The Exhibition and Experience Design MFA course at the Fashion Institute of Technology prepares students for careers in cross-disciplinary spatial design.

Exhibition and Experience Design is a forum for cross-disciplinary design experimentation where students are explorers and inventors, maximising advancements in both fundamental and state-of-the-art media.

Students generate interpretive environments rooted in narrative and audience-driven experiences.

With a foundation built upon fieldwork, studio work, critical research and applied thesis, our students conclude their educational experience as leaders and bearers of technical achievement.

Graduates are prepared for careers with design firms, museums and cultural organisations, as well as designers and producers of exhibition experiences and branded environments.

Join a multitude of design professionals from around the globe, including architects and graphic, industrial, interior and lighting designers, as well as those with creative backgrounds in theatre, choreography and performance art.

Alongside these professionals, students learn to create experiential environments that are relevant, exciting and aesthetically transporting.

Learn to be a master storyteller. Leave the program having honed a powerful creative logic that calls on a wide variety of skills, including planning, researching and building tangible constructs.

Students create emotionally powerful spaces that bring people into close contact with a lived narrative experience, as told in your own original voice.

School: Fashion Institute of Technology
Course: Exhibition and Experience Design MFA
Type: Postgraduate
Location: New York City, USA
Course dates: fall 2027, four semesters
Application deadline: fellowship and scholarship consideration deadline 15 January 2027, general deadline 15 March 2027

Application to this course have now closed.

What will I learn during this course?

– Fieldwork, studio work, critical research and applied thesis
– Skills in planning, researching and building tangible constructs
– Skills in exhibition design, experiential graphics, lighting, digital integration and interactive media
– Project management and business development
– Leadership skills
– Exhibition and experience design planning for museums, retail, corporate, nonprofit, digital and public interior and exterior venues
– Presentation skills
– Concept development
– Audience research
– Theory
– Evaluation methods
– Sustainability
– Lighting
– Prototype and model making

What are the requirements?

– Applicants must hold, or expect to hold, a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited US college or university, or the foreign equivalent of a US bachelor's degree from a college or university of recognised standing
– Online application
– 100 dollar application fee (fee is waived after attending a virtual info session)
– Official academic transcripts or course-by-course international credential evaluation
– Two letters of recommendation
– Curriculum vitae/resume
– A short written response/optional short response
– Video recording interview. Upon initial review of your application, all candidates will be sent a link to submit a brief recorded interview
– Portfolio
— Fellowships and Scholarships are available
– International applicants: English Language Proficiency Scores required only if the undergraduate degree was not conducted in English (TOEFL, IELTS, Duolingo, or PTE)

What facilities and resources are available?

– 27th Street Studio
– Access to all of FIT's NYC facilities, including state-of-the-art technology and fabrication labs

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