Welcome to Herron School of Art and Design

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Welcome to Herron School of Art + Design, Eskenazi Fine Arts Center

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Welcome to Herron School of Art and Design. Herron was founded in 1902 as a private art school, and these roots continue to grow on Herron School of Art and Design's urban campus in downtown Indianapolis. Located next door to the 16 Tech Innovation District, which is being developed on the northwest edge of downtown, Eskenazi Fine Arts Center is one of Herron's two buildings and contains the school's undergraduate programs in sculpture and ceramics with more than 52,000 square feet of labs, studios, classrooms and exhibitions space. This multi-purpose facility includes a bronze and aluminum casting foundry, ceramics studios with five different types of kilns, graduate studios, and tools and workspaces for all three-dimensional processes, from metalworking to digital fabrication. The foundry is also the backdrop for Herron's annual wearable art event in March, featuring students' fashion-forward creations, sculptures and ceramics, interactive art and performances.

Grand Hall, Eskenazi Hall

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Eskenazi Hall is situated on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail just north of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the Indiana State Museum, the Canal Walk, White River State Park and the Indianapolis Zoo. The 168,000-square-foot building comprises the Office of Admissions and Student Services, nine of our 11 undergraduate programs and foundation studies studios, the Herron Art Library and the Herron Galleries. The Herron Art Library is centrally located on the ground floor and plays an integral role in supporting the research and creative activities of our students and faculty with a wide range of art and design resources. In between classes, you can visit the galleries to experience a variety of contemporary exhibitions of emerging and established artists and designers, including our students, alumni and faculty.

Furniture Design

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The wood shop is the heart of Herron's furniture design program, which focuses on contemporary woodworking, sustainability and the process of thinking through making. This is where furniture design students acquire comprehensive, hands-on skills in problem-solving and construction. But you'll start by learning 3-D design as a freshman in foundation studies and making sculptural objects made of wire, plaster, cardboard, wood and found materials. Your second-year courses will build on different materials and processes and incorporate the history of designed objects. Pushing the medium of wood, you will come to understand a wide range of possibilities for original, functional works, from concept to completion. Field trips to lumber yards and interactions with visiting designers and makers will provide insights into achieving your career goals, whether it's running your own design studio or designing products, exhibitions, environments, and more.

Printmaking

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Herron's undergraduate printmaking program is one of the best in the country with a long, rich history and a number of distinguished alumni, including Garo Antreasian, George Page, Kenneth Tyler and Vija Celmins. Students who are interested in a more intimate, tactile experience with materials spend countless hours in the print shop. Here, in addition to faculty and classmates who share your passion for printing, you'll find extensive spaces with dedicated, process-oriented rooms and various sized presses. Depending on your interests, you can simply take electives in relief, intaglio, lithography and screen-printing or major in the discipline. You can also minor in book arts to investigate bookbinding, letterpress typesetting and papermaking.

Visual Communication Design

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We're in one of the studios for our visual communication design program, or "VCD" for short. Herron's VCD program goes beyond graphic design. It combines technology with art and business and teaches critical design thinking through research and human-centered problem-solving. Your professors will encourage you to gain a broad understanding of the design process while also developing strong problem-solving skills that can be applied to a wide range of career paths. You can focus on such areas as exhibition design, user experience and interface design, and service design. And you will put what you learn into practice through an internship and a capstone project. When you reach the senior year finish line, you will show your work to Indianapolis-based alumni and industry leaders and make career connections.

Community

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Herron is more than a school—it is a tight-knit, diverse and vibrant culture. You will connect with students and professors of all disciplines not only during events, art openings, field trips, study abroad, and more, but also with alumni and industry professionals. You will make meaningful contributions across the campus and in the surrounding communities through Herron's Basile Center for Art, Design and Public Life, which provides authentic opportunities for partnered research, collaboration and public art commissions. Each semester you will find opportunities for enriched learning and have access to the Think It Make It Lab, a digital fabrication space for rapid prototyping with 3-D printers and scanners, Wacom tablets, CNC routers, laser engravers, and more.

Photography

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Eskenazi Hall is home to 15,000 square feet of photography studios, one of the school's largest programmatic footprints. All Herron students are encouraged to utilize a professional lighting studio to document their work. Photography students have access to a film processing room, full black-and-white darkrooms, a chromogenic lab, Mac computers with advanced editing software, and more. Moving from traditional and analog processes to digital media, you will learn how to balance fine art with commercial photography and develop an exceptional creative eye.

Drawing + Illustration

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The room we're in now, located on the second floor of Eskenazi Hall, is where you'll take one or more of your drawing courses—a requirement for all students majoring in a fine arts program. It is also part of the core area used for drawing and illustration, one of Herron's fastest growing and most popular programs. Students who pursue this B.F.A. learn how to translate ideas into powerful images through a continuous, rigorous practice of drawing. Understanding the business of illustration and related industries is just as important as refining your visual style and voice. And you can explore advertising, animation, character design, concept art, digital rendering and narrative in elective courses.

Painting

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Herron's painting program builds on strong foundational skills and helps you establish a daily studio practice. Assignments in your intermediate and advanced level courses will facilitate the growth of your unique vision through creative experimentation, conceptual research and innovation. Juniors work together on the second floor in this large, shared studio, where they have their own easels, wall space, and storage for their supplies and canvases. Seniors have private studios down the hall. Throughout the semester, your most recent work will be on display in the hallways, motivating your peers and inspiring prospective students who have yet to apply or enroll at Herron.

Balcony

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The second-floor balcony of Eskenazi Hall overlooking Herron's first floor grand hallway is not only a place for relaxation, it is also an informal learning and collaborative space where students gather for group projects, networking events, a game of Ping-Pong and more. For example, students in our art education, art history and art therapy programs engage in analytical thinking and real-world practice not only in classrooms, but also in spaces like this, as well as across campus and around the city. Students in our graduate art therapy program combine their classroom learning with field work in a variety of clinical settings to obtain postgraduate board certification and licensure. Art education students learn to teach kindergarten to twelfth grade classes at Indianapolis Public Schools and in rooms adjacent to the balcony during their junior and senior years. Whatever your intended program of study, whether studio-based or scholarly, your learning experiences will be engaging and wide-ranging at Herron.