

Pasadena is located at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains at the northern edge of the greater Los Angeles region. Home to 18 million residents and one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse metropolitan areas, the Los Angeles region offers an abundance of opportunities and advantages. Considered by many Asian cultures as the Western gateway to the Pacific Rim, Southern California is an international center of art, innovation and entrepreneurship. The region’s unique culture, talent and year-round sunny climate makes it home to companies in the entertainment, aerospace, fashion and consumer products industries. Such companies include Sony, The Walt Disney Company, Electronic Arts, NBC Universal, Samsung and Nokia. Over a dozen major automobile manufacturers, including BMW DesignworksUSA, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors and Mercedes have studios in the area. The Los Angeles region is also home to a thriving art scene with some 350 art galleries and several world-class museums, including the Getty Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Founded in 1930, Art Center College of Design has long been at the forefront of cultivating leaders in the fields of art and design. From its seminal role in the founding of the first advanced-design concept studio for the automotive industry in the 1950s, to being the first design school to receive the United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) status, to its commitment to having art and design play a role in addressing sustainability issues, Art Center has a history of anticipating societal changes and trends. Art Center is comprised of two facilities. The Hillside Campus is home to our undergraduate programs, the Graduate Industrial Design (GradID) and Graduate Broadcast Cinema programs, administrative offices and much of the College’s faculty and staff. Home to Art Center since 1976, the main Hillside Campus building is a dramatic postmodern steel-and-glass bridge structure spanning an arroyo in the San Raphael Hills, just above the Rose Bowl. Designed by Craig Ellwood Associates, it has been designated a historical landmark by the City of Pasadena. South Campus, formerly a supersonic wind tunnel located in downtown Pasadena, houses Art Center’s Graduate Art and Media Design programs as well as Art Center’s Public Programs and the Archetype Press, a one-of-a-kind letterpress printing facility. Art Center offers undergraduate degree programs in Advertising, Entertainment Design, Environmental Design, Film, Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Imaging, Product Design and Transportation Design and graduate programs in Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design and Media Design. Art Center also offers public programs for the larger community, including seminars, lectures, exhibitions and conferences, as well as enriching classes for adults and children.