Design, BA
Learn how you can use your visual voice to make a difference. Study with experts in state-of-the-art classrooms. Become part of a tight-knit creative community. Build your network from here.
Why Study Design at USF?
Our Bachelor of Arts in Design offers you energy, experiences, and opportunities you won’t find anywhere else.
Learn at the Source
Practice design in an expanded field and explore how graphic, digital media, and environmental design work together. Cultivate innovative ideas, master the art of visual appeal, experiment with designs, and engage in critical thinking.
Launch Your Career From Here
Our program specifically focuses on professional practices and works with you to locate at least one design internship to bolster your portfolio. Many of these internships turn into full-time employment after graduation.
Tap Faculty Expertise
Transform data from the natural environment into sound installations. Address climate change, worldwide disparities, or even sustainable design. Collaborate with faculty looking to create a positive impact in communities and organizations.
Experiment, Explore, and Create
Our studios are equipped with tools and equipment to support a range of media including drawing, digital fabrication, woodworking, and more.
How Does USF’s Design Program Rank?
How Can You Use Design to Make a Difference?
In our Design Activism service-learning course, you learn to become an agent of change. You'll work with several nonprofits each semester and use your design knowledge to make a positive impact in the city. Students have previously advocated against increases in MUNI fares that would hurt workers and their families.
How Can You Gain Real-World Experience?
Come join USF’s Graphic Center, a student-run organization that designs posters, flyers, banners, t-shirts, and brochures for clubs, faculty, and departments on campus. Or check out Design Collectives, a student group that empowers designers through community and discussion. Participate in design competitions like Adobe’s Creative Jam and publicly exhibit your thesis projects in the SOMArts gallery in downtown San Francisco.
What Do Design Majors Create?
Where Can You Collaborate Across the Arts?
The Ann Getty Institute of Art and Design brings together designers, artists, writers, filmmakers, and more to create projects that support communities, transform lives, and inspire action for the common good.
How Can Design Create Social Impact?
At USF, we prepare students for a career in design and instill a passion to serve others. We recognize the role a designer can play in shaping the social, cultural, and political landscape. This is urgent as we work with and around Silicon Valley.”
Noopur Agarwal Associate Professor
Interested in Architecture? Art History? Fine Arts?
Explore these three programs below. You'll work in small studio classes, engage the community, and prepare for a world in which your gifts are needed more than ever.
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Architecture, community design, urban design, city planning, and landscape design — come study and practice design that makes a difference.
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Blend history and theory with practical experience. Learn visual literacy, critical thinking, and research skills that enable you to thrive in the art world.
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Train in a studio with professional artists. Stretch your imagination and find your voice. Honor art-making in all its forms.
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Admission & Aid
Design, BA
Mon-Fri, 9a.m. - 5p.m.