Bachelor of Science in Entertainment Design Degree

student drawing on a tablet

Create stunning visuals and cultivate audiences’ emotional investment with the Bachelor of Science in Entertainment Design at ArtCenter. You bring the passion and imagination; we’ll provide the technological tools, industry expertise, and Hollywood connections. Craft conceptual worlds, spirited animated characters, immersive games, and high-flying theme parks using leading edge software, 3D and 2D techniques, and dynamic design principles. Launch your career with a robust portfolio and a stellar network of entertainment design professionals.

Program Overview

Learn from leading Hollywood concept designers, animators, and game designers in ArtCenter’s entertainment design major. These industry experts equip you with leading edge techniques and systems straight out of blockbuster films, AAA game studios, and Disney theme park design plans. In collaboration with invested peers and as an independent creative, you’ll develop your portfolio, establish broad theoretical and practical skills, and produce entertainment projects that ignite passion in your audiences.

What You’ll Learn

In the entertainment design program, you’ll explore the demands and possibilities of creating media that engages people’s bodies, hearts, and minds. Fuse visual storytelling with multiple technologies using traditional and digital media practices. Prepare for career opportunities in just about any place that brings narratives to life, from major production companies to up-and-coming independent studios and from toy workshops to theme park design projects. Concentrate your studies in the concept, animation, or game design track with robust studio courses, and flesh out your appreciation for the world—and how it informs your art—in humanities and sciences electives.

Entertainment Design Tracks

Generate excitement and intrigue as an animator, artist, filmmaker, game designer, performer, storyteller, theme park designer, and more through courses that equip you to succeed in the things you’re most passionate about. In both traditional and digital media, you’ll excel as a technically proficient, productive, and thoughtful creative.

Concept Track

Blend illustration and industrial design with thorough knowledge and practice in drawing, rendering, building models, sculpting, and using 3D digital tools. The concept concentration introduces you to everything from animal anatomy to costume design, light and color to digital painting, visual structure to world building, and more.

Animation Track

Draw out the heart and passion of stories, interactive experiences, and immersive games in the animation concentration. From concept art and previsualization to 2D, 3D, and CGI animation, you will hone your creative craft and technological expertise to thrive in this lively, collaborative industry.

Game Design Track

Level up your creative and competitive mindset in the game design concentration. Explore, design, and prototype in all aspects of game development, from software and user experience to immersive design and alternative controllers.

Careers in Entertainment Design

The entertainment design major equips you with rigorous practice in drawing, sculpting, building models, rendering, and using leading edge 3D digital design tools. You’ll learn to ignite that spark of life in your characters, settings, vehicles, and worldbuilding—a skill sought out by leading companies like Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Sony, Blur, 343, and Riot. As a storyboarder, modeler, animator, lighter, concept artist, production designer, or other vital creative collaborator, you’ll join ArtCenter’s prestigious alumni in top studios (including Paramount, Activision Blizzard, Netflix, and Marvel) and in fields like:

  • Feature Animation
  • Feature Films
  • Industrial Design Studios
  • Television
  • Theme Parks
  • Toys
  • Video Games
  • Visual Effects

Learn more about Entertainment Design at ArtCenter

Get feedback on your admissions portfolio and receive guidance throughout your application process.

The Joys of World Building: Entertainment Design Shines

Guillaume Aretos

In the process of designing a game or a film, everything is at the service of the story. Being able to draw, paint and model any world in 3D makes you a fabulous addition to any team.

Guillaume Aretos
Student Gallery

Entertainment Design

game mock up
Featured Course

Game Development 3

Students create prototypes of sophisticated 3D games using industry standard development tools.

How alumna Lizzie Nichols helped The Mitchells vs. The Machines show ‘it’s normal to be queer’

Recent alums speak about the entertainment design industry at Lightbox Expo 2022

Sponsored Projects

Sponsored Projects bring industry professionals into the classroom

Earn Your Bachelor’s in Entertainment Design at ArtCenter

Expand the possibilities of interactive narratives and immersive worldbuilding with ArtCenter’s Bachelor of Science in Entertainment Design. Build your degree around your passions in one of three tracks: concept design, animation, or game design. When you graduate, you’ll carry your strong portfolio and broad industry connections into invigorating design careers.

Entertainment Design student work

Take the first step toward a career in entertainment design.