Illustration majors and their peers across the college work in spacious studios with a mix of communal spaces and individual workstations—including inside the Illustration Studies Building, the center of activity for students and faculty in the department.

Illustration students have access to an impressive array of digital illustration tools on campus, including drawing tablets, film scanners and computers well equipped with software for visual artists.

A variety of traditional printmaking equipment can be found in the Illustration Studies Building, allowing majors to explore lithography, screen-printing and other ways of reproducing work by hand.

Open to students in all departments, Co-Works is a state-of-the-art research lab for ambitious, project-based experimentation. This makerspace facilitates cross-disciplinary collaboration and hosts special topics studios and seminars, including ones proposed, designed and taught by grad students.

An on-campus space that celebrates figurative art and illustration, the ISB Gallery is a main gathering place for Illustration students and faculty, including for an exhibition of final thesis work at the end of the MFA program.

A major Rhode Island cultural institution and exhibition venue, the RISD Museum holds approximately 100,000 works of fine and decorative art, including well-curated collections of paintings, drawings, prints and illustrative 3D media dating from ancient times to present.

The primary on-campus spaces for grad exhibitions are the Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery (above), which hosts departmental biennials and triennials throughout the academic year, and the Gelman Student Gallery, a venue for thematic, student-curated shows featuring work from across RISD’s graduate programs.

One of RISD’s most anticipated annual events is our graduate thesis exhibition—a show of final bodies of work by each graduating class of master’s degree candidates and a celebration of their creativity through all stages of the thesis process, from sketches and drafts to completed works.

In addition to its more than 150,000 circulating books, the Fleet Library at RISD houses a special collections library of publications dating from the 14th century, and a visual and material resource center containing objects of particular interest to illustration scholars and practitioners.

RISD students enjoy several advantages from our relationship with Brown University, including cross-registering for classes taught there at no extra cost, as well as access to the John Hay and John Carter Brown libraries' renowned collections of rare books, manuscripts and historical research materials.

RISD’s interdisciplinary Color Lab hosts an extensive collection of research objects for investigating the significance of color across all art and design fields, including rare pigments and dyes, a curated library of reference materials and laboratory glassware for experimenting with color mixing.

Offering academic support and advocacy for communication in academic, professional and creative contexts, the Center for Arts & Language (A&L) provides peer tutoring and staff advising in three areas: written, spoken and visual communication; multilingual learning; and student publications.

For students interested in the interconnectedness of art, design and the natural world, the Nature Lab provides unmediated access to high-end imaging equipment, a natural history collection of more than 80,000 specimens and a reference library including exemplary works of scientific illustration.

Many grad students at RISD participate in the Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design certificate program, which helps prepare them for higher education teaching opportunities after graduation. By developing a personal teaching philosophy, graduates gain a meaningful edge in pursuing academic positions in their field.

Among many opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration, Graduate Commons offers all RISD graduate students an evolving selection of coursework that highlights overlapping research areas while championing specific areas of critical inquiry.

In addition to campus-wide symposia and event programming like the social justice-focused SEI Lecture Series, RISD invites artists, scholars and others (like award-winning culture critic Hilton Als, above) to give talks and workshops throughout the year that shed light on a range of issues related to creative practice.