[MDiddy]

I'm a fledgling desginer in the Chicago area, and I'm looking to extend my skills and learn more by going to school. I have enough skill now to makea decent living freelancing, (I've been going strong for a couple of years now) I want to gain more experience,take my designing to the next level, and it will definitely be a plus to have a degree in graphic design on my resume.

I plan on focusing more on web design, and also hope to learn php over the next few months.

I do alot of layout design, web page design, flash etc. The apps I use are Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, & Flash.

Can anyone suggest a school to look at, where an person with intermediate skills can still gain some knowledge and experience in my area?

[himself]

I definitely recommend the University of Illinois at Chicago. The professors there are top notch (some of the most respected designers in the profession) and they teach the fundamentals that many of the other schools won't touch. They start off very basic at first, but the work does get very advanced. And the majority of the students there typically end up getting *design* jobs, not just production work. Not to mention that the AIGA chicago chapter president is an instructor there(and one of the best), and it is very easy to make connections to other design professionals there. Compare the portfolios of UIC design students to any other design school. However, grad school, if that's an option, is a different story... I'd go to IIT, which is the *only* place to go (in chicago) for quality graduate studies in graphic design. In fact, I'd recommend universities over art schools for gd studies to anyone pondering the question.

<small>[ 05-30-2002, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: himself ]</small>