Transform Your
WORLD
Master the art of experience design1 with the Experience Design Certificate Program from Odyssey Works. Enroll in our 10-month, low-residency program, join an ENGAGED and dynamic community and become a certified experience designer.
EXPERIENCE DESIGN is a revolutionary way of designing focused on the experience of the audience. It has the power to transform any art or design practice that involves humans.
Learn to Craft REMARKABLE Experiences
Align Your Work With Your LIFE'S Purpose
Join an INSPIRING Community
20+ Years of Experience Design Distilled Into One Program
ODYSSEY WORKS has been at the forefront of transformative experience design for over two decades and has worked with employees at Facebook, Apple, Nike, The Stanford D-School, and countless others. With our program, you will gain access to the expertise of our experienced instructors, Abraham Burickson and Ayden LeRoux, who have written the books that define the field, lectured and led workshops at some of the most prestigious universities and organizations worldwide.
The Experience Design Certificate Program from Odyssey Works2 is a 10-month, LOW-RESIDENCY program designed to transform you into a cutting-edge designer of powerful experiences. The program offers personalized education with MENTORSHIP, feedback, and community building. It provides a broadly applicable and RIGOROUS design methodology that equips students with the tools they need to create innovative experiences.
You Will Learn
the ten principles of experience design
Experiential Research METHODOLOGIES
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Two Retreats
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.
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)
Self-directed, with weekly accountability group meetings in June and July
One cohort will meet Tuesdays 2-5 pm EST, the other cohort will meet Wednesdays from 12-3 EST (New York Time)
PUBLIC PRESENTATION & GRADUATION
Final projects will be presented to a ticketed public in New York City. Certificates awarded.
DEVELOP YOUR EXPERIENCE DESIGN PORTFOLIO
Graduates leave the program not only with a MASTERY of the practices of experience design, but work to prove it. Their two portfolio projects span the digital and the physical, guided by PERSONALIZED mentorship and the excitement of a public presentation in New York City.
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
Build Creative Community
Our programs are community-driven because the development of IDEAS never happens in a vacuum. Because we approach this practice as an evolving conversation, our students remain in community with us long after the programs are done.
Tap Into Your Purpose
Experience design is a PROFESSIONAL practice, but it is also a means of thinking broadly about your effect on the world. The experience design process, anchored by Phase Zero, builds a question of PURPOSE into any project. Your project may be as small as dinner or as large as a nation state; if you approach it from an experience design point of view, you are approaching it with purpose.
1:1 Mentorship
For more than TWENTY YEARS — since before “experience design” was a popular term — Odyssey Works has been researching and innovating experiential practices3. Committed to creating an “infinitely more affected audience”, we understand experience design to be a MODE of practice rather than a technique, and have honed a vision for collaboration, experimentation, creative rigor, and empathy-centered making.
With international acclaim for our work, three books, dozens of lectures, and a history of pioneering pedagogy, the Experience Design Certificate Program is our invitation to reimagine the world together.
ABRAHAM BURICKSON Co-Founder of Odyssey Works and Co-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.
AYDEN LEROUX is the Co-Director of Odyssey Works and Co-Founder of the Experience Design Certificate Program. An advocate of interdisciplinary and genre-defying creative work, she holds art and writing degrees with extraordinarily long titles from New York University and University of California San Diego. She writes extensively about disability and sexuality, and her essays, fiction, and criticism have been published widely. Her praxis is informed by experience in artist collectives, worker-owned cooperatives, and farming, and seeks to cultivate radical hospitality, GENEROSITY, and intimacy. When she was eight, she told her parents she wanted to dress up as a painter for Halloween. Thinking she meant house painter rather than fine art painter, they unwittingly opened a decades-long existential inquiry about the intersection of domestic life and creative practice.
Guest Faculty
TIU DE HAAN is a ritual designer, creative facilitator and idea doula, specializing in reminding people how to shift their perspective to see the magic in the MUNDANE. She works with individuals, teams and global organizations helping people connect to their creativity and wake up their sense of wonder.
KRISHNAN UNNIKRISHNAN's journey to remix oral storytelling tradition through modern technology has thrust him onto an uncharted path of interdisciplinary and emerging mediums including XR, live roleplaying, collaborative ritual-making, and generative AI art. Crafting hi-tech make-believe with embodied stagecraft, he invites you to participate in emergent community experiments for personal and cultural transformation through the sacred power of play.
Tuition
$11,000 Total
INCLUDES books and a materials stipend for the final portfolio project. Students are responsible for their own travel and accommodations for the weekend intensives. No transaction fees.
$3,350 Per Installment
Divide tuition into THREE payments throughout the program. $3,350 per installment (+$1,000 deposit due at acceptance). Including transaction fee.
$1,025/MONTH
Divide tuition into TEN payments of $1,025 per month (+$1,000 deposit due at acceptance). Includes transaction fee.
*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.
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 two full-tuition SCHOLARSHIPS to BIPOC applicants. We are also proud to offer two half-tuition, need-based scholarship, and two 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.
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.
What Students Say
"Thank you for WELCOMING me into the OW family with open arms and continued support. [I've received] community, connections, resources, inspiration, REFRAMING, transforming and owning your practice, and great books!"
"This program has finally giving VALIDATION to the kind of work I've been doing for so long."
"I feel emboldened to take BIGGER risks and to think bigger."
"This year has been one of SIGNIFICANT disruption and liberation, and I believe this program was key to unraveling the world I knew…Thank you for imagining such a generative space where people from a KALEIDOSCOPE of lenses could come together and bring ideas to life. This was a joy and a challenge and a catalyst for so much more to come."
"I would recommend this program for anyone who is looking to be SHAKEN out of your normal way of thinking and to open up your process to different tools and different PERSPECTIVES."
“Participating in EDCP has been TRANSFORMATIVE — unlocking a deeper purpose within my work and changing how I've approached life since. The program has equipped me with the TOOLS to create intentional experiences, movING the needle for the organizations I serve. As these organizations thrive, it has meant REMARKABLE growth for my own business.”
“In ten months EDCP has allowed me to gain confidence and true collaborators, and completely changed the direction of my career and my life. Nothing can be said for how grateful and insanely thankful that the chance was taken on me.”
“The program has helped me reframe my artistic and community PRACTICE, has spurred new collaborations, and introduced me to a diverse international community of practitioners.”
"It was such a good reminder that deepening what MATTERS TO ME as a designer, rather than reaching for things that feel like what a designer should do, will produce better and more authentic results."
“This work was what I had been looking for my WHOLE life, and I’m so excited to see where it takes me. Thank you for your support, your encouragement, your warmth and mischief and invitations to dream big and swing high.”
"This program was truly LIFE CHANGING for me. I have better words for grounding my audience (of other producers, directors, designers, developers) in what's important to the project but also to them."
“The ACCOUNTABILITY of this program has helped me fight through this process in a way I would not have stuck with on my own, showing me a new model for my own creative output and giving me greater confidence that I can go to this uncomfortable place again in the FUTURE.”
"The knowledge and CONFIDENCE I was able to gain from the EDCP was a key factor in earning a new position. EDCP is uniquely VALUABLE in that individuality is celebrated in a way that allows us to shine under an intense polishing a friendly grit that sloughs off the PATINA of 'reliable choices."
“I can CONFIDENTLY say that the ‘In Solidarity: The Beth El Civil Rights Experience’ project would not have been a success without what I learned in the Odyssey Works program. From diagramming to audience roles, I was able to directly APPLY those principles to this project, which is now a permanent installation and hosting students from around the country each week.”
“My experience in Odyssey Works has undoubtedly disrupted [my work life] and LAUNCHED me out of purgatory. I am…ready for “the great pivot” and I finally put my imposter syndrome to bed.”
10 Months Feb-Nov 2025
10 Hours Per Week
10-15 Students Per Cohort
Designed for Working Professionals
The high-touch, personalized education offered at the Experience Design Certificate Program not only rededicates students to their work but offers specific toolsets for creating collaborative purpose-driven COMMUNITIES.
Our graduates have secured multiple grants and funding, been featured on the radio, earned promotions at top companies like Meow Wolf and seen agencies DOUBLE their growth.
We’ve written the book (well, two books) on experience design and are known for bringing INTELLECTUAL and practically rigorous craft.
Learn to create INTENTIONAL experiences that compel you and your audience to engage and transform. Our students join us for 3 class hours per week, and bring the challenges they face with their professional projects to our program.
We’re defining experience design by establishing clear, TESTED practices across disciplines. We are to experience design, what IDEO is to design-thinking.
The design of the Experience Design Certificate changes each year to reflect the unique nature of individual cohorts.
Earn A Career-Defining Certificate
With a proven track record of success, our graduates have gone on to get PROMOTIONS, secure funding and large grants to produce their work, and GROW their organizations substantially within months of certification5.
Frequently Asked
Questions
What are the certificate requirements?
How competitive are applications?
Who is the ideal student?
How is this different from Design Thinking/UX/UI?
WHAT'S INCLUDED IN MY TUITION?
What’s not included in my tuition?
How have students careers benefitted from this program?
What If I have another questions?
Learn About The Program
Interested in learning more about the THREE KEY PHASES of the Experience Design Certificate Program? Join our mailing list to get notified about our next info session; which is free and a fantastic way to bring your questions directly to the program directors. We’ll talk about funding options, outcomes for alums, and who is the right fit for this INTIMATE cohort. Plus, you’ll gain access to a treasure trove of insights and updates about Experience Design and our Certificate Program.
Become a Certified Experience Designer
feb-nov 2025
Scholarships available
PER COHORT
PER WEEK
The Quick Start Guide to Designing Experiences Instead of Things
The four steps in this guide can be used at the beginning of ANY PROJECT to transform your design into an experience design. At the end of the guide, you will find worksheets that you can use to respond to prompts.
Enter your information below to be notified when applications to the Experience Design Certificate Program open for our 2026 cohort.
OOPS! Something went wrong while submitting the form. If this is persistent, email us so we can fix it.