I want to enter in an art college/university (anywhere), but most, if not all decent/semi-decent art schools require applicants to have a portfolio+ SAT scores(which I didn't take). I consider my art skills to be poor compared with art school students because I first began taking art classes during my senior year in high school.
I'm currently in a community college. Should I spend all my time focusing upon improving my art skills or continue with general ed classes along with some art classes?
Could someone gimme some advise or information??
Btw, I'm thinking of graphic design. Many people say that you don't have you be a great artist to be a graphic designer, you just have to be creative.. then what are art schools looking for in the portfolio??
Art Schools?
Pratt Institute is a great art school. There is a satellite school in Utica, NY.
Art is something that you have to learn, just like anything Else. But most importantly you have to love what you do. When you love to do something you do well at it. If you don't feel that way about something then I would wait and not spend a lot of money on folly.
Reply:Take a basic two-dimensional design course and a basic drawing course and use the work from those courses for your portfolio. Meanwhile, keep your academics as strong as possible. Your general education courses will probably transfer without any difficulty. Your art courses may or may not--especially if they are more than the basic foundation studios.
Many of the good graphic design programs are very competitive so having excellent academics is a plus. Also, many of them will not count community college design courses as equivalent to their own coursework in the graphic design program, so you would be better off to take support kinds of courses (photography, ceramics or sculpture, digital imaging) that would be more likely to be accepted than specific major courses.
If you are serious about graphic design, I would try to get a portfolio together and get into the new school as soon as you can. www.aiga.org has some good information about what to look for in design educational programs.
There are alot of good schools all around the country, but don't wait too long because you will probably be looking at another three years at that school to get into the design course sequence and get it completed.
Most schools are looking for basic drawing skills -- your ability to see something in the world and translate that into a two-dimensional representation. Use of compositional space, accuracy in proportions, ability to model/shade the form to represent dimensionality -- these are all things that we evaluate in a portfolio. Presentation counts too. Neatness, organization, clear images that are cropped accurately all help. Many schools also require a written statement as a way to assess both your thinking and your ability to communicate clearly with language.
Hope this helps.
Reply:Many art specialty schools, places like RISD and Mass Art, don't require the SAT. Those that do ask for it give much stronger weight to the content of your portfolio than to those scores.
Art programs at broader schools, those like Syracuse University or RIT, do ask for SAT scores, because they are a university first, and an art school second. Their art program may still be of extremely high quality, but they ask for SAT scores because the main focus of the school as a whole is academic.
If you think SAT scores may be an issue for you, then you could look at art schools, rather than universities.
However, if you stay at your community college and get your associates, SATs become moot, anyway. Once you have your associates, transfer programs won't ask for your SATs. Instead, they rely on your college grades.
In terms of what art schools look for in a portfolio, most of them look for potential - not perfection. The majority want at least some examples of drawing from life, and you can also include any other art that you feel represents you. But the drawing from life tends to be important.
In terms of being a graphic designer, you do need to be a good artist. However, that doesn't mean that you need to be a great ILLUSRATOR - a lot of people get confused about this. You don't necessarily have to draw super well in order to be a good artist, or a good graphic designer. But you do need a strong knowledge of art, and one important thing you need in order to be an artist is creativity.
So, what should you do now? You have some choices. If you stay at your current school, do focus on taking as many art classes as you can. Make sure some of those are life drawing classes (heck, when I applied to art school, I basically submitted my sketches from life drawing class. I got in.) You can also take any other art or art-related courses that interest you, but make sure you get some drawing in. If you know graphic design is what you want to do, also take graphic design and computer graphics classes, but not at the expense of the "foundation" drawing and painting classes. If you plan to get your associates where you are, then you'll also have to take gen-eds. If you plan to transfer before that, then take some gen-eds (English, Math), but focus mainly on art.
I'm going to give you some valuable links. If you can somehow get to a portfolio day (in link below), you should. Bring your portfolio - which can be anything you have, don't get too stressed about this - but should include at least some drawing. The admissions reps who go to these events will look at your portfolio and tell you what you should do to it to make it ready for applications.
Some schools list exactly what they want to see in an application portfolio. Others give general guidelines. To get started, check the admissions pages for the following strong art schools. They'll give you some idea:
- Rhode Island School of Design
- The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Massachusetts College of Art
- Parsons School of Design
- Otis (Los Angeles)
If you're still not sure about the whole portfolio thing, you MUST check out the Academy of Art University in California. They are a highly reputable art school, and one of the few of that ilk that does NOT require a portfolio for admission. They aren't cheap, but they are reputable. Worth a look.
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