Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Design

Supported Degree Objectives

  • Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
    • Areas of Interest:
      • Industrial Design
      • Interaction Design
      • Interior Design
      • Visual Communication Design

Required Supporting Documents

  • Transcripts
  • Recommendation Letters
  • Academic Statement of Purpose
  • Personal History Statement
  • Visual Portfolio:
    • Industrial Design/Interaction Design applicants:
      • PDF portfolio of design projects, please include both final designs as well as design process.
      • Including a variety of design skills is helpful; research, sketching, mockups, prototypes, renderings, and models
      • Websites are accepted but PDF portfolios are preferred.
    • Interior Design applicants:
      • Upload a digital portfolio of recent work that communicates the scale, scope, and intent of each project.
      • Highlight the main visualization tool(s) used such as Sketchup, Revit, Enscape, Lumion, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., and include any iterative process drawings related to the realization of the final solution.
      • Project work should represent experience participating in Interior Design projects.
      • Portfolio pages can be uploaded as a single pdf or as individual jpg images.
      • Image size (up to 5MB each), Video (up to 250MB each), and PDFs (up to 10MB each).
    • Visual Communication Design applicants:
      • VCD Design Portfolio (PDF)
      • Include up to 20 recent design projects.
      • Include both final designs as well as samples of the design process.
      • List the title, date, size, medium, and description of the projects.
      • Indicate if the project was designed by a team and explain your contributions in detail.
      • Do not upload videos. Instead, include hyperlinks to your videos online.
      • Provide a resume and hyperlink to your professional website (if available)
      • Compress your file. Optimize for the screen.
  • Resume

English Proficiency Requirements

  • This program accepts the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars basic requirements as described on the English Proficiency Requirements page.

Master's Degree Program Requirements

  • Cumulative Grade Point Average from most recently conferred undergraduate, graduate, or professional degree:
    • 3.0 or equivalent (A=4.0)
  • Minimum of 3 undergraduate hours in Western art or design history
  • B.A. or B.F.A. in Interior Design (required for Interior Design only)
  • Field of study: most applicants have majored in either art or design or have equivalent experience in an art or design field. All applicants are expected to present a professional-quality portfolio.

Application Deadlines

  • Fall Spring Summer
    January 15* No Entry No Entry

  • *Priority deadline for consideration for teaching assistantships. Final deadlines are July for international and August for domestic applicants. Only a limited number of admissions may be granted to applicants whose application is completed after the priority deadline.

Program Contact Information

Purdue West Lafayette campus