What is AC4D?
Austin Center for Design, an educational program in Austin, Texas, is a unique school intended to help you develop autonomy through design.
Interaction Design
We teach the practice and theory of interaction design—designing products, services, and interactions to change human behavior and improve the world.
Humanitarian Focus
Our emphasis is on addressing humanitarian problems. We focus on problems that matter, and students learn to recontextualize design in the space of large-scale "wicked problems."
Design Experts
Founder Jon Kolko is recognized as a thought-leader in developing and advancing the role of interaction design in product development and social entrepreneurship. Our faculty are all world-class working practitioners.
An Affordable Program
Our program is affordable. Our annual tuition is just $15,000 for our one-year course, which runs 440 course hours. Compare this with other similar graduate programs that cost $60,000, $70,000, or even $80,000.
Small Classes
Our classes sizes are small, providing extensive face-time with professors and the opportunity to form lasting relationships with a growing support network.
A Supportive Community
We've developed a supportive, collaborative community of alumni to help current students succeed and to help one-another drive impact.
Explore our course
Our course offers a comprehensive study in interaction design and social entrepreneurship, and builds autonomy. Take a look at our one-year curriculum or explore student projects to see if AC4D is right for you.
Our value proposition
What you'll gain in our program
In a word, students who complete our program gain autonomy. This is a sense of entrepreneurial freedom—that your choices are not set or constrained, and that you have concrete skills to shape the world around you. These skills include qualitative research, synthesis and interpretation, sketching, the creation of storyboards and wireframes, entrepreneurial business modeling, service design blueprinting, and complex system diagramming. These skills represent the foundation of a career in product management, design strategy, interaction design, and social entrepreneurship.
More importantly, you'll gain an empathetic process and a unique, empathetic way of thinking about culture and technology. This process is broad, and can be used in corporate and consulting contexts, in startups or small businesses, and even in politics and government.
Our participants
The types of people that join our program
Design is for everyone, and our students have a variety of backgrounds. Some of our students are already designers, but most aren't. Our typical applicants have experience in marketing, engineering, fine arts, finance, or the service industry. Our program teaches design fundamentals in addition to advanced topics, in a rigorous, intense environment. There is no expectation that our students enter the program as designers; we take care of teaching that.
Details In Brief
What you need to know about Austin Center for Design
Timeframe
AC4D is a 440 course-hour program that runs from late August through early May.
Applications
Application for 2018-2019 will open on Oct 1, 2017. They are due by Jan 15, 2018.Learn more.
Costs
Our one year program costs $15,000. The first payment of $7,500 is due in the summer, prior to classes beginning, and the second payment is in January (at the half-way point).
Difficulty
AC4D is extraordinarily intense, time consuming and difficult. We’ve structured the program to include as much content and rich experience as possible and it requires a strong, formal commitment from students.
Meet our students
Kade Schemahorn
Kade Schemahorn is a designer with experience tackling complex and messy problems. He enjoys working through high-level strategy as much as getting in the weeds. As an alum of AC4D, he believes in the power of design to drive the development of concepts that connect with people and that can lead to positive social impact. Today, he works with the team at Handsome in Austin, doing research and facilitating the design of products and services for a wide variety of clients. Bonus facts: K...
From our blog
Engagement
Engagement is about participation. It’s a word relevant in civics, in social and cognitive psychology, and in education. Fundamentally, it’s about autonomy, motivation, and empowerment: you are engaged when you are motivated to purposefully direct your attention. Attention is about focused concentration. The world is competing for your focus. External events cause your eyes to…
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Expanding to Springdale and Applications are open again!
We’re excited to announce we’ll be moving to Springdale General this summer! We’ll be joining a community of creatives and makers, such as Center for Social Innovation, Latinitas, and the many other creative studios. We also can’t wait to get over-caffeinated at Cafe Medici’s new roasting facility which will be right across from AC4D’s new…
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Austin Center for Design is not -for-profit corporation in Austin, Texas - 501(c)(3), under the status of the IRS.