About the School

The world is in the midst of a design explosion, which is changing the way we create marketable products and how we maintain market environments—including everything from websites to toothbrushes to retail environments. It has affected advertising also, in a big way. These days, branding is at the forefront of every industry, and the creation, re-creation, and maintenance of brands is at the core of design and advertising.

Portfolio Center offers what today’s student needs, a comprehensive education, which emphasizes process, especially as it applies to branding. And since collaboration is key, and growing more important by the minute, our students constantly partner on projects while learning to speak the global language—concepts strong enough to be universal. Whatever the particular discipline, students are trained to look at the big branding picture. Everyone is involved in it: designers, art directors, writers, photographers, and illustrators.

Portfolio Center students are also taught how communication ideas merge with communication strategy across every medium, including, but not limited to, advertising, magazine and publication, book design, information and systems design, media architecture, general exhibition design, screen based media, corporate and brand identity, environmental design, product design, web design, promotional design, architecture/urban retail planning, licensing, brand strategy, writing for design and advertising, and strategic planning.

Portfolio Center offers tracks in design and art direction, advertising art direction, writing, media architecture, photography, and illustration. We define the concentrations but sweep them broadly under the umbrella of brand communication. The new cross-media approach has redefined education. Students acquire numerous and diverse skill sets, which then allow them to offer solutions and become leaders. Beyond the actual work itself, our graduates are prepared to make presentations, manage projects and other people, understand and communicate business strategies, and work effectively in highly creative teams.

In line with the Bauhaus philosophy, the size of our program allows for individual attention and the nurturing of each student’s particular talents and strengths in an environment that promotes individual expression and experimentation. At Portfolio Center, it is a hallmark that students work hard, but they also have fun with their projects and, later, in their work and in their lives. More important, we inspire and expect each of our graduates to take responsibility for the time in which they live and to make a unique, lasting contribution to the world.