University Diploma - 2D Animation and Visual Development

The University Diploma in 2D Animation and Visual Development is a two-year studio program in one of the few Canadian schools with a genuine international reputation for hand-drawn animation.

Training starts with drawing fundamentals — life drawing, gesture, anatomy, perspective and composition — because 2D animation is a drawing discipline before it is a software one. From there: the twelve principles of animation, timing and spacing, character design and model sheets, storyboarding and animatics, layout and background painting, visual development and colour scripting, digital 2D production in Toon Boom Harmony and Photoshop, and a graduating film. Students work to production deadlines in a studio-structured environment.

Visual development is the differentiator in the title. It is the pre-production discipline — designing the look, palette and world of a production — and it is where a large share of the better-paid, more durable animation careers sit, above the frame-by-frame production tier that is most exposed to outsourcing and automation.

CapU is a fully public teaching university on Vancouver’s North Shore — a Designated Learning Institution (DLI O19280078102) with university status since 2008. Classes are small, faculty teach rather than delegate to assistants, and tuition sits well below the big Vancouver research universities while the credential carries the same public-institution standing.

Its field maps to CIP 50.0411 (Animation, interactive technology and video graphics). Important: this is a non-degree credential, so unlike CapU’s bachelor’s programs it is not exempt from the November 2024 PGWP field-of-study restriction — eligibility depends on this CIP field appearing on IRCC’s current eligible list at the time you apply. Confirm the live list with an Apply Study Visa counsellor before committing. Final decisions rest with IRCC.