Design
- Master of Fine Arts
Facilities for Graduate Work
In addition to the extensive library and computer resources available on campus, the design program supports a computer laboratory dedicated to addressing students’ specific needs, including typography, two-dimensional and three-dimensional imaging, sound animation, and video. Many items, including digital video and digital still cameras, can be borrowed by students. The laboratory is staffed seventy hours a week during the long semesters; graduate students have twenty-four-hour access to the laboratory. In addition to a fully equipped black-and-white darkroom, a photo studio supports the image-capturing requirements of photographic, digital, and video technologies. Letterpress facilities are complemented by an extensive collection of wood and metal type for printing and book projects, and the Department of Art and Art History wood shop addresses many three-dimensional prototyping needs. Studio space specifically for graduate students houses both computers and peripherals.
Areas of Study
The focus of the program is on the creation of a multidisciplinary environment within which students are encouraged critically to investigate the social, political, and economic contexts in which design is created and used. This emphasis on critical and contextual investigation applies to all forms of learning in the program, including the making of artifacts and more abstract exploration of design issues through discussion, reading, and writing.
Graduate Studies Committee
The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee in the spring semester 2006–2007.
- Kate Catterall
- Gloria J. Lee
- Daniel M. Olsen
- David Shields
- Chris Taylor
Admission and Degree Requirements
Applicants for admission to the program are expected to be students or practitioners who are independent and self-motivated and who demonstrate an advanced interest in exploring alternative concepts of design. Applicants must submit documentation of their work as part of the admission application; information about this requirement is available from the Department of Art and Art History. Applicants are not required to submit Graduate Record Examinations scores.
Candidates for the degree must complete at least sixty semester hours of coursework, chosen with the advice of the graduate adviser and approved by the supervising committee. At least thirty hours of graduate coursework must be in design (the major), and six hours must be outside design (the minor). Only graduate courses in design may be included in the major, but up to six hours of upper-division undergraduate coursework outside design may be included in the minor.
For More Information
Campus address: Art Building (ART) 3.320, phone (512) 471-3377; campus mail code: D1300
Mailing address: The University of Texas at Austin, Graduate Program in Design, Department of Art and Art History, 1 University Station D1300, Austin TX 78712
E-mail: d.m.olsen@mail.utexas.edu