Change the future with
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
A time of change and turmoil demands the optimistic creative vision of design and the arts. That is why we are investing in the creative power of young people and the emerging generation of all ages committed to a creative and abundant world.
We believe in big ideas and limitless imagination. We believe in the beauty and truth of design as the nexus of life, art, science and technology. We believe in optimism and bravery, in generosity and possibility.
In the era of AI we are called to be more profoundly human, creative and compassionate. We believe in designing and creating in context to care for and benefit all of life, not just humans.
We believe in the power of a creative individual to change the world and make history.
Finally, we believe in our collective imagination and our shared commons.
Students emerge from an immersive Dreamscape Learn experience with an expression of wonder and awe. At Herberger Institute, learning is collaborative and immersive. We are inventing the future of learning at ASU and taking it everywhere.
Designing solutions for societal challenges
Very little in our world is built for the future. Designed with the mindset of unlimited resources and limited population, much of what is designed and produced fails to meet the needs of today and is destined to tragically underserve the opportunities of tomorrow. In the coming decades, almost everything will need to be reimagined and redesigned.
We need solutions at the scale of our global challenges. In this time of extraordinary need, design and the arts are more than mere embellishments — they’re powerful catalysts for societal transformation and central to our future success.
At the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, we’re disassembling the notion of art as a luxury only few can afford. The ability to synthesize big ideas across art, science, and technology is essential to everyone and impacts everything. Design and art can provide new lenses for problem-solving, reframe our perceptions of possibility, and create visceral experiences that spark empathy and collective action. Today’s pressing issues are canvases for radical opportunity and imagination.
“There are aspects of societal needs that can only be solved through design and the arts, in collaboration with other disciplines, whether it be material science, ecological studies, or behavioral economics,” says Renée Cheng, senior vice provost, dean and professor.
“It is through the things that only design and the arts can do — posing the ‘whatifs,’ visualizing possible futures, inspiring people to action, and challenging them with stories and ideas that are accessible and profoundly connected — that we will advance toward solutions. These problems are not going to be solved without the lateral simultaneous thinking that the Herberger Institute provides.”
Through Changing Futures®, we’ll demonstrate the power of design and the arts as accessible, collective forces for positive change.
Herberger Institute is driven by the ASU Charter; we define our success by who we include and how they succeed.
The School of Music, Dance and Theatre offers classes for all ASU students regardless of major to learn and express their creativity.
Inspiring creativity from every background
Across all cultures and times, children sing, dance, draw, build, and play games. They use these fundamental creative tools to express their joys and fears, shape their environments, and connect with others. As they grow, societal norms often relegate these explorations to hobbies or frivolous pursuits. But in the coming age of AI, the profoundly human practices of Design and the Arts will be critical to a positive future and a successful life.
Holding a place at the Herberger Institute for every child born in Arizona and California
The Herberger Institute is flinging its doors open and advancing human creativity at scale by reaching every child born in Arizona and California. We are offering each one a personal pathway and sustained support for their creative energies — guiding them toward prosperous careers that contribute to bettering our world. We are building the Herberger Institute as a lifelong partner in creative growth and learning, leading the transformation of careers and creative life.
We are committed to the whole-life success of our students
The full range of life experience, talent, and passion that today’s learners bring adds strength and vitality to our field. Many of our students face persistent barriers such as food insecurity, unaffordable housing or health care, and family obligations. They navigate these challenges while contending with what Cheng calls an “invisible culture” — the unspoken rules and expectations that can be unclear without guidance from mentors or experienced family members. We are evolving our support systems to help every student discover their creative pathway and find their way to success.
The
world’s greatest talent, committed to a better world
We’re bringing together the world’s most talented designers and artists from every background — future voices of our state, nation, and world. That’s why we’re expanding enrollment and making creative pathways broader and more accessible.
From creative pursuits to prosperous careers
Our Live, Create and Thrive Campaign will provide unprecedented support to aspiring artists and designers, fulfilling ASU’s charter to assume our fundamental responsibility for our communities. By connecting them with lifechanging scholarships; just-in-time support for health, wellness and financial security; academic tools and materials; inspiring and supportive spaces; and access to world-leading talent and career advancement opportunities, we’ll nurture their creative lives so they can realize their dreams.
Launching and sustaining a creative life
The proposed Creative Futures Center will bridge cutting-edge technology with strategic career pathways and connections to help graduates secure their futures and continue to thrive as technology and society evolve. We will use our long-range perspective as an institution to alert graduates of changes and potential roadblocks in their careers, offering retraining and new skills as needed. Through the Center, we will elevate each student’s lifetime creative potential, ensuring that we’re not just admitting talent but matching it with the opportunity to turn passion into a powerful lifelong professional journey.
Thriving Starving Artist
We are throwing off the cliché of the starving artist, and building a thriving culture of prosperity and abundance. Everything that is produced is first expressed through design and the arts. Design and the arts are the source of innovation and creative development across all the knowledge domains at ASU, and the Creative Futures Center will provide the interface of collaboration to support the greatest possible impact for every student throughout their lifetime.
The Live, Create and Thrive Campaign and Creative Futures Center are the keys to realizing the full potential of our vision for the world’s most accessible and advanced design and arts college—serving every student with creative talent at the highest levels of excellence.
Technology moves rapidly in creative fields like music and film production; investments through Changing Futures will ensure that Herberger Institute and its students keep pace.
A fearless embrace of technology in the context of life
Life Centered Design changes the game
Amid the breakneck speed of technology advances today, “Herberger Institute proceeds fearlessly...with optimism and reverence for all of life,” says Cheng. The Institute is pioneering the exploration of emerging technologies like augmented reality, extended reality (XR) and immersive media, with a critical mission to ensure these innovations serve the broadest communities and the public good. “There are times when arts and design training shows students how to use technology in order to make catalytic leaps and accelerate time, and other instances when we demonstrate the power to slow down and experience life in its full majesty, to quantify and visualize and understand our shared place in the living world.”
Reclamation is a visionary initiative synergizing nature, technology, community, art, education and urban farming. Through community co-design, the project transforms adopted highways in Los Angeles into sustainable spaces.
Resilient Visions Co-Lab focuses on emerging technologies and policy advocacy that enhance the health of individuals, their communities and the environment that sustains them. Their project “Bridging Borders” is a storytelling AI-initiative that facilitates real-time conversations with people affected by climate and political crises through a novel, co-created AI network that generates digital likenesses of newcomers. The project co-created with Afghan Hazara partners who were displaced after the fall of Kabul has been profiled by the International Rescue Committee and Switchboard to demonstrate how this technology can humanize complex humanitarian crises while fostering empathy and cross-cultural understanding.
At Herberger Institute, we’re combining inclusive excellence, technology and student success to cultivate a new generation of life-centered designers who can shape how we connect, communicate and imagine our collective future.
Ready for action
Students learn from world-leading creative professionals and work with the same advanced technologies used in the industries they are headed to. Herberger Institute grads are prepared to walk into the jobs they are dreaming of.
Through Semester in LA and other Creative Economy Hub programs, ASU students gain access to unparalleled experiential learning opportunities.
Reimagining relationships between entertainment, academia and the arts
We’re not only bringing more voices to art and design, we’re shaping the future with them.
Herberger Institute graduates are capable leaders and creative visionaries, changing reality with human imagination, ingenuity and creativity. Since 2013, the Institute has been building its footprint in Los Angeles, just steps from the Fashion District and in the center of the nation’s film and television industry. The Institute’s Creative Economy Hub is a key connector between ASU and one of the world’s most important centers of cultural and creative industries. By reimagining the historically transactional relationship between academia and creative industries in Los Angeles, the Hub will foster a deep and meaningful exchange around knowledge, human capital development and community building.
Through Changing Futures, anchor entities within the Hub — ASU FIDM and The Sidney Poitier New American Film School — will create new pathways into this collaborative ecosystem. For example, the ASU FIDM Museum will fuel the Creative Economy Hub as a vibrant exhibition, research and convening space highlighting innovations in fashion, film, and design, driven by strategic partnerships with industry leaders.
The Semester in LA (SiLA) Program connects Arizona students directly with world-leading industry professionals, placing them in impactful, skill-building internships and opening doors to lasting creative careers.
The Hub’s core values of individual opportunity and collective prosperity don’t just serve Los Angeles; they provide a blueprint for emerging creative economies like Phoenix. “This region is where the future is and where innovation is happening, with vision and many voices,” says Dennita Sewell, director of ASU FIDM and professor of practice.
Connecting two innovative communities to life-long global opportunity
In LA and Arizona, Herberger Institute embodies both ASU’s innovative edge and our charge for service to our communities. “We are in the center of the creative industries,” says Peter Murrieta, deputy director and professor of practice at the Herberger Institute’s Sidney Poitier New American Film School, “and the connective tissue of that is incredibly important to how we solve problems for our partners, and in the process, create students that are going to participate and lead in the future.”
As the creative workforce rapidly evolves across diverse sectors and technologies, arts and design graduates often struggle to envision and navigate their professional pathways, with more than 50% reporting insufficient career guidance.
The solution lies in developing a Creative Futures Center that curates cutting-edge technologies, builds strategic connections and provides comprehensive support to help students from all backgrounds unleash their full creative potential and drive transformative societal change.
The Creative Futures Center will lead the deployment of our Cradle to Grave Herberger Institute Partnership. Our approach begins with the birth of any child in Arizona or California. We welcome them to their creative journey and assure their parents that we are holding a spot for them when the time comes to go to college. We are with them on their journey. We are designing the Herberger Institute to be their partner for life-long creative learning. Because we see all the data on all the creative careers, we can provide guidance, insight, and learning opportunities, helping our students to develop, launch and sustain their creative life.
Change futures by supporting
Transform global education
Live, Create and Thrive Campaign
Despite the immense creative potential of our growing student body, significant barriers of economic insecurity, limited resources and career uncertainty can restrict their ability to thrive and innovate. Our Live, Create and Thrive Campaign aims to transform this challenge with support for basic needs, tools and materials, and career-shaping opportunities like internships and global programs.
Endless Games and Learning Lab
Traditional education models struggle to keep pace with evolving technology, limiting access to scalable, high-intensity learning. The Endless Games and Learning Lab at the MIX Center integrates immersive game environments, research and global partnerships to create personalized, technology-driven learning.
“The Endless Lab will redefine the future of games, learning and opportunity, and empower individuals and communities around the world,” says ASU President Michael M. Crow.
Space to Inspire
In an increasingly competitive educational landscape, Herberger Institute faces the critical challenge of outdated learning spaces that hinder student creativity and collaboration. Our Space to Inspire initiative would reimagine and renovate over 30 existing buildings across multiple campuses, allowing the Institute to demonstrate leadership, inspire innovation, attract top talent and provide cuttingedge environments that empower the next generation of designers and artists.
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
ASU FIDM Museum
Fashion education thrives on industry connections. However, students often struggle to access top designers and career opportunities. Expanding ASU FIDM Museum’s presence in Los Angeles will strengthen industry ties, providing students with real-world experience in one of the world’s leading fashion hubs and positioning ASU as a leader in inclusive fashion education.
Dreamscape Learn
Art history education can sometimes feel disconnected from real-world experiences, limiting engagement and impact. Dreamscape Learn, led by legendary Hollywood producer Walter Parkes (Minority Report), is revolutionizing the field by immersing students in a virtual, global exploration of art and culture, enhancing learning through technology-driven, experiential education in collaboration with the School of Art.
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Reshape our relationship with the planet
Design Beyond Earth: Space Architecture and Extreme Environments
Sustainable solutions for extreme environments are vital both in space and on Earth. ASU’s Master of Science in Space Architecture and Extreme Environments, a collaboration between The Design School and the Interplanetary Initiative, develops innovative designs for extraterrestrial habitats. These breakthroughs translate into resilient solutions for climateaffected regions, ensuring research benefits planetary sustainability.
The SHaDE Lab
Rising urban temperatures threaten public health and city livability. The SHaDE Lab at the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence studies urban heat through sensing, modeling and biometeorological research. By developing cooling strategies, this initiative helps communities build climateresponsive cities through sustainable urban planning and innovative design.
$10M XPRIZE Rainforest Competition Winners
Team Limelight Rainforest, including four ASU professors, use bioacoustics recordings and machine learning to measure the biodiversity of the rainforest to win the Rainforest XPRIZE. The project combines Artificial Intelligence for data analysis with Indigenous knowledge from the region. Herberger Professor Garth Paine, an expert in acoustic ecology who invented the device that records species density, said, “This is going to affect how the United Nations values and makes international agreements about the protection of the rainforest, and that’s enormous. This is massively impactful.”
Garth Paine, professor of digital sound and interactive media in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering created the bioacoustic recording devices. Engineering,
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
Empower community resilience
Reclamation
Urban landscapes often lack green spaces and sustainable infrastructure, limiting community well-being. Reclamation, a “seeds of change” project within the Narrative and Emerging Media Program, envisions a future where highways in Los Angeles transform into vibrant community spaces through co-design and digital twin technology. With philanthropic support, this initiative will reimagine urban spaces as hubs of sustainability, urban farming and public art, connecting communities to a shared vision of renewal and ecological harmony.
Indigenous Placekeeping and Design
Indigenous communities have long led sustainable design practices, yet their perspectives remain underrepresented in mainstream architecture and urban planning. The Master of Science in Indigenous Placekeeping and Design from The Design School at ASU empowers students to co-create culturally grounded solutions alongside tribal communities. This program will advance community-embedded design that honors Indigenous knowledge, strengthens tribal sovereignty and fosters sustainable development rooted in cultural traditions.
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Build the future of health
Everyone lives in a designed environment, and the quality of that design determines who will thrive. Access to design and arts is not a luxury — it is a driver of individual and community health. It is the solution to the epidemic of isolation, creating connection through shared experiences as well as spaces and places that support the full range of human needs.
The DeSmart Lab
Healthcare environments impact patient recovery, staff well-being, and overall health outcomes, yet many facilities are not designed with these needs in mind. The DeSmart Lab, led by interior designer Nina Sharp, collaborates with the Mayo Clinic to transform healthcare spaces for dementia patients and intensive care unit staff. This initiative aims to create environments that promote healing, reduce stress and enhance quality of care.
Music
Therapy Program
Music has the power to improve cognitive function, emotional well-being and social connection, yet its potential in healthcare is often underutilized. ASU’s Music Therapy program is pioneering music-based interventions to address Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and addiction, while also using music to combat loneliness and promote wellness among older adults.
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
Inspire tomorrow’s game changers
Media Experience Service Hub (MESH)
Emerging technologies demand a new kind of creative workforce, yet many students lack opportunities to develop real-world expertise. ASU’s Media Experience Service Hub (MESH) connects students, faculty and industry leaders through role-specific guilds in extended reality (XR), fostering handson learning, mentorship and collaboration.
Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation MS E+I
Many aspiring entrepreneurs struggle to bridge the gap between ideas and impact, lacking structured pathways to develop and scale their ventures. The Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MS E+I) program equips students with design thinking and problemsolving expertise to create innovative solutions, launch businesses and lead transformative change across industries.
Esports Digital Economy
The development of esports merges strategy, technology and teamwork, equipping students with critical skills for the digital economy. The School of Arts, Media and Engineering hosts ASU’s largest esports facility, providing a platform for students to develop critical thinking, teamwork and problem-solving skills through gaming. By integrating
strategy, technology and collaboration, esports prepares students for careers in digital industries, game development and emerging tech sectors, positioning them as leaders in an evolving digital economy.
LOOM Laboratory of Open Matters
The Loom Lab uses creativity to deliver meaningful and sustainable design solutions and experiences, interwoven with technologies to decode future trends, that enable a better future for people and the planet. The LOOM Lab concentrates on the integration between fashion design and innovative technology, pushing the boundaries of the garment’s functionality and performance and enhancing the quality of life for those managing various health conditions.
ASU-LACMA Fellowship
Advancing a new generation of art museum leaders to create a more inclusive museum field, the ASU-LACMA Master’s Fellowship is a partnership between ASU and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with the aim to culturally broaden the staff and leadership of art museums in the United States. The fellowship offers a three-year degree program that pairs rigorous academic instruction through traditional masters-level coursework with on-the-job work experience.
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Advance technology for good
Design and Artificial Intelligence
AI is transforming industries. However, ensuring ethical and life-centered applications remains a challenge. The Design and Artificial Intelligence Bachelor of Science program, a collaboration between The Design School and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, explores AIdriven solutions that enhance accessibility and equity. This program prepares students to create technology that serves communities and advances social good.
The Digital Culture Summer Institute
Tomorrow’s creators and innovators need technical and interdisciplinary skills to build a better future for themselves and their communities, yet many students have limited opportunities to engage in hands-on, technology-driven learning. The Digital Culture Summer Institute offers project-focused workshops for students ages 12 to 18, integrating arts, music, digital media, computer science and engineering. By working directly with faculty and graduate students, participants gain valuable experience that prepares them for success in a technology-infused world.
The Immersive Storytelling Project
Immersive experiences have the power to amplify a wide range of voices and revolutionize storytelling through technology. The Immersive Storytelling Project, hosted by The Poitier Film School, brings students from ASU and historically Black colleges to the MIX Center to create extended reality narratives. By utilizing cutting-edge technology like the Planar LED Virtual Production Stage and Dolby Atmos audio suites, students gain hands-on experience in immersive media, shaping the next generation of storytelling through innovation and inclusion.
The CACTUS Music Lab
Understanding the role of music in human experience requires innovative, crossdisciplinary research. The CACTUS Music Lab (Cognition, Analysis, Computation and Theory Under the Sun) fosters collaborative music research, integrating diverse perspectives to develop new methodologies. Through student-driven projects and applied research, the lab cultivates creativity and curiosity while making music research accessible and engaging. Expanding support for research assistantships will enhance opportunities for students to contribute to groundbreaking work at the intersection of music, technology and cognition.
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
Accessible as an active teaching laboratory and public asset, the ASU FIDM Museum houses one of the most significant fashion collections in the world.
About us
The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts is the world’s most accessible and advanced design and arts school, located within a dynamic 21stcentury research university. We work to position designers, artists, scholars and educators at the center of public life and prepare them to use their creative capacities to advance culture, build community and imaginatively address today’s most pressing challenges.
With almost 9,000 students, over 600 faculty members, and more than 130 program options and a tradition of top-ranked programs, we are committed to redefining the 21st-century design and arts school. Our college is built on a combination of disciplines unlike any other program in the nation, comprising ASU FIDM and ASU FIDM Museum; the School of Art; the School of Arts, Media and Engineering; The Design School; The Sidney Poitier New American Film School; the School of Music, Dance and Theatre; and the ASU Art Museum.
ASU Charter
ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.