📖 About the university

Shanghai Art and Design Academy is the only independently established higher vocational college of art and design in Shanghai and the only Shanghai vocational institution selected for the national 'Double High' plan. It was formed in 2003 by combining the Shanghai School of Arts and Crafts, founded in 1960, with the Shanghai Second Light Industry Workers' University, founded in 1979, and it was also the only higher vocational college in Shanghai entrusted with a national education-reform pilot. In more than sixty years the academy has trained over thirty thousand professionals for the crafts and design industries, including many well-known designers, master craftsmen, artists and entrepreneurs in China and abroad. Its main campus stands at 851 Jiaxing Highway in Jiading District in north-west Shanghai, covering about 182 mu, with additional teaching sites on Caoxi North Road and Luoxiu Road in the city. The academy is organised into eight secondary colleges and departments — fashion and crafts, visual design, environmental art, digital art, the WPP school, the Crystal Digital Art school and the cultural and professional foundation departments — alongside research centres for handicrafts and for arts and crafts. Its two nationally supported specialism clusters are arts-and-crafts product design and product art design, and its wider offer includes visual communication, digital media art, jewellery appraisal and processing, virtual reality, landscape design and spatial digital modelling.

🎯 Fields of study

🏛️ Colleges & schools

🌆 About Shanghai

Shanghai is China's largest city and its foremost financial and commercial center, a truly global metropolis on the East China Sea coast. With a metropolitan population of around 25 million, it blends colonial-era waterfront architecture with some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. The climate is humid subtropical, bringing hot, humid summers and cool, damp winters. Its iconic sights include the riverside Bund, the Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower in Pudong, the classical Yu Garden, and the bustling Nanjing Road. Local cuisine is known for xiaolongbao soup dumplings, pan-fried shengjianbao, and sweet red-braised pork. Shanghai runs one of the world's largest metro systems, two international airports, and high-speed rail to the entire country. For an international student, Shanghai offers world-class universities, a huge international community, and endless opportunity, balanced against a fast pace and the highest living costs in China.

💰 Fees & costs

💡 General estimates for international students in China; they vary by major and university, and the official figure is always on the university website.

🛂 Visa requirements by nationality

These are the general steps for the China student visa (X1/X2); details vary by the Chinese embassy in your country.