Resources
The extensive and recently renovated Visual Communication Design department facilities include:
- Graduate Studios with office or studio work stations
- Networked computer software template
- Large screen monitors
- Resource room (design journals, media, and publications)
- SAIC Service Bureau (binding, papers, and large format printing)
- Fully equipped letterpress and type shop
Freelance, Internships, and Job Placement
In addition, Chicago's vibrant design community offers the opportunity for professional practice in every configuration of studio, media, and project type. Museums, nonprofit organizations, galleries, arts and theater organizations, recognized professional design studios, a thriving business community, and a multicultural patchwork of small economies all feed creative production here.
Freelance projects are posted in the Visual Communication Design Resource Room and design internships are coordinated through the school Co-op office. Students are prepared for professional placement through the course VCD 3009 Professional Practice, a course that addresses portfolio development, résumé writing, interviewing strategies, and job hunting.
Resources Available to all SAIC Students Include:
Libraries and Special Collections
Unique access to important libraries and special collections including a world-class museum.
Media Centers
The media centers provide audiovisual equipment and services to accommodate documentation, creation, instructional, and exhibition needs.
Gallery Spaces
The SAIC campus showcases a diversity of student artwork across multiple exhibition venues. Students can propose to exhibit their work in a variety of formats and locations.
Visiting Artists Program
Public lectures are presented by world-renowned visiting artists, designers, and scholars. Speakers meet with students through studio visits, roundtable discussions, seminars, and workshops.
Instructional Shops
From bedazzlers to sewing machines, from traditional wood/metalworking to CNC milling, the SAIC Instructional Shops are facilities that have the resources to help you realize your projects. The shops are equipped with a wide range of hand, power, and stationary tools.
What the City of Chicago has to Offer:
World class museums and galleries
Since the late 19th century, when the museum collection of the Art Institute was established as a study center for the School of the Art Institute, students have used the museum's vast holdings to inspire and inform their creative and scholarly practices. No other school of art and design can claim such a major museum as part of their campus.
Unparalleled architecture
A living laboratory of the study of late 19th- and 20th-century architecture, landscapes, and interiors—the development of the Chicago school of commercial architecture, the flowering of the Prairie style house, the progression of the City Beautiful movement in urban planning.
