Pre-College

Learn essential techniques of character animation, experimental motion, and cinema through individual projects and group exercises. Class time is spent evaluating animated sequences from classic cartoons as well as independent and experimental films. Students gain technical skills in storytelling, squash and stretch distortion, staging, timing, exaggeration, and many other animation fundamentals. Read full course description.

Architecture and Interior Design are combined for an all-day studio.

Explore architecture as a 2D and 3D spatial discipline through sketching, drafting, and model building. Daily lecture and discussion sessions examine the history and theory behind current and traditional ideas of architectural space. Students also have the opportunity to explore the architectural landscape of the city. Read full course description.

With Interior Design, delve into elements of light, color, texture, and scale, as well as the relationships between human behavior and the built environment. Students learn a variety of techniques to prepare engaging and effective design presentations through research, observation, drawing, and 3D models, as well as visual and verbal presentation skills. Field trips supplement the studio class experience, including a private tour of interior design showrooms at the San Francisco Design Center. Read full course description.

Explore page layouts, character design, story outlining, and visual art techniques while creating original work. Students will learn the basics of publishing, including how to write pitches, self-publishing techniques, and comics history. Lectures focus on editorial, literary, and underground comics and cover personal narrative, comics journalism, fiction (long and short form), and nonlinear comics. Read full course description.

Delve into the entire creative fashion design process, from design development to pattern-making and sewing. Students create a portfolio and sewn garments based on their own designs, using a wide variety of illustration and construction tools. Fashion industry professionals will visit to address topics such as sustainable fashion and life as a fashion designer. Read full course description.

Learn conceptual and technical fundamentals of filmmaking while using digital cameras, lighting, sound recorders, scriptwriting tools, and Adobe Premiere. Students engage in screenings, critiques, and research to inform individual and collaborative projects while taking advantage of CCA's digital classroom facilities, production stage, and editing suites. Read full course description.

Explore theories of play and the structure of games, learn game design methodologies, and practice within the games development pipeline. Students create and playtest original works of digital game art and design, and are introduced to the game engine Unity to develop technical game design skills. facilities, production stage, and editing suites. Read full course description.

Learn the fundamentals of graphic design, while emphasizing both creativity and craft. Students integrate photography, drawing, and various experimental processes into their projects and learn the basics of Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign). The class includes engaging lectures, video presentations, group critiques, and a field trip. Read full course description.

Explore issues of line, shape, texture, pattern, composition, value, realism, abstraction, content, context, point of view, and the frame. Students experiment with a range of media, including charcoal, graphite, Conté crayon, sumi brush, ink wash, and oil stick. Visits to San Francisco galleries and museums enhance the studio experience. Read full course description.

Learn and apply fundamentals of the industrial design process: defining needs, sketching product ideas, making physical models, and creating working prototypes that communicate concepts with power, grace, and confidence. Students will also experience a field trip to a cutting-edge professional design firm in San Francisco, such as Lunar. Read full course description.

Learn the formal aspects of painting, from organizing the picture plane to mixing colors. Students explore new concepts and techniques for drawing by practicing gesture, proportional accuracy, perspective, contour, and position in space as they draw from the figure and natural and human-made objects. Media include charcoal, graphite, Conté crayon, sumi brush, ink wash, and oil stick. Visits to San Francisco galleries and museums enhance the studio experience. Read full course description.

Explore analog, alternative process, and digital photography while learning technical and aesthetic aspects of the discipline, from creating darkroom photograms to manipulating images in Photoshop. Students create a portfolio of images in a variety of mediums and a set of small handmade magazines. Read full course description.