SUNY NEW PALTZ BFA IN GRAPHIC DESIGN FIRST-YEAR APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Once you have been accepted to the University, you can submit your online portfolio for consideration by the Graphic Design program. We recommend that you apply for early admission to the University, so that your portfolio can be reviewed early in the Spring semester for Fall admission. If you apply to the University for Early Decision and are accepted, your portfolio should be uploaded no later than February 1. We will review it then. March 1 is the regular deadline for portfolio submission; we begin our review of these portfolios on that date.
Apply as early as possible. Note that the University reserves the right to close admission at any time without prior notification to applicants.
Please note: our program is a broad-based graphic design program. It does not prepare students for careers in illustration, animation, or game design. If you are strongly interested in these areas, it’s best to consider programs at other schools that focus on these specializations.
ASSEMBLING YOUR ONLINE PORTFOLIO
Please follow these application instructions carefully. We're not able to review incomplete applications or incorrectly formatted files.
Applications to the Graphic Design BFA program require both a portfolio and an essay.
Your portfolio should include 10-15 diverse examples of your best work. We want to see:
- that you're interested in communicating something to somebody
- your point of view
- your visual language
Portfolios may include: t-shirt designs, posters, photos, zines, logos, clothing, type design, web design, lettering, paintings, sketches, motion, 3D work, etc. These projects could be for classes you've taken, for friends / family members / clients, or something you made just for yourself. We suggest you include examples with text and typography. Multipage print or screen work is good to include as well. What do you make? What do you like to make? Show us.
Only include your own work: no copied illustrations or designs in which the final piece came straight from an AI tool.
- Images should be saved in JPEG or PDF format, and no more than 4 megabytes per file.
- Time-based work, such as video, may be up to 5 minutes in length. Show this within our portfolio portal with a still image and provide a link in the caption space provided.
- Please caption each example of work, telling us why and how you made it. What tools (analog, digital, AI) did you use? And how did you use them? Captions are an essential part of your portfolio.
For the essay, tell us in your own words about an experience you had making something for someone else (make sure to include this work in your portfolio). Who was this for? What were some of your goals? How would you evaluate your outcomes? This essay should be about 400 words long. We consider it a key part of your portfolio.
Questions? Concerns? Go ahead and email us at graphicdesign@newpaltz.edu.
