What type of college should I look into for a career in making album art?

I've been thinking about college recently and I know I want to be in an art related field, specifically I'm thinking about making album art for CDs, but I'm not sure what sort of a degree I need to be looking into... If anybody has any idea, please let me know.





Thanks.What type of college should I look into for a career in making album art?
The best fits for you are to study either illustration or graphic design. Thus you want a school that has a good art program.





Some of the best schools in those fields include: RISD, Cranbrook Academy, Yale, Virginia Commonwealth U, Maryland Institute College of Art, School of Visual Arts (NY), School of the Art Institute of Chicago (NOT part of the ';Art Institute'; chain of schools, which is to be avoided), California Institute of the Arts, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, Columbia U, Temple U, Bard College, Pratt Institute, and U Texas Austin.





While you study, get involved on campus and do design-related work for on-campus organizations. In fact, if your school has a concert or event production group on campus, do the art for them. Use the portfolio and resume you build via that work to get an internship in graphic design, ideally in your exact field, but if you don't get one in that field, at least get one somewhere. In addition, if you go to school in a town that has record companies or concert production companies or related in it, try to get a part-time job for one of those companies doing *anything*. It'd be great if it was art-related, but making copies is also just fine. You're there to make connections in the industry and to gain exposure, so if you can only get a job making coffee for SONY/BMG, then that's good enough. It's an opportunity to network more than anything else. To make connections for when you graduate and strike out on your own.





This will prepare you to be able to enter the field when you graduate.What type of college should I look into for a career in making album art?
graphic design is your field. Now along the way, you will have to do all sorts of 'artsy' projects (painting etc), plus art history (probably 2 levels). Your program will be more general.





Now once you have your BFA in hand, you can go out and compete for jobs with uneducated, untrained people who simply have a talent. You might have to do magazine layout to pay the bills and freelance the CD art.





These are just the realities, harsh as they seem. The design market is filled with a lot of competition.
Try finding a college with both a good fine arts program and a good graphic arts program.