2023 CCS Graduate Studies Brochure

Join the Evolution

INTRODUCTION

WHY CCS? HIGHLIGHTS

ART EDUCATION

COLOR & MATERIALS DESIGN

INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN STUDIES

TRANSPORTATION DESIGN

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

SUSTAINABILITY & DESIGN

ALUMNI

APPLY NOW

Art Education

Color & Materials Design

Interdisciplinary Design Studies

Transportation Design

User Experience Design

Sustainability & Design

(MINOR)

Here, creative minds explore and thrive. Students who pursue a master’s degree from CCS advance their creative practices and develop as critical thinkers, while gaining expertise and knowledge to enhance their career opportunities.

The College for Creative Studies offers five distinct graduate programs, including Art Education, Color & Materials Design, Interdisciplinary Design Studies, Transportation Design and User Experience Design. CCS also offers a minor in Sustainability & Design.

Our programs are contextually rich, emphasizing research-led practice and business acumen for the creative economy.

CCS prepares students to enter a global economy in which creativity shapes better communities and societies.

Welcome to CCS

For more than a century, CCS has distinguished itself as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Located in the heart of Detroit’s Innovation District, our veritable force of talent and resources is unrivaled.

The CCS campus is made up of two locations, the Walter and Josephine Ford Campus and the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education, just one mile apart and accessible via a campus shuttle.

WALTER AND JOSEPHINE FORD CAMPUS

A. ALFRED TAUBMAN CENTER FOR DESIGN EDUCATION

Detroit: First American UNESCO City of Design

Detroit is home to a growing number of artists and entrepreneurs and the highest concentration of commercial and industrial designers in the nation. Our tight-knit artists’ community, affordable living and studio space, and economic opportunity inspire creatives and foster opportunity for growth and change.

Detroit Design Festival

Detroit City of Design Summit

North American International Auto Show

Eastern Market

Eastern Market After Dark Inspiration Is Everywhere

Why CCS? Highlights

DETROIT: A GLOBAL DESIGN INCUBATOR

The only U.S. city designated as a UNESCO City of Design, Detroit is the ideal ground for incubating the next generation of creative innovators.

CCS brings the city’s resources and learning opportunities to students through its curriculum – through social-impact partnerships and creative projects with local design and business communities.

SMALL GROUPS

Study in small, intensive groups where you will receive individual attention from faculty.

STATE-OF-THE-ART TECH & WORLD-CLASS FACILITIES

Our graduate programs reside in the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education, one of two locations at the College.

AWARD-WINNING

CCS graduate studies students Chenyan

Li and Berenice Lopez Sanchez both were awarded the iF DESIGN TALENT AWARD for their future-oriented concepts. The award is one of the biggest and most prestigious design competitions worldwide with more than 10,000 submissions.

REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE

Color & Materials Design students Wei Huang, Emily Marquette and Marziehsadat Banadak took the grand prize at the 2020 International Biodesign Challenge with their project “Zebra Glass,” which transformed zebra and quagga mussels from an ecological threat to an overabundant resource that can be harvested and used for various building applications.

CCS is uniquely positioned to prepare graduates for successful careers with our well-established tradition of integrating industry-sponsored projects into the curricula.

LONG-TERM CAREERS

An education in design thinking can be applied to a wide variety of scenarios: delivering new products, new services, and new ways of running or creating businesses. We educate designers who have a firm grasp of the business practices that most new hires typically learn on the job.

Graduate studies alumnus Dong Wu (‘18, Transportation Design) co-created ”Quadrobot,” a fully autonomous, all-electric delivery service that debuted in China in 2019.

Alejandra Castelao (Lead Industrial Designer at Fjord, Part of Accenture Interactive in San Francisco, California) led the development of the custom body scanner and in-room touch screens for Forward, a healthcare startup in San Francisco, California, headed by entrepreneur and ex-Google Exec Adrian Aoun. The custom body scanner was named one of TIME Magazine’s best 25 inventions of 2017. Castelao also led the space and industrial design efforts creating the building blocks and design principles for the company through a series of projects, including a prototype clinic, fully functional showroom, mobile showroom and brick-and-mortar locations.

RANKINGS

Money

America’s Best Colleges

U.S. News & World Report

Graduate School — Best Fine Arts Programs

Niche

Best Colleges for Design in America

Best Colleges for Art in America

Colleges with the Best Academics in America

College Rank

Best Bachelors of Art & Design

GradDegree.com

Best Colleges, Visual & Performing Arts

College Factual

Most Popular — 2023 Design

Best Quality — 2023 Best Design & Applied Art Schools

Highest Paid — Master’s Degree Visual & Performing Arts Graduates in Michigan

Plexuss — The Student Opportunity Network

Best Design & Applied Arts Schools (undergraduate)

Best Fine Arts Schools (undergraduate)

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

Thesis work receives international awards that span across all categories of design, including research, strategy, and UX/UI design and navigation.

UNMATCHED OPPORTUNITY

CCS supports cross-pollination, promoting discourse across disciplines. Electives allow students to build on their unique interests by taking courses from any graduate or undergraduate program. Students can also participate in a number of interdisciplinary collaborative projects that explore new ideas, approaches and skills.

Art Education

Students in the Art Education program are able to maintain their current teaching position while earning their master’s degree via this unique, low-residency, 25-month hybrid program.

The 30-credit MA focuses on professional and technical skills and knowledge.

CCS’s Art Education program celebrates and illuminates teaching as a complex creative practice by deeply exploring the intersections of the artist, researcher and teacher in both classroom and studio settings.

This program is designed to nurture and inspire the artist/researcher/teacher, recognizing the complexities and intersections of these three lenses and identities. Each year, a small group of diverse artist-teachers becomes a cohort and explores multiple layers of meaning and experience by combining both verbal and visual literacies, connecting theory to practice in order to better understand the complex whole of culturally relevant pedagogy in the field of contemporary art and art education.

The curriculum gives graduates the necessary skills to participate in highly collaborative, interdisciplinary settings. Specifically, the students will be knowledgeable of contemporary policy issues in art and design education, issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, developing pedagogical trends within the field of art education and education in general, implications of visual literacy within the field of education, advocacy, pedagogical theories and intersections with practice, current assessment practices of both students and teachers, community art practices, and traditional and visual research methods.

Color & Materials Design

The Color & Materials Design program prepares students for a career in Color, Materials and Finish (CMF) Design.

The 30-credit MA (initial degree) is the first year of the 60-credit MFA (terminal degree), with classes focusing on professional and technical skills and knowledge. During the second year, students embark on an independently defined critical inquiry.

STEM-designated program

The curriculum invites students to discover a culture and mindset where forward-thinking, innovative color and materials practices can thrive.

Using the classifications of colors, materials and finishes, students learn to create meaning between products and experiences and their user or audience. Graduates of the College’s program in Color & Materials Design work in both the physical and digital spaces to advance ideas through research, hands-on experimentation and use of state-of-the-art facilities.

Often working collaboratively through experiential learning, students work to develop narratives that offer creative concepts and design executions. As they learn how to look for patterns in market, culture and geographic regions, they gain insight into people’s needs and behaviors.

In the CCS Color & Materials Design program, students explore the latest advances in materials, and their color and finish applications, through hands-on experimentation and use of stateof-the-art prototyping facilities. Using this knowledge to solve design problems, students collaborate within the design team structure to develop narratives that offer creative concept and design executions.

See Student Work

collegeforcreativestudies.edu/academics/ graduate-programs/color-materials-design/ student-work/

The 30-credit MA (initial degree), available in person and online, is the first year of the 60-credit MFA (terminal degree), with classes focusing on professional and technical skills and knowledge. During the second year, students embark on an independently defined critical inquiry.

Interdisciplinary Design Studies

Working laterally across design disciplines, the customizable CCS Interdisciplinary Design Studies graduate program supports the development of each student’s unique, versatile skill set and personal career aspirations.

In this new, option-rich program, each student will build their own customized curriculum across CCS’s four other graduate programs: Art Education, Color & Materials Design, Transportation Design and User Experience Design.

As students advance their design and visual arts practices through this interdisciplinary approach, they’ll hone clear, lateral perspectives and strengthen their leadership skills in multidisciplinary teams. The MFA degree program culminates in a written thesis course and a capstone final project that examines, transcends and redefines interdisciplinary boundaries.

Graduates of this program will pursue successful careers as creatives, curators, academics, entrepreneurs, leaders, policymakers and much more.

Described as Detroit’s “untapped strength,” design and innovative partnerships have played key roles in the city’s resilience. CCS’s Interdisciplinary Design Studies students live, learn and work among a vibrant, international community of creatives in the only U.S. city designated as a UNESCO City of Design.

The 30-credit MA (initial degree) is the first year of the 60-credit MFA (terminal degree), with classes focusing on professional and technical skills and knowledge. During the second year, students embark on an independently defined critical inquiry.

Transportation Design

Graduates of the Transportation Design program are innovators, in automotive design and all aspects of mobility, always with an eye toward the future.

STEM-designated program

Building on your art and creativity, the College’s program in Transportation Design will bring you together with other bright, forward-thinking students from design and engineering disciplines who want to delve into the invention and entrepreneurial aspects of transportation design.

In this program, students are invited to assume the role of “designer as inventor” as they are led through a complete design process that includes extensive research, sketching and 3D rendering, animation, core competencies analysis and more. Special projects explore innovation through forms and materials, functionality and engineering. Students apply to this understanding a real-world strategy that includes business practices, research, brand identity, vehicle architecture and mobility as a system.

The CCS Transportation Design studios and labs are in the very place where Harley Earl, the first modern automotive designer, and other pioneers created groundbreaking vehicles – and where today’s industry leaders seek top talent.

See Student Work

collegeforcreativestudies.edu/academics/ graduate-programs/transportation-design/ student-work/

The 30-credit MA (initial degree) is the first year of the 60-credit MFA (terminal degree), with classes focusing on professional and technical skills and knowledge. During the second year, students embark on an independently defined critical inquiry.

User Experience Design

STEM-designated program

Online Learning Option

This program is situated at the intersection of technology and creative practice. Here, students learn how to design technologically mediated systems and experiences, and human interactions with objects, spaces and interfaces.

Through in-depth user research, iterative prototyping and usability testing, students will explore experiences amidst new and emerging technologies in areas including: artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), robotics, smart mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The program is grounded in creativity, speculative thinking and experimental practices in response to rich socio- and techno-cultural themes. With access to CCS’s world-class studios and resources, students further their own skills and knowledge through hands-on learning. Critical inquiry and design provocations sharpen insights as students become adept with models of interaction, experience and communication.

Students will learn to sketch and prototype with hardware and software for design ideation and development, and apply code to bring creative concepts to life. Students will also learn about physical and cognitive ergonomics in human-machine and system interactions.

Sustainability & Design

With the last decade being the hottest on record, climate change is at the forefront of current socio-political debate and business strategy. The design profession is increasingly in need of designers capable of advancing sustainability goals and net-zero strategies.

The Graduate Minor in Sustainability and Design allows MFA students to take three classes in sustainability as a defined minor credential within their degree program. The minor provides students with skills and knowledge to support climate-focused design practice in their major field, and beyond into their professional careers. Students will learn to think and work creatively within circular economies, zero-waste materials and processes, the science of anthropogenic climate change and ecological decline, and the use of compelling narratives and advocacy. This minor is open to students in any graduate-level program.

Alumni

Creative solutions flow from the firm belief that, as a designer, you can make an impact, not only on people’s lives, but on the future.

The CCS name is well-known, and your degree will distinguish you from other college graduates. CCS alumni are changing the world by applying the skills they’ve learned to the most pressing problems of our times. Our alumni reenvision and redefine what it means to be creatives in the 21st century.

Creative Designer General Motors

DANIEL SHAPIRO

‘22, TRANSPORTATION DESIGN

CHRISTINE MONTALBANO

‘22, USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

User Experience Designer

Stellantis

FAN HUANG

‘17, COLOR & MATERIALS DESIGN

Senior Industrial Designer

Kohler

ALI LOFTUS

‘22, COLOR & MATERIALS DESIGN

Color & Material Designer

Puma

Your Journey

DESIGN MAKING

Making of all kinds = thinking, which is key to advancing creative inquiry. Through making, designers visualize and test ideas, and bring concepts to life!

RESEARCH METHODS

Research defines graduate-level study. Students are taught a range of qualitative and quantitative design research methodologies that inform and enrich practice-led inquiry.

Your Journey

BUSINESS PRACTICES

Students get a hands-on introduction to design-led business practices. The integration of design and entrepreneurship is crucial to the success and viability of any concept proposal.

Apply Now

DEADLINES

January 15 Priority*

* For students who want to ensure full consideration for scholarships and additional financial aid.

February 15 General

PLEASE VISIT collegeforcreativestudies.edu/ grad-admissions

AFTER FEBRUARY 15: ROLLING APPLICATION DEADLINE

Applications will continue to be reviewed on a rolling basis.

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible to ensure space and scholarships are still available.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AID

CCS is an investment in yourself and your future, and taking advantage of financial aid – whether it is a scholarship, grant, loan or employment assistance – is the best way to make that investment more affordable. Ninety-eight percent of CCS students receive some combination of financial aid, totaling more than $33 million.

Financial aid packages are comprised of a combination of state, federal and institutional scholarships, need-based grants and student loans. CCS also awards scholarships founded by external entities to eligible students based on criteria specified by these donors. All graduate applicants are automatically considered for scholarship awards.

FREE APPLICATION FOR FEDERAL STUDENT AID (FAFSA)

To be considered for need-based financial aid, a completed Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is required. All U.S. graduate students are strongly encouraged to complete the application. Visit studentaid.gov for more information.

TO LEARN MORE, ASK QUESTIONS OR SCHEDULE A VISIT

If you have questions about CCS, our programs or the application process, our Admissions staff and program chairs are both accessible and supportive. We are happy to answer questions at information sessions or through personal admissions appointments.

For more information or to schedule a campus tour, email grad_admissions@collegeforcreativestudies.edu or call 313.664.7814.

ACCREDITATION STATEMENT

College for Creative Studies is a nonprofit, private college authorized to grant Associate, Bachelor, and Master’s degrees. Documents regarding accreditation are available in the Executive Office upon formal request. College for Creative Studies is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (hlcommission.org), an institutional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.