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COMMERCIAL & WORKPLACE DESIGN
What if your career could change the way people experience a place? Every office, restaurant, showroom, retail store, innovation center and collaborative workspace begins with a question:
How should this space work for the people who will use it?
Commercial and workplace designers answer that question.
They combine creativity, problem-solving, human-centered design and technology to create environments that are functional, beautiful, memorable and appropriate for the people and organizations they serve.
And this career is about much more than choosing furniture and colors.
Designers study how employees move through a workplace, rethink the customer experience inside a retail store, create collaborative environments for a corporate headquarters, or translate a company's brand into a physical environment.
Think of it as industrial design at the scale of an environment.
Project Gallery
Throughout the academic year and during summer internships, students and staff at the International Center for Creativity (ICC) engage in hands-on design projects that bridge the gap between classroom learning and professional practice. Some projects are sponsored by industry partners, while others are carefully developed classroom experiences designed to replicate the challenges and expectations of the professional design world.
Each project follows a structured design process, beginning with a design brief and progressing through research, ideation, concept development, prototyping, and final presentation. With real deadlines, defined deliverables, and professional expectations, these experiences closely mirror the day-to-day responsibilities of an industrial designer—preparing students with the technical skills, creative problem-solving abilities, and professional confidence needed to succeed in their careers.
Explore Student Projects to discover not only the final design solutions, but also the creative thinking, exploration, and iterative process that brought them to life.
Senior Capstone Spotlight
Senior students in the Industrial and Innovative Design major bring together their acquired skills, creativity, and problem-solving abilities through a semester-long capstone project. These projects challenge students to explore a diverse range of design opportunities, applying research, human-centered design principles, and innovative thinking to develop thoughtful solutions to real-world challenges.
The video above showcases Aaron Cox’s senior capstone project, The Emerald Café: A Community Hub for Connection and Productivity. This project demonstrates how thoughtful interior and architectural space design can bring people together, foster collaboration, and create an inviting environment that balances social interaction with productivity.
Real-World Projects. Real-World Experience.
At the International Center for Creativity (ICC), experiential learning goes beyond the classroom. Students collaborate with real businesses and organizations to tackle authentic design challenges, gaining valuable hands-on experience while developing creative solutions that make a meaningful impact.
One example is ICC’s project with Dulci Sweets in Ashland, Ohio, where senior Industrial and Innovative Design students explored architectural spaces, interior design, and customer experiences to help shape a local business expansion and contribute to community revitalization.
Read the Full Story: Dulci Sweets’ Expansion Helps Revitalize Ashland
ICC Grad Talk
Where are they now? Catch up with ICC graduates and discover where their creativity has taken them. These videos highlight their careers, accomplishments, and experiences since graduation—and offer a glimpse into the many paths an ICC education can inspire.
In this interview, Alyssa (Vandegrift) Hawkins shares insights from her work as the director of graphics at Hub+Weber Architects. She discusses best practices for rendering composition, the software tools she uses in her workflow, and several recent architectural projects she has contributed to. Alyssa also offers practical advice and encouragement for current students preparing to enter the architectural design industry.
Two Campuses. One Exceptional Student Experience.
Students in the Industrial and Innovative Design program enjoy the best of both worlds through a unique four-year college experience. The first two years are spent on Cedarville University's campus in Cedarville, Ohio, building a strong academic foundation while enjoying traditional college life and a vibrant campus community. The final two years take place at the ICC Innovation Campus in Dublin, Ohio, where students immerse themselves in a collaborative, studio-based learning environment focused on creativity, innovation, and real-world design challenges.
Together, these two distinct experiences offer an exceptional blend of campus life, meaningful relationships, hands-on learning, and professional preparation.
Discover Where Our Graduates Are Making an Impact
From innovative startups to leading companies across a wide range of industries, ICC graduates are putting their creativity and design skills to work. Connect with our students and alumni on LinkedIn to explore their career journeys, discover the exciting places they're working, and see how they're impacting the world.
Simply search for “International Center for Creativity” on LinkedIn or visit our company page to connect with our community and discover where an ICC education can take you.
Explore the International Center for Creativity on LinkedIn →
What kinds of places could you design?
Look around. Almost every commercial environment you enter has been intentionally designed.
Commercial and workplace designers may help create corporate offices and headquarters, creative studios, innovation centers, retail stores, restaurants and cafés, hotels, healthcare environments, educational spaces, dealerships and showrooms, banks, entertainment venues, churches, museums, trade-show exhibits and branded customer experiences.
They may work for architectural and design firms, workplace consultancies, corporations with internal design teams, furniture and workspace companies, experiential-design firms or as independent designers and entrepreneurs.
ICC graduates are already working throughout the design industry at recognizable corporations and consulting firms. Well over 85% of our graduates work directly in design-related fields, with alumni at organizations including Bose, Nike, Honda, General Dynamics, Reebok, New Balance, Sterilite and AEP, as well as firms including Gensler, Continental Office, WD Partners, PLANIT Studios, Priority Designs, Lextant and Sundberg-Ferar.
What skills does a commercial and workplace designer need?
Great commercial and workplace designers don't simply sit behind computers.
They observe. Ask questions. Sketch. Research. Brainstorm. Build. Communicate. Collaborate. Present. And solve problems.
Their hard skills can include space planning, rapid sketching and ideation, perspective drawing, 2D and 3D visualization, CAD and digital modeling, Revit, rendering, materials and finishes, furniture and fixture selection, prototyping, presentation development and design research.
But employers need more than software skills.
Successful designers also bring curiosity, empathy, creativity, communication, collaboration, storytelling, critical thinking, presentation skills, adaptability, time management and the ability to receive feedback and improve an idea.
That's why commercial and workplace design can be such an exciting career for the student who thinks:
I love art and creativity, but I also love solving problems. I want to do something practical with my creative abilities.
How is AI changing commercial and workplace design?
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming another tool in the designer's toolbox.
Designers can use AI to accelerate research, visualize early ideas, explore aesthetic directions, generate alternatives, improve workflows and communicate concepts to clients.
And AI capabilities are increasingly being incorporated directly into professional design software. Autodesk's Revit, for example, includes generative-design capabilities that allow designers to establish goals, constraints and inputs and rapidly generate alternatives for evaluation. Autodesk describes AI as a way to accelerate workflows, provide predictive insights and expand creative exploration.
But AI doesn't replace the most important part of the process:
The designer.
Someone still has to understand people.
Someone has to identify the right problem, establish the criteria, recognize a great idea, understand context, exercise aesthetic judgment and decide what should be designed—and why.
That's why tomorrow's designers need both timeless creative abilities and fluency with emerging technologies.
Why ICC + Cedarville?
The best of two worlds.
The Industrial & Innovative Design major offers students an educational experience that's difficult to duplicate.
Students begin at Cedarville University, experiencing the energy and community of a traditional residential Christian university—residence halls, friendships, athletics, student organizations, chapel, campus activities, general education and a vibrant university experience.
Then, as upperclassmen, Industrial & Innovative Design students transition into an immersive professional design environment at the International Center for Creativity (ICC) in Dublin, Ohio, part of the greater Columbus design and business community.
The Industrial Designers Society of America describes this structure as combining a traditional and vibrant main-campus experience with immersion in the student's major at a specialized campus.
It's the best of two worlds:
The complete college experience of a nationally recognized Christian university + the career-intensive experience of a professional design school.
A university recognized for engagement, excellence and outcomes
Cedarville has built a national reputation for combining rigorous academics, Christian community and professional preparation.
In 2026, Education Insider named Cedarville its Top Christian University, citing biblical integration, academic excellence and career outcomes. Among Cedarville's class of 2025, 98.3% were employed or enrolled in graduate school within six months of graduation.
The university has also received national recognition for student/faculty engagement. The Industrial Designers Society of America notes Cedarville's No. 5 national professor-engagement ranking in a Wall Street Journal survey.
That engagement matters in a design education, where students don't simply need someone to grade their work—they need experienced educators and professionals who will challenge, critique, mentor and develop them.
A nationally recognized design program
ICC's Industrial & Innovative Design program is gaining national attention of its own.
The Bachelor of Arts in Industrial & Innovative Design was ranked No. 5 nationally in College Values Online's 2025 ranking of bachelor's degrees in industrial design. Cedarville was the only Ohio university in the Top 10 and the only evangelical Christian institution in that national ranking, appearing alongside programs at institutions such as Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon.
But rankings tell only part of the story.
ICC describes its mission as reinventing industrial design education around market-relevant curriculum, creative problem-solving and professional preparation. The program itself grew from conversations with industry professionals about what they wanted from emerging designers.
That professional orientation continues today.
Learn design where design happens
ICC students spend their upper-level design years in Dublin, Ohio, within the greater Columbus metropolitan area.
That location isn't incidental.
Greater Columbus provides access to corporations, design consultancies, architectural firms, retail organizations, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and creative professionals—giving students an opportunity to learn within a real design and business ecosystem.
And Dublin itself consistently receives high marks as a place to live. In the city's 2025 National Community Survey, 99% of residents rated Dublin an excellent or good place to live, 97% rated its overall quality of life positively and 91% rated it positively as a place to work. Niche currently gives Dublin an A+ overall grade and ranks it among Ohio's best places to live.
For students, that means their upper-level experience isn't simply a move to another classroom.
It's a transition toward professional life.
Why is Industrial & Innovative Design uniquely suited to commercial design?
Commercial environments aren't simply rooms.
They're systems of:
People + Space + Products + Furniture + Lighting + Graphics + Technology + Materials + Movement + Brand + Experience
That makes industrial design an unusually powerful foundation.
A workplace designer thinks about the room and the workstation inside it.
A retail designer considers the architecture and the displays, fixtures, signage, products, customer movement and brand experience.
A restaurant designer considers space, seating, lighting, materials, traffic flow, equipment and the experience of both customers and employees.
ICC's Industrial & Innovative Design program intentionally exposes students to multiple dimensions of design—including consumer products, transportation, interior space and exterior space design—while developing skills in visualization, design thinking, consumer insights, prototyping, innovation, entrepreneurship and professional presentation.
The result isn't a student trained simply to decorate spaces.
It's a designer trained to understand people, identify problems, imagine possibilities and create experiences.
Real projects. Real deadlines. Real professional preparation.
ICC emphasizes experiential, project-based learning.
Students create market-relevant projects and professional portfolios designed to demonstrate what they can actually do. ICC describes graduates working in roles including industrial designer, design engineer, interior space designer and environmental branding designer.
That professional connection extends directly to recruiting.
At ICC's 2026 Recruitment Day, students met with employers including Bath & Body Works, Goken, Fortner Custom Furniture, Sutphen Fire Trucks and Hub + Weber Architects, giving students direct access to organizations seeking design talent.
ICC students also have opportunities to work on market-relevant and community-based design challenges—experiences that help bridge the gap between an academic assignment and professional practice.
Our students are already doing it.
A 2018 ICC/Cedarville graduate described his education at ICC as simulating a real-world workplace, with projects spanning product, automotive and interior/exterior space design. He subsequently joined a Columbus-based studios, progressing from intern to a long-term member of its professional team.
Graduate Anastasia Shonk studied transportation, product, interior and exterior design at ICC and went on to establish Interiors by Anastasia in Ohio.
Current students are gaining relevant experience as well. Industrial design student Gabriella Miller recently described an interior-design and renovation internship involving client conversations, field measurements, floor-plan development, ADA considerations, presentations and office-space concepts.
And graduate Abby Ryan's professional credentials demonstrate just how specifically ICC can prepare students for this area: her ICC studies included Experiential Interior Design, Furniture/Fixtures/Lighting, Revit for Experiential Interior Design and Advanced Visualization Techniques for Experiential Interior Design.
Those aren't hypothetical career pathways.
Our graduates are doing the work.
Could Commercial & Workplace Design Be Your Career?
Maybe you're the student who rearranges a room because you can immediately imagine a better way for it to work.
Maybe you notice the lighting, furniture, graphics and atmosphere when you walk into a restaurant or store.
Maybe you love drawing, making and creating—but you're equally interested in people, technology and solving problems.
Maybe you've never even realized there was a career that combined all those interests.
There is.
At Cedarville University and the International Center for Creativity, you'll develop traditional design fundamentals while learning human-centered problem-solving, hands-on making, digital visualization, professional collaboration and emerging technologies such as AI.
You'll experience the community of a vibrant Christian university.
Then you'll transition into an immersive professional design environment where the focus increasingly becomes your portfolio, your professional skills and your career.