The Design Media Arts (DMA) undergraduate program emphasizes innovative creation with digital and mass media within the context of a public research university. The curriculum features a solid foundation in form, color, space, motion, typography, and interactivity, followed by a broad selection of area studies courses in video, visual communication, network media, game design, and narrative. The program culminates with the Senior Projects classes where each student defines their own senior project based on individual interests within the areas of interactivity and games, video and animation, and visual communication and image.

This uniquely challenging and diverse program invites students to balance aesthetic sensibility with logical reasoning, formal theories with practical application, and contemporary thought with historical perspective. Most courses are taught as studios of no more than 22 students, which encourages individual growth and fosters a sense of community within the department.

Rather than focusing on narrow professional development, our curriculum fosters experimentation across a range of different media. We privilege a social outlook, process, experimentation, and personal growth over conservatism and commercialism and we search for students who share the same goals. We strive to provide a broad education that encourages young people to make new connections, to analyze complex situations, and to think critically.
 

Capstone Major

The Design | Media Arts major is a designated capstone major. Students are required to complete an advanced project of their own that entails full engagement with the design process. Through their capstone work, students demonstrate their capacities for research, ideation/concept development, creative and design direction, communication strategy, design, production/fabrication, and critical analysis. Capstone courses focus on career choice, and final projects are showcased at the spring senior show.

Mga Resulta ng Pagkatuto

1. Deep understanding of the field through immersion

2. Exploration and development of ideas through listening to and observation of patterns

3. Definition of an event and its surroundings and mise-en-scène, and the ethos of the student’s idea

4. Development of the specifics of a design

5. Conceptualization of how an idea reaches its audience, how and when it launches, and how it stays relevant and vibrant

6. Designed specifics of each element of the visual vocabulary—from graphic elements to photography, videography, and illustrations—including definition of spatial, material, and auditory elements

7. Thorough research of appropriate and relevant production methods

8. Analysis, review, and critique of others’ work