Make words come to life
Professional illustrators are the ultimate storytellers.
Some illustrations make complex material easier to understand and some drop video gamers into an eye-opening digital world. What other skillset is equally applicable on the pages of a medical journal and in the panels of a comic book?
As an illustration major, you’ll develop your ability to create compelling and effective visual communication, built on a solid foundation in drawing, design, painting, liberal arts, and art history.
You will also learn about storyboarding, character development, and diverse narrative forms, both in the studio and through visits with professionals in the field, and you’ll explore traditional skills alongside the latest digital technologies – all with the goal of creating compelling, communicative images.
Please note: Beginning in Fall 2019, the B.F.A. program in Illustration will be offered exclusively on our main campus in West Haven.
Learn from professors who are dedicated to your success.
Our faculty are leaders and innovators in their fields, bringing both deep professional experience and academic rigor to the classroom.
Envision Your Future
The information below is designed to show the many possible careers you could pursue with your major. The research is provided by Encoura, the leading research and advisory firm focused exclusively on higher education. It includes median national salaries and industry growth projections over the next decade. Click here to view the full report.
$65K
Multimedia Artists and Animators
16% Growth 2017-2027
$90K
Art Directors
10% Growth 2017-2027
$50K
Fine Artists
9% Growth 2017-2027
Nationally Recognized Center for Career Development
All University of New Haven students have access to the many resources available through the University’s Career Development Center, which has been named one of the best in the nation by The Princeton Review.
From career assessments, networking, and job shadowing to on-campus interviews and salary negotiation, the Career Development Center provides the skills and connections to identify a meaningful career and an opportunity to pursue your passion.
Learn MoreA Selection of Studio Courses
These are just a few the classes you will take as part of a comprehensive fine arts education.
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Foundation
The Foundation program provides all entering students with a common first year experience that prepares them for a successful transition to their sophomore year and choice of major.
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Calligraphic Drawing
An introduction to drawing as representation through graphic symbols. Ways that the hand and its acquired cursive habits propel graphic representations and ideas are demonstrated. Through the in-depth study of a variety of precedents, the role that calligraphic dynamism and acuity play in stimulating observation and spurring inventiveness is established and experienced. Students’ own cursive habits are buoyed through free-hand copying and internalization of examples, and by applying them in both figure drawings and in on-site landscape drawings. Emphasis is also placed on formal creativity through the calligraphically propelled invention of scenes and objects.
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Narrative Drawing
This seminar/studio course gives students the opportunity to study and apply modes of drawing that activate, rather than merely format, narrative. Through instructor presentations, readings, the close study of drawings, and through students’ own drawings graphic ideas are presented and explored for bringing pictorial elements into visual relationships that not merely relate, but also spark, narrative. A wide variety of narrative works from Renaissance Cycles to the modern graphic novel are studied in order to demonstrate how a drawing’s graphic or visual character, especially when novel or distinctive, creates thematic content and opens up new narrative domains. Students are afforded the opportunity, both through their own creative work and through special presentations on artists of their choosing, to enlarge the scope of the topic areas.
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Rapid-Pose Life Drawing
Key figure drawing objectives are set in relation to the representation of a live model in briefly held poses. Pre-set figural templates, cursive and geometrical patterning as well as graphic symbols denoting plane, mass, and trajectory are deployed in rapid-response drawings.
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Printmaking – Relief and Intaglio
Progressing from simple monochromatic and tonal parameters in both relief and intaglio, the course investigates color mixture in reduction relief prints and multi-plate intaglio prints. The goal is to examine color mood, color mixture, and color spatial readings in each. Methods include woodcut, linocut, drypoint, line etching, soft ground etching prints and aquatint. A final portfolio of five resolved images is the outcome. Repeatable for credit.
Charger Advantage
Get an inside look at what differentiates the University of New Haven and how your experiences as a student will prepare you for success.
Community of the Arts LLC
Celebrating the Arts
Career Development
Nationally Recognized Center for Career Development
All University of New Haven students have access to the many resources available through the University’s Career Development Center, which has been named one of the best in the nation by The Princeton Review.
From career assessments, networking, and job shadowing to on-campus interviews and salary negotiation, the Career Development Center provides the skills and connections to identify a meaningful career and an opportunity to pursue your passion.
Learn MoreAccreditation
National Association of Schools of Art & Design Accreditation
The University of New Haven has achieved the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD) accreditation. This mark of excellence designates the University's B.A. in Art and B.F.A. programs in Graphic Design, Illustration, and Interior Design as nationally accredited programs.
Founded in 1944, NASAD is an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges, and universities with approximately 360 accredited institutional members. It establishes national standards for undergraduate and graduate degrees and other credentials for art and design and art/design-related disciplines, and provides assistance to institutions and individuals engaged in artistic, scholarly, educational, and other art/design-related endeavors.
Learn MoreUpcoming Events
Friday, May 8, 2020
- Communication, Film, & Media Studies Virtual Event 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Next Steps
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Admission Requirements
Whether you're still in high school or are transferring from another college, we offer full- and part-time opportunities for undergraduates from inside the U.S. and abroad. The admission process can begin as early as the end of your high school junior year.
The Application Process -
Financial Aid Opportunities
We offer a comprehensive financial aid program, with students receiving assistance in the form of grants, scholarships, student loans, and part-time employment. Funds are available from federal and state governments, private sponsors, and from university resources. More than 85 percent of the University's full-time undergraduate students receive some form of financial assistance.
Learn More