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Odyssey Works has been working in experience design since before the term existed — building audience-specific, one-of-one theatrical experiences across two decades before formalizing the practice into a teachable methodology. This isn't UX, and it isn't service design. It's the total architecture of what someone thinks, feels, and remembers.
FOR DESIGNERS
You already design how people feel. You just haven't named it yet.
Odyssey Works trains designers to do it on purpose. A 10-month certificate program from the team that's been defining experience design for 25 years. Next info session July 8th.
WHAT THIS IS
We are to experience design what IDEO is to design thinking.
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Abraham Burickson's book on experience design, published by Yale University Press, is the field's primary text. OW has consulted for Nike, Apple, Google, Meow Wolf, MILA, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The comparison to IDEO isn't positioning — it's history.
WHO's DONE THIS
Designers leave with work that matters and careers that change.
Sara Behbakht
EDCP Alum · IDEO
Sara came to Odyssey Works as a working designer looking for a framework that named what she was already trying to do. She left with a body of portfolio work, a vocabulary for her practice, and a community of designers building careers around the same instinct. She's a designer at IDEO3 — putting an Odyssey Works graduate inside the firm we're often measured against.
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IDEO pioneered design thinking — the process-oriented approach now taught in every design school and embedded in most major innovation teams. A graduate working at IDEO signals that the Odyssey Works framework is competitive at the highest level of the discipline — and that it translates into jobs.
Tyler Jones
EDCP Alum
Tyler's project, In Solidarity: The Beth El Civil Rights Experience, is now a permanent installation covered by The New York Times.
Melissa Carine
EDCP ALUM • Califodnia Academy of Art
Promoted at California Academy of Art and credits the program directly.
Yvette Hatton
EDCP Alum · Wells Fargo
Applies experience design daily at Wells Fargo.
Who You'll LEARN FROM
STUDY WITH THE PEOPLE
DEFINING THE FIELD.
ABRAHAM BURICKSON Co-Founder of Odyssey Works and Director of the Experience Design Certificate Program, has spent more than two decades exploring the relationship between what we make and how it is experienced. Trained in architecture at Cornell University and in poetry and playwriting at the Michener Center for Writers, he has also studied the transformative power of designed experience with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and with countless artists, designers, and students through Odyssey Works. He is also the founder of The Long Architecture Project, which rethinks architectural practice from the perspective of Experience Design. He has won prizes, lectured and taught widely, given a TEDxtalk, and was once hired by German television to kidnap an American skateboarding champion. His book on Experience Design was published by Yale University Press in 2023.
BROOKE VIEGUT is a narrative-driven experience designer, audience-centric theater maker, design critic, donut connoisseur, collector of silly little things, educator, and the creative lead at for play.
Working at the intersection of play, community, ephemerality, and radical joy, their multidisciplinary approach has created work for audiences of 30 to 3,000. Past collaborators include Mailchimp/Invisible North, Tribeca X, De Niro Con, Emursive/The McKittrick Hotel (home of Sleep No More), 3D Tech Fest, RWS Global, Virgin Voyages, National Audubon Society, and Historic Hudson Valley among others.
Brooke will be faculty for the full 2026 year.
Lynn Kiang is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts in London. She is co-founder of Dome, a multi-disciplinary design studio founded in Brooklyn. She previously led teams in experience design at SYPartners, collaborating with strategists and company leaders in transforming their brand. She was a designer at Local Projects, overseeing graphic, interaction, and media design for museums and cultural institutions. Her work has received numerous awards and recognition including from Communication Arts, D&AD, Art Directors Club, Core77, Print Magazine, Type Directors Club, SEGD, ASLA, and AIGA.
Risa Puno is a NYC-based interactive installation artist who takes play seriously. She is known for crafting DISARMINGLY PLAYFUL experiences that explore human connection, social dynamics, and shared interactions through site-specific public artworks, games, and participatory design.
THE DETAILS
10 MONTHS
10 HOURS / WEEK
10-15 STUDENTS / COHORT
One-On-One Mentorship
Weekly Classes in Small Groups
Career & Personal Transformation
Students will take a weekly course online and receive MENTORSHIP from our instructors. The program will be bookended by in-person weekend intensives. Students will leave the program with two COMPLETED portfolio projects.
Retreat 1
Jan 29 - 31, 2027
USA
Session 1
Feb 2 - May 12, 2027
Weekly Classes Online
Students will be sorted into one of two cohorts that meet the same day every week and are assigned upon acceptance. You may note on your application if you are unavailable for one of the slots. One cohort will meet Tuesdays 2-5 pm EST, the other cohort will meet Wednesdays from 12-3 EST (New York Time)
In-Person Session
Variable Dates
In-Person Session
Students are required to attend one other in-person session. This may include weekend intensives, the family reunion, the WXO Summit, or a self-organized session with other students.
Research session
June - august
Lived Research Session
Self-directed, with weekly accountability group meetings in June and July.
Session 2
September - November
Weekly Classes Online
One cohort will meet Tuesdays 2-5 pm EST, the other cohort will meet Wednesdays from 12-3 EST (New York Time).
New Frame Presentation & Graduation
Nov 19-22, 2027
New York City
Final projects will be presented to a ticketed public in New York City. Certificates awarded.
Payment Plans
Tuition
Full Tuition $11,900 Total
INCLUDES books and a materials. Students are also responsible for their own travel and accommodations for the weekend intensives. No Installment Fees.
Installment Plan
$3,350 Per Installment
Divide tuition into THREE payments throughout the program. $3,350 per installment (includes a $50 installment fee), plus a $2,000 deposit. Students are responsible for their own travel and accommodations for the weekend intensives. Includes Books and Program Materials.
MONTHLY PAYMENT PLAN
$1,015/MONTH
Includes books and Program Materials. Students are responsible for their own travel and accommodations for the weekend intensives, plus a $2,000 deposit. Monthly Payments include a $25 installment fee.
EU/UK
*Many countries in the EU offer sponsorship for arts related education programs. Applicants are encouraged to apply for arts funding if their country offers it. Students have received support from UK Arts Funding and the Canada Council for the Arts.
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We happily write letters of support for all students who ask that are seeking funding from foundations, institutions, and their employers.
Financial Aid & Scholarships
Thanks to a generous donor we are offering three full-tuition SCHOLARSHIPS to BIPOC applicants. We are also proud to offer three half-tuition, need-based scholarship, and three half-tuition work study scholarships. All of these are extremely COMPETITIVE and we encourage you to seek additional sources of funding4. You will be able to INDICATE your interest in being considered for both forms of scholarship in your application. If you’d like to be considered for need-based assistance, there is a BRIEF additional form for you to complete.
Students receiving full scholarships will need to pay a refundable $1,500 scholarship, which will be returned upon successful completion of the program.
FOR ORGANIZATIONS
Work for a company or institution that has funds for continuing your education or professional development? Odyssey Works partners with organizational leadership to support employees in this program. Numerous alumni who worked at places like Nike, IDEO, and McCann World Group, or at academic institutions, have received full or partial funding from their employers for our programs. Get the conversation started by sending your employer to this page today and feel free to contact us for further information.
