In your first year as an ISAD student, the foundation year, you are taught how to see-the world around you and the world within you.

Beyond merely looking at the surfaces of things in order to visually represent them, you will be challenged to really see and understand why things look, and act, the way they do. You are immersed in a learning environment that encourages a free spirit of discovery and is respectful of individuality, intrinsic motivation, and self-directed study. In your first year, you will be working in all studios. This foundation year prepares you to choose a specialized program of study.

No matter which concentration you choose, foundations will allow you to be a versitle, capable artist or designer.

Our ceramic majors develop throwing and hand-built methods of working with clay. The direction each student's form takes can evolve to become sculptural, functional, or architectural. Experimentation with form and surface is encouraged programmatically from the beginning so our students understand how, together, these attributes fundamentally produce an art object. Students can finish their objects in a variety of surface treatments, experiment with numerous firing temperatures, and incorporate other materials such as metal, wood, and glass into their constructions.

The Digital Art program is dedicated to studies in new media that explore and experiment with the nature and implications of emerging creative technologies in visual culture. Students have the opportunity to learn a range of digital tools that better enhance their concepts and work.

Inspired by the spirit of design study in Finland, the International School of Art & Design fosters the thoughtful integration of materials and processes allowing you to explore and develop your own path in the fiber arts. We begin our studies with structures - spinning, knitting, weaving, and felting fibers together - to understand the foundations of textiles. Using wool, cotton, linen, silk and nontraditional materials including paper, metal, plastics and found objects students will test and explore material potentials. Each student will then explore the rich potentials of textile surface manipulation through dyeing, printing, and sewing including historical and contemporary cultural studies.

Meaningful graphic design provides for active and diverse visual touch-points that serve to connect with people. Graphic designers seek to visually inform, immerse, allow for exchange, embed meaning, persuade, inspire, provoke, validate, and entertain people. As technology opens more avenues of communication, the design process is becoming increasingly more complex, demanding more elevated and thoughtful visual solutions. The merging of knowledge and creative experiences in an academic environment with industry-based processes, standards and culture is essential to the development of each individual designer.

Our Illustrators embark on a process of visual discovery. Student Illustrators work with experienced artists and designers to develop solid skills in story-boarding, character development and design, drawing for animation, and more. Our illustration students begin by learning creative visualization-they then transform these visions into a personal vocabulary, gradually building a visual language.  Through this process they master various conceptualization and drawing techniques, color theory, and visual storytelling.

The Studio Arts major at Finlandia learn and experiment to discover their preferred mediums. On this creative journey, you'll grow your sensitivity to the beauty of line, form, color, and composition.

Suomi College of Arts & Sciences
Art Therapy

The Art Therapy major is designed to provide student with an integrated understanding of the role art plays in relation to human psychology.  An Art Therapy degree lays the foundation necessary for students to continue on to a Masters Degree in Art Therapy, which is the required qualification for the field.


International School of Business
Arts Management

The Arts Management BBA concentration is designed for students who wish to pursue a career in managing art enterprises.

The ISB and Finlandia's International School of Art and Design jointly developed the Arts Management concentration in 2010. The concentration's requirements consist of Art and Design courses, which, when added to the BBA Core, provide students with fundamental business skills and an arts background needed to move into administrative or management careers related to arts management.

Students are highly encouraged to study at least one year of the Finnish (or language of destination country) language prior to departure. Students considering traveling abroad to study must have a 2.75 cumulative GPA and apply to the Dean of the International School of Art & Design to make arrangements.y.