Art and Art History

The purpose of the Illustration/Animation concentration is to prepare students to pursue visual narrative storytelling as an applied art creatively and professionally. Emphasis is on creative process, visual thinking, communication, authoring extended illustration and/or animation works, and understanding professional practice.

The Illustration/Animation concentration emphasizes visual problem solving, creative invention, visual storytelling, and the development of imagery for communication. In illustration courses we stress the creation of images that expand a text. “Text” is broadly defined and may include manuscripts, posters, websites, or self-authored works by the illustrator.

Illustration requires the artist’s individual creativity and intellectual inquiry be fully present and developed. At the same time, one must be willing to engage collaboratively with other communication professionals and remain mindful of the intended audience. In Animation courses the emphasis is on creative exploration while developing technical skills that allow the individual to fully realize inventive time-based products. Students are exposed to a wide variety of tools and materials with which to create work. Quality of motion, mastery of tools and techniques, and inventive storytelling are the driving forces. The growing field of animated storytelling offers newly graduated students distinct opportunities, and offering an expanded view of illustration and animation prepares our students broadly for the field.

The Concentration, as a whole, gives students a working knowledge of both traditional approaches and new technologies. Students merge personal expression with communication goals in their comprehensive professional preparation as they pursue a wide variety of projects in both analog and digital environments, including: book, editorial, institutional, and children’s illustration; 2-D and stop-motion animation; character and environment design; design for products; comics, cartoons, and graphic novels; self-promotion, and more.