RISD’s graduate graphic design program offers a two or three year program both leading to the same MFA degree. Prospective students are welcome to explore the MFA curriculum and find out more about applying to RISD Graphic Design.
RISD's graduate program
in Graphic Design prepares students for professional practice through a curriculum that emphasizes the roles of social context, media and aesthetics in the production of visible language systems. Like the discipline of graphic design itself, the MFA program requires a nimble and intelligent response to constant change, burgeoning technology, and floods of data — all while considering and building on well-established foundations of formal, aesthetic and analytical knowledge.RISD offers two program tracks leading to the MFA in Graphic Design: a two-year option for students entering with undergraduate degrees in graphic design and visual communication, and a three-year option for those with degrees in liberal arts, the sciences, or fine arts. The curricula for both the two- and three-year tracks are built on a sequence of required courses along with broad opportunities for tailoring an individual course of study through electives across disciplines. The Graduate Studio sequence explores the range of skills and activities within the design process, from an initial visual/verbal response to content to the narrative shaping and communication of messages.
Students in both program tracks
meet in the Graduate Seminar course sequence. Graduate Seminar I builds a sophisticated sense of context through discussion of design history and contemporary critical issues, with readings and exercises that combine written and visual work. Graduate Seminar II guides students in the development of methodologies for the exploration, investigation, and construction of a well-designed proposal of thesis inquiry.Individual thesis investigation is central to the final year of MFA study. The thesis is not one culminating object or artifact so much as a consistent approach to persistent ideas within a body of work – the development of an original voice for both verbal and visual expression of an area of design thinking. Guest critics – including professionals in the field – are invited to participate in the year-end thesis review, which serves as a forum for critical dialogue focused on each student's ideas.