About UF Designers 

We are makers, researchers, and thinkers with a focus on creating better futures for all. For over 50 years, we have prepared students for a range of practices and careers in graphic design, design & visual communications, interaction design, and beyond. In addition to critical design competencies, we value and emphasize community and shared learning experiences to prepare students for the collaborative work that is fundamental to design practice. Situated within a top-tier research university, both undergraduate and graduate programs emphasize the integration of research, process, and making to inform a range of responses to challenges we see in the world. Our goal is to create design interventions and engagements that are responsible, sustainable, and innovative. As such, our programs focus on addressing the issues and challenges that matter to people. Check out the alumn interviews on our Vimeo Page. 

Programs
Graduate degree (60 credits—2 or 3-year programs of study): We offer the MFA in Design and Visual Communications—activated through the MxD Lab—engaging Florida as our laboratory as we work collaboratively and interdisciplinarily to research, identify, and co-design solutions to pressing problems. Our focus is design for equity. Program duration is normally 3 years and a 2-year option is available for self-funded students. Admission is only offered for the fall semester. The application deadline is February 1st to receive full scholarship and admission consideration. 

Undergraduate degree (120 credits): In the BFA in Graphic Design, students learn how to be creative, conceptual, and process-oriented in addition to aesthetically and technologically sophisticated. Built around a core of design thinking, design process, and creative investigation, the graphic design program is grounded in the exploration of research, concepts, critical thinking, and the contemporary discourse in the graphic/communication design discipline. We teach the skills and abilities you need to build a creative career in a dynamic and changing world. Graduates of our program are prepared to enter a competitive market and embark on careers in areas they choose, such as branding, experience, UX/UI, and other areas of design. As a program, our core values focus on building community; fostering independent, critical, and design thinking; and empowering students to be leaders in design. Any undergraduate student may declare a graphic design major and pursue that track during their first two years at UF.

This program, like others in Florida and nationwide, is a limited-access program. Admission to the junior year of study is by application, which includes a portfolio review. The application is made during the second semester of the sophomore year. Accepted students continue on to their junior year of study, where they are assigned dedicated studio space in order to build necessary competencies for graphic design practice. Students are also required to purchase a computer and Adobe Creative Cloud (full access) for use during the program. Our equipment recommendations are designed for those purchasing equipment during their first year to be able to use it through the duration of your program. 

Graphic Design Certificate* (15 credits): This curriculum offers students a better understanding of how design thinking and graphic design processes, methods, and practices, in order to create effective graphic and communication design, works in their areas of interest. It is not a substitute for major courses but designed to engage students who have a range of interests with design culture and practice as a 21st-century competency. (Certificate coursework typically requires 4 semesters.) The certificate is only available to students majoring in Art or Art History. 

Our Alumni are testaments to the launchpad that is our program, working in all areas of design in the US and abroad, at large and small firms, and their own design studios. You’ll recognize some of the companies where alumni work: Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Viacom, JetBlue, Facebook, Interbrand, Twitter, Tampa Bay Lightning, IDEO, Walt Disney Imagineering, Kate Spade, West Elm, R/GA, Electra, Fossil, Miami Heat, Verizon, Grey, Gennsler, Viget and more. Specifically, MFA alumni are qualified to pursue both professional practice and academic careers. Recent MFA alumni are working at Apple, Google, L’Oréal, and teaching at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Auburn University, Ball State University, University of Colorado–Boulder, The University at Buffalo, Illinois State University, Northern Alabama University, and the University of Florida.