Design for Startups
Design for Startups (D4S) matches Emily Carr emerging designers (senior undergraduate or graduate students) with Canadian companies pursuing design-driven development to collaborate on clearly defined design challenges that align with business and user needs.
D4S brings the transformative power of design to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) by connecting them with student-designers to produce deliverables that will have a measurable impact on their businesses, products, services, and platforms.
How it Works
1. Companies apply to the program with a clearly defined design problem they would like solved.
2. D4S program team carefully match each company with one emerging student-designer whose skills align with the design challenge identified.
3. Student-designers collaborate regularly with company leads on the design challenge over 12 weeks, while receiving regular faculty guidance and peer mentorship through weekly design labs.
4. Collaborations conclude with a public showcase where student-designers present their designed solutions for companies that align with actual customer needs.
Design for Startups is not an internship program. Student-designers lead a defined design engagement developed in partnership with the companies and supported by our faculty rather than taking on day-to-day operational tasks.
Program Highlights
Since 2013, 160+ Canadian Startups and SMEs Have Partnered with Design for Startups
Program Focus
Every Design for Startups collaboration is unique, but they all begin with a real business challenge that can be solved through a human-centred design approach. A collaboration may focus on one or more of the following areas:
- User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design
- Product and service innovation
- Brand identity and visual communication
- User research and usability testing
- Information and data visualization
- Strategic design and prototyping
| Whether you’re looking to: | Our student-designers bring expertise in: |
| Improve a customer experience | Interface design and usability testing |
| Validate a new idea | User research and profiling, prototyping and validation |
| Strengthen your brand | Visual identity development |
| Make sense of complex information | Data visualization |
| Better understand user needs | Ideation and concept selection |
Cohorts
Design for Startups is typically offered twice a year, with cohorts running in Fall (September – December) and Spring (January – April).
- Fall 2026 Cohort
Currently underway. Final Showcase will take place virtually on December 10 with event details to follow. - Spring 2027 Cohort
Company applications are now open. Deadline to apply: 11:59PM PCT on November 11, 2026.
Student-designer applications will open soon.
Design for Startups is generously supported by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) Fall 2026 – Spring 2028.
Explore the Program
Whether you’re applying as a company or a student-designer, you’ll find everything you need to know about eligibility, timelines, expectations and how to apply.
Interested in Using the Design for Startups Model?
Read about the program’s use cases and access the toolkit here.
