Since launching the Advertising and Trademark Design program in 1992, the School of Fine Arts and Design has always upheld the original aspiration and mission of "cultivating talents for the Party and the country", taken fostering virtue through education as its fundamental task and cultivating people and shaping souls as its own responsibility, and built a distinctive cultivation system for artistic talents. Over the more than 30 years of its development, the school was the first teaching unit in the university to be restructured from a department into a school, one of the university’s first units authorized to confer professional master’s degrees, and among the university’s first batch of first-class discipline construction sites.
Disciplines and Programs
The school currently has the authorization for the first-level discipline master’s degree program in Design Science, as well as two professional master’s degree programs in Design and Fine Arts & Calligraphy. Design Science has been selected into the "Double First-Class" Discipline Construction Gongga Plan of institutions of higher learning in Sichuan Province. It offers 4 undergraduate programs: Visual Communication Design, Painting, Product Design, and Environmental Design. The Visual Communication Design program has been approved as a national first-class undergraduate program construction site, and the Painting program as a provincial first-class undergraduate program construction site.
Faculty Team
The school has a faculty and staff of over 100 members. Among them, more than half hold senior professional titles, doctoral degrees or serve as master’s supervisors, and over 90% are "double-qualified" teachers. The school has invited Fan Yang, former Vice President of the Chinese Painting Academy of the National Academy of Painting, and Xu Liaoyuan, an internationally renowned designer, to serve as specially-appointed (honorary) deans. It has 5 members of national and provincial teaching steering committees, and over 30 members of national professional associations including the China Artists Association, China Industrial Design Association, China Graphic Design Association and China Calligraphers Association. The faculty team includes many high-level talents such as national leaders in literary and artistic criticism and recipients of the Chengdu Rongcheng Talents Program. The Party Branch for Traditional Craft Research was successfully selected into the "Powerful Nation Initiative" Special Action Team for Party Branch Secretaries of "Double Leaders" Teachers by the Ministry of Education.
Talent Cultivation
The school has a total of 2,173 full-time students, covering both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including 1,375 domestic undergraduates, 327 master’s students, 280 international undergraduates, 71 international master’s students, and 120 students in the Sino-foreign cooperative education program. The school has won provincial-level teaching achievement awards for many times, and its faculty teams have repeatedly achieved honors in provincial-level teaching innovation competitions. It has been approved for the Ministry of Education’s first batch of New Liberal Arts Research and Reform Practice Projects, Ministry of Education Industry-University Cooperation Collaborative Education Projects, provincial university innovative experiment projects, provincial teaching reform projects, etc. It has built provincial first-class undergraduate courses, ideological and political demonstration courses, innovation and entrepreneurship and open courses. The school owns a national-level practical education base—the Xu Liaoyuan Modern Design Art Museum Practical Education Base of Chengdu University, a national-level research and study platform—the Research and Study Base of the China National Arts and Crafts Association, a provincial modern industry college—the Digital Art and Fashion Creative Industry College, and a provincial university ideological and political education master teacher studio—the "Xinchuan" Counselor Studio. In the past five years, students have won a total of 228 national-level academic competition awards and 1,188 provincial-level awards, with 38 provincial-level college student innovation training programs approved.
Scientific Research
The school has built a number of teaching and research platforms including the Sichuan Provincial Key Research Institute of Chinese Culture—the Traditional Craft Research Institute of Chengdu University, the Sichuan Provincial Science Popularization Base—the Giant Panda and Golden Monkey Culture and Art Science Popularization Base, the Sichuan Provincial Traditional Craft Workstation—the Pengzhou Traditional Craft Workstation of Chengdu University, the Sichuan Provincial Key Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory—the Key Laboratory of Integration and Innovation of Traditional Crafts and AIGC. It has been awarded the title of Governing Unit of the National Community for the Integration of Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritance and Arts and Crafts Industry-Education and the Third Batch of Key Foreign Affairs Visit Units in Sichuan Province. The school has undertaken 14 national-level projects including National Social Science Fund Projects and National Art Fund Projects, and over 100 provincial and ministerial-level projects such as Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Projects. It has published more than 200 high-level papers and over 60 academic monographs and planning textbooks. More than 100 works by teachers and students have been selected into national exhibitions such as the National Art Exhibition.
Social Services
The school has deeply integrated into local development, and completed with high quality more than 10 important design projects for the 31st FISU Summer World University Games, including the torch, medal ribbons, official sports pictograms, licensed products, atmosphere creation of the Universiade Village, and the exhibition project of the Universiade Museum. It has completed the design of "Tongmeier", the mascot of the 2024 Chengdu World Horticultural Expo, and a series of comic emojis, as well as the urban logo system design for Chengdu’s new "Twelve Monthly Markets". The school created the mascot-themed album for the 12th World Games, planned and implemented the renewal project of the "Kuanjing" cultural and artistic theme block in Chengdu Kuanzhai Alley, etc. It has completed more than 1,000 brand planning projects and over 10,000 packaging design projects for brands such as "Tan Carpenter", "Hongji Wood Industry", "Shuijingfang", "Jiannanchun", "Shede" and "Jinliufu". It has built the Chengdu ASEAN Art Museum covering an area of 7,800 square meters, which hosts more than 100 influential exhibitions and events in the industry every year, becoming a new urban cultural landmark.
Looking forward to the future, the school will focus on the major strategic needs of the country, deeply integrate into the "Belt and Road" International Cooperation Initiative and the construction plan of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle. On the basis of consolidating the advantages of traditional disciplines, it will deepen the interdisciplinary integration of "Art + Technology + Industry", fully cultivate new momentum to serve the high-quality development of regional economy and society, and strive to write a new chapter in the connotative development of higher education in the new era.
