Overview

Graphic Design is one of the earliest founding specialties
of Design College,GAFA, which dated back to the year 1953,and formally founded in 1963.In the late 70s of 20th century, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art started its modern design education reform from this department. In the mid80s, a group of our young staffs set up "Whitehorse Advertising Studio", and lately became "Whitehorse Advertising Company", which was leading the development of creative industries around the Pearl Delta and became the highlight of Chinese advertising development at that time.
 
In 1996, depending on the development of the speciality, Graphic Design Department was formally founded under the approval of the academy.

Our department, with its core of graphic design, is to educate designers of agility and creativity that adapt to a wide range of careers like design of advertisement, package, website, company image in corresponding industries and organizations, or professionals in researching and teaching areas.

China is undergoing its significant and accelerated
development of economics and society ---never before has there been such a need for creative personnels , by which we are demanded to adjust it and improve our courses design to provide a education system of diversity, contemporary and distinction, so that to prepare students for their future careers

Recent years, our students had great performances in both national and international design competitions. From 2000 to 2005, we received 184 awards (including: 2 top honors, 34 gold metals, 11 silver metals, and 17 bronzes metals) from local, national, and global Chinese spoken district competitions. "National top award" was honored in the last round of '05 "National College Student Advertising Competition". Among "the Top 100 Designers in Chinese Advertising" conferred by Advertisement Guide ,21 of them graduated from our department..

Education Target
Courses in our department are consisted of 2 columns:
Advertising Design and Graphic design. Our aim is to educate knowledgeable professionals in a wide range fields including Advertising, Packing, and Graphic Design etc., who are competent in both practice and theory. Extensive links with the industries and practices associated with our courses lead to live projects and work experience that enrich the students learning experience, and prepare them for being confident in thetheoretical, creative and technical skills essential to the
contemporary.

Specialty & Teaching Staff
By present, Department of Graphic Design includes 4 specialist pathways, they are Advertising design, packaging design, web design and Company Image Design. We have11 academic staff including 1 professor, 1 associated professors, 5 lecturers as well as 4 teaching assistants, and appoint many specialists who are of worldwide reputations as our guest professors.

Resources & Facilities
 A brand new Apple education lab, cost 580 thousand RMB, was built in the college town in year 2004. The 112 square-meter lab, that allows 35 students to connect to internet at the same time, is equipped with multimedia devices to serve 70 students. Students can learn how to use design software and media editing software; web advertising is also taught in this lab. In their spare time, students can surf the web with LAN
connection under supervision of our lab technician. Unlimited
data upload and download make sharing of files a reality, so our professors can easily manage other 35 computers and facilitate the teaching process.

 Besides that, our department appoints several
working advertising specialists to teach 5-7 courses.
At the same time, we conduct lots of teaching related
practicing events. (Note: Among the 29 foundation
courses, design courses, and core courses for second
year and fourth year students, 5-7 are taught by these
specialists.)

Degrees and Certificates
We offer two levels of education: honours degrees and certificated degrees.

1. Honours Degree Courses
We welcome nationwide applications for 4-year BA(hons) degrees and 3-year MA(hons) degrees. By now, we have 254 BA (hons) students and 17 MA(hons) students at study. Also, in the 2-year "postgraduate courses" that held by GAFA ,as well as the 3-year MA(hons) courses, we undertake the responsibilities in providing specialist education in Advertising and Graphic design.

2. Certificated Degree Courses
At present, we offer to all over the nation 1-year senior further education and professional development courses, which aim at BA(hons) graduates who wants to progress their abilities in practice. The whole school year includes 8-10 courses. Students can gain certificated after they finish all the courses and prove to be qualified.