Welcome to the modern world of art and design!
Here you’ll find information on the Creative Center and the industry of graphic design. Don’t forget to check out the student gallery (on the left) for examples of great work by our students. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to call or email our admissions department, and make an appointment to stop by and see the campus.

Our goal is to create great graphic designers; if you think you have the talent, desire, and motivation to excel in this industry, you owe it to yourself to check us out!

Founder’s Philosophy
I founded the Creative Center, a commercial art college, in 1993. After years of reviewing student portfolios from colleges across the midwest, my creative colleagues and I concluded something better had to be done.

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Ray Dotzler
Founder and President,
the Creative Center

With the advent of desktop publishing, I knew students working in an “on the job” atmosphere and with the correct training in design and design software could then be employed in the challenging graphic design profession.

The Creative Center is the only art college I know that was founded and receives direction from an award-winning design studio. I started that design studio, Dotzler Creative Arts, in 1984, and since then have won over 300 creative awards including a national ADDY, Health Care Marketing’s “Best of Show,” and awards in Creativity, DESI, Print, Graphis, and How magazine.

Dotzler Creative Arts isn't the only one winning awards. I have been proud to watch students from the Creative Center win lots of student ADDY and AIGA awards.

Our program is all-inclusive, on-the-job training. We strongly believe that the graphic designer of today needs to be well-versed in multiple aspects of graphic design: from websites to ads; from illustrations to signs; from logos to multimedia; and more. Our training approach – five days a week from 8:30 until 3:30 – allows students more instructor critiques, constant oversight, and an emphasis on quality, which leads to more job placement and career advancement opportunities.

If you are an art student looking for a college that will provide job-specific training to prepare you for the real world of graphic design and will provide creative memories, I would like to personally invite you to visit our campus. I am absolutely convinced that the program at the Creative Center is designed for you to succeed in the business of graphic design