Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design: Courses, Admission, Cost

Whitecliffe College of Art and Design is an award-winning, government-financed tertiary arts and design education provider in New Zealand. Whitecliffe offers undergraduate and postgraduate projects (NZQF Levels 4-9) in Fine Arts, Photo Media, Graphic Design and Fashion Design, and its postgraduate programmes right now incorporate the Master of Fine Arts, Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Management, Master of Art in Arts Management, the Master of Fine Arts (Fashion) the Postgraduate Diploma in Art Therapy and the Master of Art Therapy (Clinical). All Whitecliffe postgraduate programmes are low-residency in structure.

The low residency model of the Master’s programme is organized by regular one-week, or end of the week-long intensive seminars, based at the Auckland campus. Postgraduate classes are organised in small group sessions through lectures, workshops, group critiques, and one-on-one supervision meetings with nationally and globally prestigious practice experts. Managers are chosen to help individual students to advance their specific interests and skills, and to negotiate new thresholds of professional practice that can shape and add to culture and community. Programmes are taught by practising artists, designers, educators and specialists. Students learn innovative and basic reasoning, research, communication and presentation skills, and are presented to the contemporary arts and design world through exhibitions, internships, international guests and industry experts.

The Certificate in Digital Media and Design and the Certificate in Arts and Design are 18-week programmes, which allow students to build a professional portfolio that can be utilized to help future degree level education in New Zealand or any place in the world and simultaneously they can experience being in New Zealand. Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Photo Media, and Graphic Design are taught within the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It includes courses, Management Studies, PR, Business Studies and Marketing to ensure students have a smooth transition from study to work.

The university's notable alumni are Benjamin Alexander (2017), fashion designer, winner of Project Runway New Zealand (season 1), Freda Brierley (1993), textile artist and Maggie Hewitt (2016), fashion designer.