Best Canadian ID/Design school?

So i’m fortunately hold dual citizenship, Canadian and U.S. and am thinking about going back to school in Canada. (A lot less money) Does anyone have any input by chance? Ideally I go to a school with some kind of work study co-op.

Here are the one’s I’ve been looking at:

-OACD
-Humber
-Carleton
-Emily Carr

Thanks in advance!

#1 do a search, as I know this has come up before.

#2 check my recent post in the below thread as I’ve given some comments about the Carleton program.

#3 search for portfolios on coroflot from students from each of these and make up your own mind.

#4 visit them all and check it out.

In short, I’d recommend Carleton by far, though I am biased (my alma mater) though I do believe there is consensus that it is the best Canadian ID school by reputation.

R

I’ve done the search and found some good information, but I figured asking directly may generate a different response. I will definitely check out the portfolios on coroflot, I didn’t even think of that.

Thanks for the tips!

I’m gonna say Humber or Carleton. Just graduated from Humber (so I am biased) but here are my thoughts.
Carleton - obvious first or second choice.
OCAD - incredibly artsy, impractical stuff.
Emily Carr - BC’s version of OCAD.

Comparing Carleton to Humber (and OCAD?) is made somewhat easy by looking at the rocket show.

http://www.acido.info/rocket2009/categories.htm

Traditionally, Humber wins about 70% of the awards and prizes. This year, Humber barely won any. Humber students didn’t receive documentation that stated they were being judged on showing a booklet of sketches and having dimensioned drawings on presentation materials. Rocket show reps only talked to Humber students about two weeks before the end of the term, and these criteria were never addressed. So, whether or not this info was withheld by rocket show reps or humber staff, I’m not sure.

I believe OCAD dropped out from the competition, after a few years of leaving empty-handed. Could be wrong.
Humber was a decent school. If you are willing to practice/ teach yourself a lot on your own, you should be fine. There is a wide range of curriculum, extending into design management, graphic and web design…check out the other schools and see how they compare - I’m not sure myself. Could be frustrating at times, and you will lose a lot of sleep.

From the looks of the Carleton rocket entries, they are also pretty strong. My best suggestion would be to visit both, check out the facilities, talk to some staff, and see which feels better. (Don’t judge Humber on it’s location or you’ll never go)

I’m coming from ECUAD, not sure how you can say we design “impractical stuff”. Some end products may be conceptual, but most aren’t. It’s all up to the students to choose what the end product will be as with any other school’s projects.

I was going to start a new thread on it, but seeing as this is very closely related I’ll just ask it here:

Being a university, I would expect ECUAD to have classes that enrich the fine art aspect such as art history, perhaps some sociology or psychology. I’m sure that many art colleges have these type of courses, but I’m wondering specifically about ECUAD and how it would compare to a larger university with many faculties, such as Carleton. Then again, it might be nice to know how this focus varies across the Canadian institutions mentioned earlier in the thread. It doesn’t seem that Canada has the same spectrum in the USA in regards to glitz to academics, but I’m sure that there is still a range. What are people’s experiences and opinions on this?

http://www.ecuad.ca/programs/courses/INDD

Here are the current ID courses for ECUAD. We have art history during foundation year, then design history afterwards (now I think you can substitute design history vs art history in foundation??).

Conceptual, I really don’t think we are. Just because 1 or 2 student’s research is doesn’t mean we all are. I find it incredibly ignorant to say that an entire school makes “incredibly artsy, impractical stuff” without even knowing first hand. Past students’ grad project has won some awards including Red Dot awards.

Carleton U is the best choice because it incorporates manufacturing, economics, physics, Engineering, and usability into its curriculum. The ‘artsy’ aesthetics part of your education are inherent and/or learned from your classmates so there’s no need to put additional educational emphasis on that. You want to come out the school with a good balance of artistic and technical skills and not just purely as a stylist. A lot of companies hire stylists but they pick students from US schools such as Art Center and CCS.

I would always like to see University of Montreal included in the conversation, even if there’s a language barrier issue…

http://www.din.umontreal.ca/
http://www.gradient.umontreal.ca/expo/2009/din
http://www.gradient.umontreal.ca/expo/2008.html