Design for Startups
Design for Startups 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.
Since 2013, this program has supported over 145 companies in strengthening their products, platforms, and services through human-centred design.
Current Cohort in Progress — Spring 2026 (January – April)
Next Company Application Intake: Forthcoming
Next Student Designer Application Intake: Forthcoming
How it Works
- Companies identify a design problem they would like solved
- Emily Carr University matches each company with one emerging designer who has skills in the area
- Designers work 12 hours per week for 12 weeks in collaboration with your team while receiving structured mentorship through weekly internal design lab sessions, where they engage in critique and peer exchange with other designers and Emily Carr University faculty
Design for Startups is not an internship program. Designers lead a defined design engagement developed in partnership with your team and supported by our faculty rather than taking on day-to-day operational tasks.
Examples of Past Projects
- Leading a co-creative process of user research and branding to transform Karmahire into Callings
- Designing the creation tool from idea to wireframe for Cognilab
- Overhauling the form and function of email campaigns for Spacelist
- Creating icons and data visualizations to represent user libraries for BitLit
- Designing a mobile app for Koho
Interested in using the Design for Startups model?
Our toolkit maps out the framework for Design for Startups model, which is adaptable to suit different contexts, disciplines, and industries – you can read about its use cases and access the toolkit here.
This program is generously supported by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) Fall 2024 – Spring 2026.
