Collaborative Design

In the Collaborative Design degree program, you’ll engage in a design process that blends focused listening and observation with integrative thinking and insight to identify opportunities and solve problems. Using this process, you’ll uncover, facilitate, and communicate design solutions to complex, systemic challenges across a broad range of professional applications, working both independently and as part of a larger collaborative team. You’ll also explore how design can positively impact sustainability and the economy.

A blend of studio classes and a required minor in a specific design discipline that piques your interest will help you understand, implement, and advocate for good design wherever life leads you. You'll also round your education out with a wide range of general education courses that will stimulate your curiosity, broaden your perspective, and inspire new creative expressions. KCAD's flexible General Education Pathways model empowers you to direct your learning by exploring subjects you find most engaging and relevant.

While earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Collaborative Design, you’ll develop strong collaborative communication and research skills and gain hands-on experience applying design thinking and systemic approaches to solve problems from a human-centered perspective that will allow you to use design to meet the needs of businesses and nonprofit organizations. You’ll also come away with the ability to leverage a variety of media, from print to digital to interactive, to generate, communicate, and implement design solutions.

KCAD’s BFA in Collaborative Design continues the college’s rich legacy of preparing students for successful careers in art and design. Today, the skills we teach are in higher demand, and not just in creative fields, but outside of them as well. In collaborative environments all over the world, employers are looking for people who understand the design process, can apply it to real-life challenges, and know how to communicate their ideas to a larger team or audience. At KCAD, we’ve been helping students develop those same qualities for more than 80 years. Now, our experience can become your edge.

As a Collaborative Design graduate, you’ll be primed for a variety of careers in traditional design fields, businesses, and nonprofit organizations in addition to being able to adapt to and thrive in a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive job market. You’ll also emerge well prepared to undertake graduate level study in a specialized area.

Possible careers include: 

• Design and Innovation Manager
• Creative/Art Director
• User Experience Designer
• Information Architect
• Design Thinking Instructor
• Graphic Designer
• Industrial Designer
• Web Designer
• Project Manager
• Video Production