A system and method for designing RF pulses for multi-channel and/or multi-dimensional spatially-selective applications using a linear approximation. Embodiments of the system and method may use a generalized linear-class large tip angle approximation to design RF pulses for multi-channel and parallel transmission. Further, some of these approximations allow for the design of arbitrarily large flip angles, irregularly-shaped flip angle profiles, or arbitrary initial magnetization values.

Embodiments of the system and method may also provide for the design of k-space trajectories which aid in maintaining assumptions of the various linear class approximations.