
Color & Materials Design
The Color & Materials Design Graduate Program
prepares students for a career in Color, Materials,
and Finish (CMF) Design.
The 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 and 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 in collaborations 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.
Degrees Offered

Proud participant in the Fulbright International Scholar Program.
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 state-of-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. As they learn how to look for patterns—in markets, cultures, and geographic regions—they gain insight into consumer behaviors.
Both a technical and aesthetic understanding of CMF design is applied in the studio courses across a range of applications and domains, ultimately this approach enables students to advance in their careers according to their own interests and objectives.
CAREER CHOICES
CMF Designer
Color and Trim Designer
Color Designer
Materials Designer
Trend Strategist
Color and Materials Mastering Designer
Materials Development Specialist
Facilities
When CCS launched the program in Color and Materials Design in 2014, it was the first and remains the only graduate program in the United States dedicated to this relatively young design practice.
Our location in Michigan with the highest concentration of industrial design jobs in the United States (US Bureau of Labor Statistics) enables access to excellent design talent, as well as experiential learning resources across the region.
We have welcomed students from a broad range of disciplines, including Product or Industrial Design, the Fine Arts and Art Practice, Craft and Material Studies, Interior Design, Entertainment Arts or Animation Design, Furniture Design, Communication or Graphic Design, Transportation Design, Architecture, Textile Design or Fiber. Often, students in this program seek to build their skills across a wider area, incorporating CMF design into their existing knowledge base.
Featured Projects
Featured Alumni

Emily Marquette
CMF Designer
Garmin

Chance Lauver
Senior Designer
Harley Davidson

Anuja Raja
Global Design Strategy and Planning
Ford Land

Brianna Williams
Senior Color and Material Designer
Newell Brands

Emma Dawda
Color and Trim Creative Designer
General Motors

Heewon Jeon
CMF Designer
Hewlett Packard

Sepideh Shahrokh
CMF Designer
Canoo

Alexa Ulbrich
Color & Material Designer
Ford Motor Company
Join the EvolutionÂ
CCS prepares students to enter a global economy in which creativity shapes better communities and societies. Here, creative minds can both explore and thrive. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.
In The News

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