Academy of Arts | San Fransisco

[Sam0s]

Greetings folks,

I've gotten accepted there and I was wondering if anybody here at CA is or has been a student there?, and ofcourse what your Opinions / Thoughts are of AAC in San Fransisco.


My major would be Graphic Design but I'm thinking strongly of converting to Fine Arts. Any thoughts on these 2 majors would also be valuable info.

Thanks peeps

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[pconsidine]

My major would be Graphic Design but I'm thinking strongly of converting to Fine Arts. Any thoughts on these 2 majors would also be valuable info.

I can't speak about the school itself, but I can tell you about my experiences in changing majors (of course, this was 10 years ago at RIT, so take this with a grain of salt).

In many Graphic Desiign programs, there's a serious skimping on drawing and painting. One of the reasons that I changed majors was because I had made major improvement in my drawing in my foundation year (the freshman hell year when you have to take everything under the sun and be good at it) and there were no drawing or painting studio courses offered to the GD majors in sophomore year. By that point, I knew that drawing was a "use it-or-lose it" skill and I didn't want to lose it, nor did I really want to continue in a major that didn't see that as important. End of story.

Even now, I still hear the complaint that the current crop of designers don't know how to draw and from what I've seen, it's true. Sure, there's no need to hand-spec type or do hand-drawn comps since the invention of the computer, but it's totally clear who can do it and who can't.

One thing that I wish I had done (and would recommend to you) is that if you decide to be a Fine Arts major, do try to take a design class or two. A design portfolio can only help and even though a BFA degree qualifies you to be a designer, you will feel better if you can at least speak the language.

Just my 2¢.

Pete

[Soygirl]

I'm from the Bay Area and looking for an art school in the area(i'd like to major in illustration). Either the Academy of Arts in SF or CCAC... At the moment I'm getting the impression that CCAC is a better choice, but I don't know anything much about either school. Any info would be appreciated by me as well ^_~

[AndyKun]

I went there in 96/97 and it was just really great to live there and a really good school with loads of fantastic teachers. I started in advertising but switched to Illustration/Animation. the Graphic Design dept. is really good but VERY demanding and the Illustration dept. was great and they concentrate a lot on figure drawing and color theory so it's kind of a classical program. even though for pure academic teaching nothing can beat www.florenceacademyofart.com .
One really good thing is that they have free workshops every night and usually 3 or 4 to choose from everyday like figure painting or gesture drawing...

I highly recommend it