Industry Partnerships
California College of the Arts (CCA) partners with industry leaders who make a positive impact on culture and society. Our students apply their creative thinking and studio skills to projects in commerce, home connectivity and goods, interactive technology, future transportation systems, and more.
Introduction
Real-world engagements
Connecting students with top companies
CCA helps students push the boundaries of art and design through collaborations with the world’s most exciting companies. With fresh perspectives and specialized skills in fine art, architecture, design, and entrepreneurship, our students address pressing needs across a broad range of industries. Real-world engagements, such as our featured project below, are often embedded within existing CCA courses and encourage research, experimentation, and innovative thinking. Ranging from one-day to semester-long collaborations, these engagements are typically co-designed by CCA and our partner so the focus is on tangible deliverables, which include a culminating project or solution.
Featured project
At Home with GenZ
In this sponsored studio course, Samsung Research America partnered with CCA's Interaction Design program to prototype smart home objects aimed at Gen Z (people born between 1995 and the early 2000s) consumers.
Featured project
Reimagining the workplace with Lenovo
In a sponsored studio course by Lenovo, students proposed innovative design ideas for expanded physical and virtual workspaces.
Partners
Broad range of industries
Smart collaborations fuel innovation
We partner with visionary companies, organizations, nonprofits, and municipal agencies. From robots in the home to point-of-sale interfaces for product displays, the project innovations help students gain experience across a variety of categories. Projects often pair teams of students from multiple disciplines with mentors from renowned companies, such as Adobe, Ford, and Google. Students learn to perform sophisticated research, envision systemic solutions, and completely redefine industry expectations and standards while working alongside the best in the business.
Some of our recent partnerships
- Alchemy
- Autodesk
- California Humanities
- CNN
- Cotton, Inc
- Figma
- Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco
- Lenovo
- Oracle
- Samsung Research America
- Terra Foundation for American Art
- UNICEF
- X, the moonshot factory (Google)
- Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Engagement types for partners
There are generally five different types of engagements our partners can co-design with CCA. Each has a specific planning period, timeframe, and expectation.
Studios
These are dynamic semester-long investigations focused on long-term visioning and solutions. CCA faculty work with our partners six to 12 months in advance to plan out content and deliverables.
Projects
Directly embedded within relevant CCA courses, projects are three to five weeks in length. CCA faculty work with our partners three to six months in advance to plan out content and deliverables, including a final project and presentation.
Workshops
These are brief yet in-depth interdisciplinary engagements focused on a single topic or issue. Drawing from students across the college, workshops ideally occur over one to three weeks during breaks in the academic calendar. CCA faculty work with our partners three to five months in advance to determine an overarching question.
Sprints
The shortest of all our engagements, sprints last one to three days and are designed to be brainstorming or prototyping sessions for ideas or products. Like our workshops, students address an overarching question that’s determined by CCA faculty and our partners three to five months in advance.
Executive education
This is a tailored experience based on an individual’s specific professional development goals. CCA works with you to help develop and refine the skills you need to position yourself as an innovative leader within your field or organization.
Design for the Greater Good
MDes Social Lab at CCA
Each year, our Graduate Interaction Design program makes a positive impact in many communities, with our Social Lab program. We partner with myriad organizations — from educational non-profits and startups to global enterprise organizations — to harness emerging design and technology for the greater good.
Partner stories
Projects
Solving societal challenges
Explore key project categories
While not an exhaustive list, our industry engagements typically fall within four main categories:
- Commerce – imagines the future of consumer retail through camera sensor, virtual furniture, and augmented reality mirrors
- Home – explores potential applications for robots in the home, including cleaning, organization, and security
- Technology – builds spatial interfaces that emphasize storytelling, interactive educational software, and speculative presentations on provocative topics like cybernetic replacements for human anatomy
- Transportation – focuses on mobility trends, user research methodology, and systemic solutions that redefine our relationship with cars
For specific projects, please view examples below.
Technology: The Future of Belonging with Google
Sponsored by Google, Studio Forward was a year-long, topical course that challenges CCA Design students to think critically about tomorrow. The inaugural year focused on The Future of Belonging, where students employed speculative design principles to imagine the future of digital inclusion.
What does belonging mean to you?
Students have the opportunity to explore and experiment in an interdisciplinary environment in which big questions about the future of digital inclusion are asked. Through research, making, and experimentation, students present their findings and ideas in installations and collaborative learning labs.
Engage with CCA
Take the next step
Partner with a top-ranking college
CCA is a top-ranking art and design college, home to creative citizens, renowned faculty, and incredible analog and digital fabrication facilities. We’re confident that your investment in CCA students will yield innovative perspectives and exciting solutions. Our students are well-versed in collaboration, eager to experiment, and ready to make a positive impact on society and culture.
Please contact us to learn more about past and ongoing projects and how we can partner on the next big thing.