Cleveland Institute of Art

The Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) is a private, nonprofit college of art and design located in Cleveland, Ohio. A central component of CIA's teaching model is its focus on developing professional studio habits early in an artist's education. Following their foundational first year, all undergraduates receive their own private studio space. This dedicated workspace serves as a hub for self-directed project development, regular faculty critiques, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Creative Disciplines

CIA organizes its entertainment arts education through two dedicated Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees:

• Animation BFA: Focuses on integrating traditional visual art with technical digital workflows. Students explore character design, storyboarding, visual development, 2D animation, 3D modeling, and motion graphics. Production pipelines utilize applications including Autodesk Maya, Toon Boom Harmony, TVPaint, and Adobe Creative Cloud. Production resources include green-screen rooms, drawing tablets, and an institutional render farm.

• Game Design BFA: Emphasizes game mechanics, interactive storytelling, and experiential world-building across physical prototypes, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Production work centers on engines like Unreal Engine and Unity. Students regularly collaborate across disciplines, including teaming with computer gaming students from Case Western Reserve University to mirror cross-functional studio development teams. The department also engages in applied projects with regional partners such as NASA to create educational simulations and interactive media.

Interactive Media Lab

In 2025, CIA expanded its technical footprint with the launch of the Interactive Media Lab (IML), a 14,300-square-foot facility situated in the MidTown Collaboration Center. The lab brings together game development, visual effects, and digital media production under one roof.

Key capabilities of the facility include an extended reality (XR) virtual production stage that enables live-action performance capture against dynamic digital backdrops, a motion-capture setup, specialized 3D scanning equipment, and professional post-production suites. The facility also features an on-site arcade dedicated to user playtesting and iterative game design.