PCA&D partners with Nimblist to stretch College’s LiveX major and new minors

Pennsylvania College of Art & Design is excited to welcome Nimblist as the first partner of the College’s newly created Institute for Leadership, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. The Institute is the College’s new hub for multiple strategic initiatives and curricular innovations. It will merge entrepreneurship with creativity, developing opportunities for students to build leadership skills and career preparation while engaging with community, industry, and academic partners. 

Lancaster-based Nimblist has a national and international profile, offering visual, production, lighting, and technical design services, as well as visual production, creative direction, on-site integration of projects, and branding and graphic design work. 

This partnership will offer real-world, hands-on creative projects for our students in the field of Live Experience Design. These new curricular and co-curricular opportunities also help students cultivate and build partnerships with industry leaders, taking part in leadership, entrepreneurship, and service-learning programs. 

In a press release, Nimblist said the partnership is a chance to “share our deep knowledge with students about art and commerce in the Live and Virtual Production world of entertainment.

“We are equally excited to tap into the creative well that is PCA&D at the Aesthetics Technologies Lab. This lab, once operational, will serve as a place of creation, experimentation, and development across the PCA&D community, including with Nimblist.”

More about PCA&D’s Institute for Leadership, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation

The Institute, founded during the 2020-2021 academic year, provides a collaboration center for several new business-minded academic programs at the College. These initial programs include the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Live Experience Design (LiveX) and minors in LiveX, Business in Creative Industry, and Esports.

The LiveX program addresses the need for competent professionals with a variety of skill sets to design and create experiences and manage related projects in the entertainment and experience industries. The program was developed in consultation with regional businesses that serve regional and international clients and audiences.

Critical to the LiveX program — and crucial to updating many of PCA&Ds existing academic programs — is the creation of user experience labs with cutting-edge technology and equipment, including a fabrication lab, the Aesthetics Technologies Lab, a sound and lighting lab, and a materials lab. Additionally, a PC lab will serve multiple academic and co-curricular programs and provide technological experiences critical to the success of students entering a new era of art and design professions.

As students create and design for experiences in real and virtual spaces, they will learn to use industry equipment, technology, and software in configurable environments. These include professional-grade 3D printers and laser cutters, virtual and extended reality kits, and PC computers that will have the capability of fulfilling LiveX software needs and esports hardware demands.

New academic minors emerging

PCA&D students frequently seek careers as industry professionals, individual creators, entrepreneurs, and self-reliant practitioners. The skill sets developed through pursuing the College’s new minor in Business in Creative Industry will contribute to their success. Additionally, the creation of these additional content areas and concentrations communicates the strong message to partners and employers that PCA&D graduates have developed strong work ethics, possess interdisciplinary flexibility, and demonstrate the ability to be adaptive and versatile professionals. The new minor in Esports Management, especially when paired with the BFA in Animation & Game Art, will prepare students to enter the rapidly growing esports industry, which is expected to pass the $1 billion mark globally this year.

Rapidly evolving industries such as these call for workers who are familiar with the process of thinking outside the box, who can balance an inquisitive approach with critique, and who are well-versed in following through the full span of an idea, from spark to revision to execution. Creative minds of all kinds are needed to envision, refine, and lead industries we have only begun to explore.