Design

The traditional boundaries of design disciplines are dissolving in the face of contemporary design challenges and opportunities. The Graduate Program in Design at CCA prepares its graduates for careers in innovative design practice, including design direction, strategy, and leadership.

Transdisciplinary Approach

The program is tuned to students who have achieved mastery in a design discipline through undergraduate studies or professional engagement, and who are now ready to expand their horizons by engaging with other design disciplines in strategic and collaborative ways. A transdisciplinary approach leads to vibrant new design practices that can deeply engage the world as it is and as it is becoming.

Faculty Leadership

The Graduate Program in Design’s strong faculty leadership brings together expert educators and practitioners whose work attests to the transdisciplinary vision that animates our program. Our curriculum combines theory and practice into a new conceptual model for design. The program’s Pro Council, a board of advisors, includes CEOs and founders of some of the world’s best known design firms, notable writers and critics, humanitarians and philanthropists, and creative visionaries. This group has helped to shape our mission and curriculum, and its members often participate as faculty and guest lecturers.

Culture-Rich Location

Our program takes advantage of CCA’s unique geographical context, framed by the cultural efflorescence of San Francisco and the high-tech, entrepreneurial hum of Silicon Valley. Our engagements with the cultures of the Pacific Rim and Latin America enhance our global perspective. Our location and the cultures in which we are embedded give rise to the program’s unique educational emphasis on human-centered research, sustainability, strategic design thinking, and transdisciplinary work.

The Graduate Program in Design provides a stage for students to do great, innovative work. The future of design is in progress. Students and faculty are working together to envision and enact that future.

The Graduate Program in Design Website

CCA's Design Program offers a program-specific website for existing and potential graduate design students.