Columbia College Chicago
There are seven specialized BFA programs - Fine Arts, Illustration, Graphic Design, Fashion Design, Product Design, Interior Architecture, and Advertising Art Direction - whose creative, realistic and practical approach to learning encourages students to develop their own personal vision. We also offer a Bachelor of Arts Degree that is more general. As a student delves into the elements of Fashion Design, he or she could be compared with a sociologist discerning the history, creativity and artistic components of dress and fashion design.
Fashion makes many statements about the person wearing the clothing such as political preferences, monetary and social status, or technical achievements. Production, merchandising, advertising and marketing are all parts of fashion as a clothing industry. The basis for a successful career in the fashion industry must combine knowledge of the integration of these elements. Columbia College's Fashion Design facility is one of Midwest's top professional facilities.
The school features different types of classrooms to provide students with the educational tools they need including two large construction studios, a CAD computer lab, lecture classrooms and a study collection/resource room. The setting in which students are instructed is similar to that found in the fashion industry.
Columbia College's downtown Chicago location also serves as an "adjunct campus" for fashion studies. Columbia College is located at a convenient distance of outstanding fashion boutiques, art galleries, and world-renowned museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Chicago Historical Society. Computer Aided Design (CAD) is an important and fast expanding area in the world of fashion design.
The Fashion Design Department at Columbia College gives its students the opportunity to utilize a state-of-the-art CAD classroom and lab facility. The lab is equipped with Lectra Systems software, which is used in dress manufacturing and pattern companies throughout the reality for fabric pattern, merchandising presentations, form introduction/modification and marking making.
