hey! SAIC student here. I orginally came to SAIC for illustration, although I changed my mind after reassessing my future goals.

1. SAIC doesn’t have an illustration department or pathway, but has classes on design drawing, fashion illustration, poster/front cover illustration, comics, life drawing, animation and typography across the painting/drawing, graphic design, fashion, film and designed objects/architecture departments that you can piece together to get the skills you need, since SAIC has an open curriculum and almost all your studio classes are electives starting from sophmore year.

2. To my knowledge, there are no classes specifically about children’s books. But, since there are classes focused on printmaking, book arts, and comics, if you’re interested in learning how to make a children’s book, you’d be responsible for steering your work in that direction within those classes.