Columbia College Chicago

Columbia College Chicago is a private arts college in the South Loop of Chicago, offering undergraduate education in visual effects, animation, game art, and interactive media. Guided by the motto "to be rather than to seem," the curriculum emphasizes immediate hands-on production, placing students into asset creation and animation workflows during their first semester.

Following institutional program restructuring, the college consolidated its previous Bachelor of Fine Arts tracks into a comprehensive Bachelor of Arts in Animation and Computer Graphics alongside a Bachelor of Arts in Game and Interactive Media Design. Under this framework, students select dedicated concentrations in visual effects, game art, computer animation, or traditional animation while maintaining cross-disciplinary collaboration with peers across the School of Film and Television and the School of Design.

Studio-Based Capstone Projects

Senior-level training centers on the Animation Production Studio (APS), a two-semester capstone sequence structured like an active production house. Working in large collaborative teams that mirror commercial studio hierarchies, students navigate visual pitching, storyboarding, character design, asset creation, animation, and compositing. Recent student shorts developed through this pipeline include:

• Hitchhiker: A 2D-animated short focused on collaborative storyboarding and visual development, screened at international animation festivals.
• Goober Madness: A hybrid production blending classical anime aesthetics, cut-out animation, and game pixel art to test complex compositing pipelines.

Specialized Production Facilities

The college integrates its teaching spaces into adaptively reused historic architecture in downtown Chicago, providing specialized production labs tailored to digital and physical craft:

• Cintiq Labs (916 and 1104 S. Wabash): Dedicated to digital 2D animation and visual development, utilizing Wacom Cintiq displays configured with Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard Pro.
• Stop-Motion Facilities (1104 S. Wabash): Dedicated physical fabrication and stage areas equipped with digital cameras and Dragonframe capture software, complemented by an advanced lab featuring a programmable motion-control camera rig.
• The Volume Stage (Media Production Center, 1600 S. State): An LED virtual production stage facilitating real-time in-camera visual effects and environment capture.
• Open Lab (916 S. Wabash): A shared high-performance computing environment providing access to 3D rendering and real-time engine tools outside class hours.

Software and Industry Integration

As a designated Unreal Academic Partner, the college embeds Unreal Engine, MetaHuman Creator, and Twinmotion directly into its real-time 3D, game art, and virtual production courses. Instruction also covers 3D modeling, rigging, and animation in Autodesk Maya, physical animation capture with Dragonframe, 2D pipelines in Toon Boom Harmony, and post-production compositing across the Adobe Creative Cloud suite.

To connect students with industry hubs outside the Midwest, the college hosts off-campus study opportunities including the Animation Studios in LA course and the Semester in LA program, enabling upper-level students to examine commercial workflows on-site and visit major entertainment studios.