Encyclopedia Of Detroit

The College for Creative Studies (CCS) is an art education institute located in the Cultural Center Historic District in Midtown Detroit. The school offers a wide array of programs in many artistic applications, including graphic design, photography, and fine arts. One of the more renown programs is transportation design, which is one of the world’s leading courses, credited with placing more graduates in the automotive design field than any other institution.

The college has its roots in 1906 with the formation of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, a group dedicated to preserving an artistic presence in the city amid increasing industrialization and modernization. The society offered informal classes in drawing, woodcarving and basic design. A four-year program in the arts was offered beginning in 1926, one of the first available. The school earned national recognition in 1933 when it announced that it viewed automobile design as an art form. The school moved to its Cultural Center location in 1958, conveniently located nearby the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1962, it was officially certified as a college and was named the School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. The name was changed in 1975 to the Center for Creative Studies – College of Art and Design, as it was known until 2001 when it changed to its current name, the College for Creative Studies.

CCS moved several of its programs into the renovated Argonaut Building in 2008, naming it the A. Alfred Taubman center for Design Education. In addition to its undergraduate and graduate degrees, CCS also offers non-credit courses in the visual arts. The school’s facilities include an art gallery for student exhibitions, computer studios, a metals shop, a wood shop, a ceramic studio, a glassblowing studio, a fiber studio, a foundry, and other extensive studio space.