Certificate in Art and Design Fundamental

at Centennial College - Story Arts Centre Campus Canada

Centennial College's Graphic Design program prepares you for a multidisciplinary design career, and has a graduate employment rate that exceeds 80 per cent. Facilitated at the Story Arts Centre, the courses in this advanced diploma program take a hands-on approach in an intimate studio environment, rather than having you sit passively in large lecture halls. With small class sizes, you have lots of opportunities to work one-on-one with your professors.

In this college graphic design program, you:

•  Master industry-standard Adobe software including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
•  Learn creative problem solving and design thinking
•  Design for print, including advertisements, magazines, books and packaging
•  Design responsive websites, mobile apps and create exciting motion graphics
•  Explore drawing, photography, illustration and type design
•  Learn professional practice skills to land a great job or start your own design business
•  Contribute something unique and innovative to the design community in a thesis course
•  Learn on the job and get course credits through an industry field placement in your final semester
•  Interact with industry professionals
•  Become a student member of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (RDG Ontario)
•  Learn from professors who are current and professionally active in the design industry

Please note:This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• The Centennial College Graphic Design program is formally recognized by RGD Ontario, which represents more than 3,000 graphic designers, managers, educators and students across Ontario.
• A combination of multidisciplinary design skills and practical experience sets you apart from the competition.
• You will be more flexible in your design solutions and more desirable in the marketplace.

The Graphic Design program will develop your abilities to:

• Think creatively and design effectively for print, motion, and interactive media.
• Execute your ideas professionally in any medium.
• Communicate effectively with employers and clients.
• Start your career in any facet of the design industry.
• Market yourself as a freelancer or start your own business.
• Affect social change through your design problem-solving skills.
• Understand all aspects of industry standard workflow, from initial creative, through to print production or interactive prototyping.

The Product Design and Development program is the only one of its kind in Canada and provides you with the unique understanding to develop high-tech, ecological and socially responsible products from concept, to design, to production.

Combining the strengths of Centennial College's School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design and the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science, this innovative product design and development program's courses bring together hands-on learning in product and industrial design, and product development with product lifecycle management (PLM). Through interdisciplinary, collaborative group projects, you develop creative design problem-solving abilities and innovative strategies by applying all stages of the visual design process.

You acquire a wide range of skills in this advanced diploma program, including idea generation, creative problem solving, drawing, model-making, the creative design process, 3D CAD advanced computer modelling, rapid prototyping, product development (CAE analysis, reverse engineering technology, materials selection, quality testing, product costing and optimization), product lifecycle management and cross-platform multimedia communications. You also develop a strong sense of the functional and aesthetic principles of design, as well as a solid understanding of the technical and business aspects of product development.

Centennial's Product Design and Development program meets the growing need for graduates with a strategic vision of interdisciplinary product design and an understanding of all stages of the product lifecycle, who are ready to work in a variety of exciting careers related to consumer product development, electronics, furniture, transportation and more.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• During your time in the program, you study and work in classrooms and labs that are equipped with the latest tools and industry-standard software.
• The program provides a practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach that prepares you for a sustainable career.
• Opportunities exist to collaborate with students in other programs at the Story Arts Centre. This is a unique opportunity to network, learn and work with industry professionals.
• Opportunity to work with ACCEL, Centennial’s in-house business incubator, to bring your ideas to market.
• Gain industry experience through STORYWORKS, a course that provides the opportunity to work with real-world clients of all kinds.

The Advertising - Creative and Digital Strategy program addresses the high demand for creators in the digital field of advertising and marketing, which is growing faster than all other areas in the advertising industry.

This Advertising Graduate Certificate program takes place at the Story Arts Centre in Toronto and blends Centennial College's experience in digital media with our strengths in business and marketing. The program focuses on helping you create engaging digital experiences built on solid creative strategy. You become immersed in the digital field and learn how to develop breakthrough creative advertising campaigns.

Through your courses, you acquire the necessary skills in creative strategy, writing, developing creative concepts, art direction, collaboration, presentation and entrepreneurialism. During a field placement, which is part of the second semester, Creative and Digital Strategy students take part in team assignments, working in a collaborative environment in the real world.

You’ll also learn new technologies and platforms that keep you informed about recent innovations in the digital creative field.

The program focuses on five key areas:

• Creative strategy, to ensure advertising meets clients' business objectives.
• Digital storytelling, to build on the power of storytelling in developing impactful creative advertising.
• Brand engagement, to create strong connections with consumers.
• Entrepreneurship, to foster key business skills that encourage innovation and risk-taking.
• Emerging platforms, to ensure you are up-to-date on the latest in digital technology impacting the advertising industry.

In this program, you:

• Gain an understanding of the digital creation process from a creative director's point of view.
• Learn how to craft a creative digital strategy that delivers results.
• Develop a strong portfolio and case studies for prospective employers.
• Enhance presentation skills to help sell ideas.
• Understand the impact of technology on creative development.
• Foster digital storytelling skills to bring brands to life online.
• Analyze and solve business and marketing challenges for clients by applying innovative creative and digital techniques.
• Complement in-class education with a field placement that will provide the opportunity to work in the industry and hone your skills.

Please note:- This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device (i.e. laptop, tablet) that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware requirements. 

Program Highlights

• This Creative and Digital Strategy program gives you the opportunity to turn a degree or diploma into an exciting career in a growing field in the advertising industry.
• You learn how to create digitally-centric creative portfolio pieces using current industry design and writing standards.
• Faculty members have extensive industry experience and can help you connect to the industry by tapping into their personal networks.
• The program is offered at the Story Arts Centre, which is about 15 minutes from most advertising and digital marketing agencies in Toronto.
• At the Story Arts Centre, there are numerous opportunities to collaborate with students in a range of other marketing and communications-focused programs to enhance the learning experience.

Centennial College's Advertising Media Management program will prepare you for a career in media planning and buying within the advertising and communications industry. 

Intensive, hands-on, industry-approved advertising media management courses will provide you with the fundamentals of media management. At the same time, they'll highlight consumer-driven communication channel choices (such as mobile platforms) for advertising messages.

In this graduate certificate program, you'll:

• Develop expertise in reaching target audiences with creative messages;
• Build your business and negotiation skills on behalf of advertising clients to achieve strategic results;
• Expand your knowledge of emerging media;
• Master industry-specific syndicated research databases and software;
• Complement your in-class education with a 14-week industry field placement.

In Centennial College's three-year Journalism program, you gain the skills you need to navigate and succeed in a changing industry. By going from the classroom to the newsroom, you come to understand the multifaceted and fast-paced journalism industry, which focuses on interesting people, places and things.

In this advanced diploma program you:

• Cover a variety of topics while developing the critical foundation skills you need for the industry.
• Apply your newsroom skills to an award-winning community newspaper, a news website and radio-television news, all of which makes you versatile and industry-ready as soon as you graduate.
• Develop new multiplatform skills for the evolving world of news reporting.
• From covering breaking news to exploring human interest stories, as a journalist you will be responsible for reporting events, interviewing newsmakers and examining the issues of our times.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• You experience one-on-one interaction with faculty members in an ultra-modern, professional newsroom.
• The Story Arts Centre campus, where the Journalism program is facilitated, offers you access to publishing, broadcast and Internet facilities.
• Hands-on, real-world experience is available through award-winning community media, including the East York Observer newspaper, Freshly Pressed magazine, the Toronto Observer news website, radio and television newscasts available online.
• With a stellar faculty, whose combined credits include NBC News, CBC News, CTV News, OMNI, The Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post, Globe and Mail and more, your journalism training is relevant, demanding and highly effective.
• You connect with excellent faculty, mentors and guest speakers and get to partake in exclusive field trips.
• Through the field trips and your field placement, you have the opportunity to make exclusive news media connections.

Centennial College's Arts Management program prepares you for a career in the evolving arts and cultural industry. The Arts Management courses in this two-semester Graduate Certificate program focus on developing the knowledge and skills needed to work in the performing arts sector (theatres, dance companies, music organizations and presenting facilities), the exhibiting arts sector (galleries, museum) and many other cultural and arts-related areas such as arts and film festivals.

The program explores the current issues and practices that allow cultural organizations to build audiences and flourish today — and in the years to come. Facilitated at the Story Arts Centre, Centennial College's School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, the program combines business management, marketing and planning with the tools required to connect art, artists and audiences through fundraising, education and volunteerism.

The extensive experiential learning opportunities in the program connect principles with practice, actively engaging you with the arts management profession throughout your studies. You also have the opportunity to apply your learning in the industry as part of an eight-week field placement.

As an Arts Management program graduate, you will have a thorough understanding of the political, economic, social, ethical, technological and managerial issues facing this sector.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements.

Program Highlights

• The Arts Management program emphasizes professional-quality work to ensure you graduate with the knowledge and skills needed to manage and lead in the industry.
• Through mentorships and partnerships with the arts sector, a number of career options can be explored.
• A well-designed and well-implemented fieldwork component that can be undertaken in any location in your final semester provides you with an opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience in the industry.

Centennial College's Game – Art ?program will allow you to gain the skills to launch a career in the dynamic, ever-expanding and intensely creative interactive game industry. In just 16 consecutive months, the offering will prepare you for a career of imagination, innovative design and storytelling. 

You'll receive intensive hands-on training in Game – Art? and learn to build traditional 3D art assets for games, develop game environments and characters, and express your one-of-a-kind creativity. Developed by industry professionals and School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design instructors with a forward-thinking approach towards the next wave of interactive games, this games diploma program is well-respected in the industry. 

Whether your dream is to capture that definitive portrait, have your photos grace the pages of a leading fashion magazine or take photos for the world’s leading brands, our two-year Photography program will help you achieve your goals. 

In this hands-on photography diploma program, you will be capturing images from day one and learning the technology, techniques and business theory you need for a lasting career as a professional photographer. 

This photography program prepares you for the aesthetic and technical demands that come with working in studio or on location to produce captivating images that tell a story. Over two years, you will progressively build the skills needed to compete in the commercial photography industry and learn what it takes to grow your brand and create stunning images for a variety of clients. Upon completion of the Photography program, students will have the skills to operate their own photography business or find employment in related occupations such as fine art printing, advertising, publishing, graphic design and gallery and studio management.

Additionally, through your participation in the Story Arts Image Xchange, a real-world stock agency and incubator for emerging photographers and creative content creators, and the many scenarios where you can collaborate with students and faculty in our other programs, you will have had many opportunities to get your work published. You will also have the opportunity to put your skills to work in a professional setting during a seven-week field placement.

Program Highlights:-

• Attend classes at the Story Arts Centre, Centennial’s School of Communications Media, Arts and Design located close to downtown Toronto, which provides unlimited photographic opportunities.
• Opportunities to showcase your work in our Corridor Gallery and other galleries around the city.
• As School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design student, you will have many opportunities to collaborate with students in other programs .
• Participate in STORYWORKS, a unique and valuable course where you will work for real clients during your studies.

The Professional Writing – Communications program will prepare you to work as a versatile communications professional. This graduate certificate program will combine assessing audience needs and delivering thoughtful and relevant content with effective project management techniques as you develop the skills to write and produce copy for a variety of professional settings and styles.

The innovative courses in this program will encompass a wide range of communications disciplines and vocational skills, including:

• Web copywriting
• Technical writing
• Proposal writing
• Writing for social media
• Content marketing
• Presentations and speech writing
• Content management
• Information design and data visualization
• Digital storytelling

As a Professional Writing – Communications student, you'll have the advantage of creating a diverse and professional portfolio that will include training modules, complex visual aids (such as infographics) and compelling layouts for various print and virtual platforms (brochures, newsletters, websites and more). With your well-rounded training, you'll be able to launch a writing career that will go the distance, taking on a range of roles in both the profit and non-profit sectors.

Game Development & Design is a three-year advanced diploma program that aims to develop expert game designers who are able to create and develop their own titles. The program prepares students to become both technically literate and able to advance the conceptual and cultural potential of games.

The program concentrates on the practical applications of the game production process from the artistic, managerial, and technical sides. Students will be introduced to 2D and 3D design processes, foundations of computer programming, as well as how to communicate effectively with teams of artists and programmers to design, prototype and iterate their own fully playable 2D and 3D games. Students will also learn the professional and personal skills needed for success in the industry.