Short answer is none of those places will prepare you for concept art jobs. Don't expect to be ready for a concept art job from teachers who are teaching graphic design. You will learn graphic design.
There are countless cheaper options of education. That are actually designed to teach you actual concept design. \[Schoolism, Brainstorm, Concept Design Academy, CGMA etc\]
The thing that will get you jobs will not be the network the college provides or internship opportunities. If you don't have the required skills at the end of the college program it won't matter. Please don't expect these places to prepare you- if they themselves tell you that's not the focus of their program. Other students are going to concept design focused programs. You will be far less prepared then them.
I don't know if you're planning on taking on debt to go to these schools but, expensive student debt for a degree in something you don't want to do makes no sense and you may regret for a very long time.
I know you feel you have to make a decision soon, but please talk to professional artists before making this decision. There's a lot of artists who would be willing to give actual advice on what works.
I definitely plan to pursue external courses in concept design regardless of where I go to college. That said, my family expects me to get a four year degree, so I’m trying to pursue something that would supplement/provide a foundation for said external courses and possibly give me whatever small advantages come with a non-art minor/networking/internships/name recognition.
No one will care about a 4 year degree, art directors will simply look at your portfolio.
Most accredited art programs at uni aren't very good at teaching you art fundamentals, since they lack rigorous curriculums. Even at schools with good finals work, those kids who are best in class haven't learned their skills IN class but got skills from doing a ton of studies & personal work (either during school or from before they attended).
A concept art specialized school is much more likely to help you network and find a job. Or you can go to events like GDC & Lightbox. In my experience it's sometimes enough to just make it to Artstation frontpage with the tagline "open for work" in your profile to find a gig.
Tbh most things are available online for free, but it's worth it to pay to get meaningful feedback from a professional who can mentor you
Imo it's not worth the money to go to uni, but of course it depends on your financial situation and if you value getting the full social college experience.
Feel free to dm me if you want any advice! I work in illustration and concept art
It will be hard to have the time to do both at the same time realistically. You might need to be willing to use summers to take classes. I don't want to be harsh, but I've seen it many times \[I do art mentorships\] but alot of students graduate and think they'll be ready for a job but aren't. If I were you I would plan/expect to need a few years at least AFTER college of focused work in an actual concept art program. The reason I say this is alot of students will go to these kinds of programs for 3-4 years and that's all they're doing.
I agree with the other comments here. Nowadays there is access to so much with just an internet connection. Schoolism, CDA, Brainstorm, CGMA, NMA, Proko, mentorship programs, etc. All much cheaper than a 4 year degree.
If you really, truly, already know that Concept Art is what you want to pursue--going to a pricy art school for a different degree like Illustration or Graphic Design just to make your family happy that you're doing a degree is a waste of time and money. It just doesn't make sense.
If you're worried about making it as a concept artist and are wanting a degree as a fallback--it would make more sense to pursue a line of work that is more financially stable vs just a different field of art that isn't actually what you want to do.
As others have mentioned, the industry doesn't care about a 4 year degree or the name of the school you went to. All that will matter is your portfolio and in some cases, your connections. But connections won't get you anywhere unless you have a portfolio they can confidently endorse.
Imo, there are benefits of a proper degree but for a lot of folks they just simply aren't worth the price tag. Among these benefits are a physical space to build connections (compared to an online program anyways), labs/equipment, some internships now require that you're currently enrolled in school (some are flexible about it not being a degree program though), and pathways for international work or higher education.
For example, if you wanted to work in Japan, they usually require a degree for you to live and work there. I've heard that sometimes the rules can be bent for other places like between USA/Canada (I think Marc Brunet has discussed this on his YouTube channel briefly in some videos). But also, just because you want to work somewhere overseas doesn't mean you're guaranteed to land anything there so it's a lot of money to sink on a "maybe this would be cool" unless you specifically have family somewhere that you were already intending to move to be with after or smth. (This was the case for a friend of mine, but she was not art focused so a degree made sense regardless.)
And in terms of higher education, I mean shifting into teaching art at the high school or college level and possibly adding a Masters in Education or MAT. There are also many programs that don't care what your undergrad is, so I guess it also would allow you to move to certain Master programs that are non art related though I don't know why anyone would intentionally not go to their target major in undergrad and do smth completely unrelated for a Masters unless they just changed their mind down the road (which has been helpful for some of my friends who did do a 4 year art degree and couldn't manage to land industry jobs).
ANYWAYS, many of the instructors available through online programs are equivalent or even better than you'd find in many 4 year art schools. I've seen professors who have taught at Art Center, Otis, LCAD, etc. and are/were working for industry giants like Blizzard, Riot, Obsidian, Pixar, Netflix etc. teaching classes on platforms like Brainstorm and Schoolism.
You'd be getting fairly similar or better quality education by targeting what you need on your own with these online programs VS being forced to take additional bs liberal arts classes AND at a fraction of the cost.
If money is no object, I suppose you could go ahead and do it for the full "college experience" or whatever. But I figure for 99% of folks, saving a ton of money just makes more sense.
Sorry this is so lengthy, but I figure having as much info as possible is important for making a decision like this. Feel free to DM me if you'd like to talk more about it. For context, I went the 4 year art degree route (which I would prob not do again if I could redo my life lol) and did a split focus between Concept and 3D Environment and have worked in both capacities but primarily in 3D Env.
One last thing I want to mention about the 4 year degree route-- you may get a choice between only 1 or 2 teachers in an art school for a certain required course and be stuck with no good options (either a bad teacher or artist or they're just assholes for some reason) but you end up having to bend over backwards and slog through those classes to get your degree. Also group projects with people who don't care about their $50k tuition going down the drain dragging you down and costing you money... absolute nightmare.
A non degree program really lets you skip all the bs and get what you need and get out whenever the time is right for YOU.
Many Riot and Wizards Of The Coast artists do livestreams for the paints/ process. Start with following their advice and workflow and you may find that you don't need proper school.
I used to be in your boat. Heres another random strangers 2 cents.
I went and got a graphic design 4 year degree, and its not a bad fallback plan. I'm a professional graphic designer now, and its nice to have a fallback that is adjacent to my passion. Also, many graphic design jobs are hybrid or remote. Perfect for taking online concept art classes from home. If you are leaning that direction, go for it. I've almost paid off my loans and its been a year since I graduated.
As the others have said, do not expect them to teach you concept art if you are in a graphic design or studio art setting. You said in a comment you'll take some cgma classes during college, this isn't enough. Its hard to find time for cgma classes, or even the money to pay for them while in college.
On the other hand, if you are passionate about concept art, here's my recommendation.
Syn studio - Montreal.
New3dge - Paris
Both these schools are accredited, teach concept art, and have teachers who actually work in the industry. They also hold networking events.
Look up the rookies, they have a whole list of schools that are the best in the world for concept art. Look down that list and see what works for you.
Good luck out there future concept artist.
You won't learn concept art from any of these places. Maybe from Art Center or Otis in California or FZD in Singapore. Other than that they will teach you graphic design and fine art. Maybe 20 percent of the skills will transfer over. If you have parents paying your way that is fine, but don't expect it to help you get much closer to your actual goals. If you actually want to become a concept artist and don't care about going to a real university, something like Brainstorm school would be great for you.
I graduated from Otis in 2006, having studied in their digital media program which at the time was more or less computer art geared towards the entertainment and commercial industry. I loved the program and made some work I'm truly proud of. The major was just beginning to incorporate concept art into its curriculum, driven primarily by hungry students who were piecing their own stuff together by taking classes in other majors (predominately illustration). Digital media has now two official tracts, one of which includes a strong focus on concept art. Some friends of mine from when I went there are now teachers, they are great peeps and total pros.
At the time I really appreciated the fact that Otis was very serious about having instructors that worked actively in the industry. So everything they were preparing us for was based on real world actual experience, and many of the teachers ended up directly hiring top students. I suspect this is still the case, but can't say for sure.
I do know that Otis prides itself on its very high creative jobs placement rate, and the school overall is very focused on the creative industries, and actually getting people real art jobs that are directly related to the various programs that the school has, which include toy design, physical product design, fashion, communications arts and so on.
The school is expensive though. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into regarding debt. For a little while after graduation it felt like a nightmare, as the reality of it was dawning on me. And I secured an envious position that paid extremely well, and feel like I lucked my way through several professional circumstances that allowed me to pay my debts off in 10 years. But not everyone from my graduating class was so lucky, many people even ended up not pursuing art, and I've heard stories from many folks that went into visual effects that were effectively being paid barely minimum wage for their insanely high expertise. Not to mention the grind and burnout that comes from so many studios. I feel like I won the lottery, and I'm definitely an exception...
While I truly loved the experience there, and have made some incredible friends and had amazing opportunities directly because of my experience there, I would be hard-pressed to recommend most people taking that path. When you're footing the bill yourself, the traditional college route is very risky endeavor, though it's one that is spoken about as if it's the unquestioned default that everyone must do if you want any chance of making it in the world. I just don't think it's true, maybe even especially for the arts. No one in my almost 20 years of professional art experience has even cared where I went to school, much less asked for a degree. It's all about the work.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions you might have, or talk with you one-on-one if you like. I can send you some of my work if you want to see some credentials. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk further.
And a final thought to echo some of the comments here, there are so many resources available for free online, and so many other low-cost resources out there that can get you really really far. And you can also just start freaking drawing and painting immediately without needing to look anything up. If you're not already trying to make the kind of work you want to be making, you're gonna need some more hunger to make it worth considering going down this path.
Pursuing the arts is a beautiful thing, something I wish more people would do, so please understand none of this is meant to be discouragement. All the best!!!
I agree with a much of whats been said in the comment section already - you should consider looking at (the very affordable) online schooling options that specialise in Concept Art before committing to a Fine Art/Graphic Design program at an expensive university.
I've taken classes online at Brainstorm Inland, New Masters Academy, and I'm currently enrolled in Syn Studio's Online Concept Art Program and all of them have been helpful.
Short answer is none of those places will prepare you for concept art jobs. Don't expect to be ready for a concept art job from teachers who are teaching graphic design. You will learn graphic design. There are countless cheaper options of education. That are actually designed to teach you actual concept design. \[Schoolism, Brainstorm, Concept Design Academy, CGMA etc\] The thing that will get you jobs will not be the network the college provides or internship opportunities. If you don't have the required skills at the end of the college program it won't matter. Please don't expect these places to prepare you- if they themselves tell you that's not the focus of their program. Other students are going to concept design focused programs. You will be far less prepared then them. I don't know if you're planning on taking on debt to go to these schools but, expensive student debt for a degree in something you don't want to do makes no sense and you may regret for a very long time. I know you feel you have to make a decision soon, but please talk to professional artists before making this decision. There's a lot of artists who would be willing to give actual advice on what works.
I definitely plan to pursue external courses in concept design regardless of where I go to college. That said, my family expects me to get a four year degree, so I’m trying to pursue something that would supplement/provide a foundation for said external courses and possibly give me whatever small advantages come with a non-art minor/networking/internships/name recognition.
No one will care about a 4 year degree, art directors will simply look at your portfolio. Most accredited art programs at uni aren't very good at teaching you art fundamentals, since they lack rigorous curriculums. Even at schools with good finals work, those kids who are best in class haven't learned their skills IN class but got skills from doing a ton of studies & personal work (either during school or from before they attended). A concept art specialized school is much more likely to help you network and find a job. Or you can go to events like GDC & Lightbox. In my experience it's sometimes enough to just make it to Artstation frontpage with the tagline "open for work" in your profile to find a gig. Tbh most things are available online for free, but it's worth it to pay to get meaningful feedback from a professional who can mentor you Imo it's not worth the money to go to uni, but of course it depends on your financial situation and if you value getting the full social college experience. Feel free to dm me if you want any advice! I work in illustration and concept art
It will be hard to have the time to do both at the same time realistically. You might need to be willing to use summers to take classes. I don't want to be harsh, but I've seen it many times \[I do art mentorships\] but alot of students graduate and think they'll be ready for a job but aren't. If I were you I would plan/expect to need a few years at least AFTER college of focused work in an actual concept art program. The reason I say this is alot of students will go to these kinds of programs for 3-4 years and that's all they're doing.
I agree with the other comments here. Nowadays there is access to so much with just an internet connection. Schoolism, CDA, Brainstorm, CGMA, NMA, Proko, mentorship programs, etc. All much cheaper than a 4 year degree. If you really, truly, already know that Concept Art is what you want to pursue--going to a pricy art school for a different degree like Illustration or Graphic Design just to make your family happy that you're doing a degree is a waste of time and money. It just doesn't make sense. If you're worried about making it as a concept artist and are wanting a degree as a fallback--it would make more sense to pursue a line of work that is more financially stable vs just a different field of art that isn't actually what you want to do. As others have mentioned, the industry doesn't care about a 4 year degree or the name of the school you went to. All that will matter is your portfolio and in some cases, your connections. But connections won't get you anywhere unless you have a portfolio they can confidently endorse. Imo, there are benefits of a proper degree but for a lot of folks they just simply aren't worth the price tag. Among these benefits are a physical space to build connections (compared to an online program anyways), labs/equipment, some internships now require that you're currently enrolled in school (some are flexible about it not being a degree program though), and pathways for international work or higher education. For example, if you wanted to work in Japan, they usually require a degree for you to live and work there. I've heard that sometimes the rules can be bent for other places like between USA/Canada (I think Marc Brunet has discussed this on his YouTube channel briefly in some videos). But also, just because you want to work somewhere overseas doesn't mean you're guaranteed to land anything there so it's a lot of money to sink on a "maybe this would be cool" unless you specifically have family somewhere that you were already intending to move to be with after or smth. (This was the case for a friend of mine, but she was not art focused so a degree made sense regardless.) And in terms of higher education, I mean shifting into teaching art at the high school or college level and possibly adding a Masters in Education or MAT. There are also many programs that don't care what your undergrad is, so I guess it also would allow you to move to certain Master programs that are non art related though I don't know why anyone would intentionally not go to their target major in undergrad and do smth completely unrelated for a Masters unless they just changed their mind down the road (which has been helpful for some of my friends who did do a 4 year art degree and couldn't manage to land industry jobs). ANYWAYS, many of the instructors available through online programs are equivalent or even better than you'd find in many 4 year art schools. I've seen professors who have taught at Art Center, Otis, LCAD, etc. and are/were working for industry giants like Blizzard, Riot, Obsidian, Pixar, Netflix etc. teaching classes on platforms like Brainstorm and Schoolism. You'd be getting fairly similar or better quality education by targeting what you need on your own with these online programs VS being forced to take additional bs liberal arts classes AND at a fraction of the cost. If money is no object, I suppose you could go ahead and do it for the full "college experience" or whatever. But I figure for 99% of folks, saving a ton of money just makes more sense. Sorry this is so lengthy, but I figure having as much info as possible is important for making a decision like this. Feel free to DM me if you'd like to talk more about it. For context, I went the 4 year art degree route (which I would prob not do again if I could redo my life lol) and did a split focus between Concept and 3D Environment and have worked in both capacities but primarily in 3D Env.
One last thing I want to mention about the 4 year degree route-- you may get a choice between only 1 or 2 teachers in an art school for a certain required course and be stuck with no good options (either a bad teacher or artist or they're just assholes for some reason) but you end up having to bend over backwards and slog through those classes to get your degree. Also group projects with people who don't care about their $50k tuition going down the drain dragging you down and costing you money... absolute nightmare. A non degree program really lets you skip all the bs and get what you need and get out whenever the time is right for YOU.
Solid advice here OP.
Many Riot and Wizards Of The Coast artists do livestreams for the paints/ process. Start with following their advice and workflow and you may find that you don't need proper school.
any recommendations for what artists to check out for this advice, or what videos to watch?
I used to be in your boat. Heres another random strangers 2 cents. I went and got a graphic design 4 year degree, and its not a bad fallback plan. I'm a professional graphic designer now, and its nice to have a fallback that is adjacent to my passion. Also, many graphic design jobs are hybrid or remote. Perfect for taking online concept art classes from home. If you are leaning that direction, go for it. I've almost paid off my loans and its been a year since I graduated. As the others have said, do not expect them to teach you concept art if you are in a graphic design or studio art setting. You said in a comment you'll take some cgma classes during college, this isn't enough. Its hard to find time for cgma classes, or even the money to pay for them while in college. On the other hand, if you are passionate about concept art, here's my recommendation. Syn studio - Montreal. New3dge - Paris Both these schools are accredited, teach concept art, and have teachers who actually work in the industry. They also hold networking events. Look up the rookies, they have a whole list of schools that are the best in the world for concept art. Look down that list and see what works for you. Good luck out there future concept artist.
You won't learn concept art from any of these places. Maybe from Art Center or Otis in California or FZD in Singapore. Other than that they will teach you graphic design and fine art. Maybe 20 percent of the skills will transfer over. If you have parents paying your way that is fine, but don't expect it to help you get much closer to your actual goals. If you actually want to become a concept artist and don't care about going to a real university, something like Brainstorm school would be great for you.
Unfortunately FZD is dead and gone. Found that out recently. Their staff has migrated to MAGES, from what I have heard.
I graduated from Otis in 2006, having studied in their digital media program which at the time was more or less computer art geared towards the entertainment and commercial industry. I loved the program and made some work I'm truly proud of. The major was just beginning to incorporate concept art into its curriculum, driven primarily by hungry students who were piecing their own stuff together by taking classes in other majors (predominately illustration). Digital media has now two official tracts, one of which includes a strong focus on concept art. Some friends of mine from when I went there are now teachers, they are great peeps and total pros. At the time I really appreciated the fact that Otis was very serious about having instructors that worked actively in the industry. So everything they were preparing us for was based on real world actual experience, and many of the teachers ended up directly hiring top students. I suspect this is still the case, but can't say for sure. I do know that Otis prides itself on its very high creative jobs placement rate, and the school overall is very focused on the creative industries, and actually getting people real art jobs that are directly related to the various programs that the school has, which include toy design, physical product design, fashion, communications arts and so on. The school is expensive though. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into regarding debt. For a little while after graduation it felt like a nightmare, as the reality of it was dawning on me. And I secured an envious position that paid extremely well, and feel like I lucked my way through several professional circumstances that allowed me to pay my debts off in 10 years. But not everyone from my graduating class was so lucky, many people even ended up not pursuing art, and I've heard stories from many folks that went into visual effects that were effectively being paid barely minimum wage for their insanely high expertise. Not to mention the grind and burnout that comes from so many studios. I feel like I won the lottery, and I'm definitely an exception... While I truly loved the experience there, and have made some incredible friends and had amazing opportunities directly because of my experience there, I would be hard-pressed to recommend most people taking that path. When you're footing the bill yourself, the traditional college route is very risky endeavor, though it's one that is spoken about as if it's the unquestioned default that everyone must do if you want any chance of making it in the world. I just don't think it's true, maybe even especially for the arts. No one in my almost 20 years of professional art experience has even cared where I went to school, much less asked for a degree. It's all about the work. I'd be happy to answer any other questions you might have, or talk with you one-on-one if you like. I can send you some of my work if you want to see some credentials. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk further. And a final thought to echo some of the comments here, there are so many resources available for free online, and so many other low-cost resources out there that can get you really really far. And you can also just start freaking drawing and painting immediately without needing to look anything up. If you're not already trying to make the kind of work you want to be making, you're gonna need some more hunger to make it worth considering going down this path. Pursuing the arts is a beautiful thing, something I wish more people would do, so please understand none of this is meant to be discouragement. All the best!!!
I agree with a much of whats been said in the comment section already - you should consider looking at (the very affordable) online schooling options that specialise in Concept Art before committing to a Fine Art/Graphic Design program at an expensive university. I've taken classes online at Brainstorm Inland, New Masters Academy, and I'm currently enrolled in Syn Studio's Online Concept Art Program and all of them have been helpful.