California Institute of the Arts
CalArts offers a variety of unique programs at the undergraduate and graduate level within its six world-renowned Schools—Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music and Theater.
Undergraduate core courses are the foundation of BFA studies at CalArts, providing a strong general education and opportunities to deepen every student's artistic practice.
Resources from California Institute of the Arts
Introduction to Imagemaking
About this Course During this course, we’ll be making exploratory images to expand your visual vocabulary. We'll create pieces that are expressive, meditative, or ‘design-y' to instigate, evoke, experiment, record, explain, or to t...
Fundamentals of Graphic Design
About this Course Graphic Design is all around us! Words and pictures—the building blocks of graphic design—are the elements that carry the majority of the content in both the digital world and the printed world. As graphic design becomes more visib...
Story and Narrative Development for Video Games
In this course, you will examine how storytelling acts as a vital mechanism for driving video gameplay forward. Looking at several historical and contemporary games, you will be asked to evaluate and interpret different story styles with the goal of...
World Design for Video Games
Start creating your world. A game world is not just a backdrop for your game—be it minimal or detailed, contained or part of a much bigger universe, it provides the context for your player. Ultimately, a game world should feel alive and wholly unique...
Introduction to Game Design
Welcome! This course is an introduction to the primary concepts of gaming, and an exploration of how these basic concepts affect the way gamers interact with our games. In this course you will understand what defines a “game” and the mechanics and ru...
Game Design Document: Define the Art & Concepts
The Capstone project is a place for you to develop your game idea into a fully-fleshed proposal. A game design document is your game bible, the go-to document that defines the genre of your game, its look and feel, and the evolution of gameplay. This...
Introduction to Typography
About this Course Typography is the art of manipulating the visual form of language to enrich and control its meaning. It’s an essential area of skill and knowledge for graphic designers. Typography predates modern graphic design by around 500 years...
Creating Site-Specific Dance and Performance Works
About this Course Welcome! This project-based course focuses on the creation of live site-specific choreography and performance works from conception to production to performance. It is geared towards performers, artists, composers and creative prod...
Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop
Why just write poems when you can write better ones? This course is built on the notion that the most exciting writing begins after the first draft. It is specifically for folks who believe that writing poems just to express oneself is like using the...
History of Graphic Design
This condensed survey course focuses on four major areas of design and their history: Typography, Image-Making, Interactive Media, and Branding. In each class, we'll start by observing the factors that influence and shape aesthetic outcomes. Yo...