1952 June: Established as Akita City School of Arts and Crafts (2-year technical college).
1975 April: Name changed to Akita City Vocational School of Arts and Crafts (Regular Course: 3 years; Advanced Course: 1 year).
1988 April: Advanced Course renamed “Specialized Course”, and course term lengthened to 2 years.
1995 April: Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts established.
(First president: Hideo Ishihara)
(With the establishment of Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts, Akita City Vocational School of Arts and Crafts became a high school attached to the Junior College. The Specialized Course was discontinued, leaving only the regular high school course.)
1996 April: College Extension Center, “Atelier Momosada”, opened.
1997 April: Advanced Course (1 year) established.
2001 April: Yoshimi Ishikawa appointed as the second president.
2007 April: Toyojiro Hida appointed as the third president.
2010 October: Select Committee on Restructuring Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts into Four-Year University formed (Akita City).
2011 April: Four-Year University Establishment Preparation Committee formed (Akita City).
2012 November: Establishment of Akita University of Art approved (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).
2013 March: Establishment of Public University Corporation Akita University of Art approved (Akita Prefecture).
2013 April: Akita University of Art established as a public university corporation.
Akita University of Art opened.
Toyojiro Hida appointed as the first president.
2015 April: Akinori Shimotori appointed as the second president.
2017 April: Graduate School of Transdisciplinary Arts established.

About our Logo

秋美ロゴ2019

The school logo of Akita University of Art features an unconstrained, dynamic and continuous look not typically found in university logo designs, representing one of our founding principles: “The creation and investigation of new artistic fields”.

The design depicts two natural sights which can be viewed from Akita City – the surrounding mountains and the Sea of Japan beautifully colored by the setting sun – expressed in two lines of light green and pink, respectively. The lines become unified, intersecting with one another like a braided cord and evoking the university’s fundamental philosophy: the study of art across multiple genres combining with involvement in the local community for the creation, development and transmission of new artistic values to the world.

Each line also forms the first letter of each word of the university’s English name: “Akita University of Art”. The overall shape, which resembles four mountain peaks, recalls the four founding principles of AUA, as well as the triangular shape of several university buildings (lecture buildings, symbol tower, etc.) and the triangular roofs of our workshop buildings (former national rice storehouses).
The two colors used are near-complementary colors on the color wheel, and have the effect of accentuating each other and increasing their visibility and appeal.

(School logo design: OHTANI Yuka, associate professor, Course of Multidisciplinary Arts)