Firm History
The Early Years
In 1974, Jerry Herschman started Herschman Architects in Cleveland, Ohio. For the first fifteen years, the practice consisted almost exclusively of commercial and retail-based interior architecture. Driven by market factors in the mid-1990s, the company began transitioning into shell and ground-up buildings.
Expanding in Size & Expertise
As the size and scale of our projects increased, so did the size of the practice and the professional disciplines within it, resulting in the addition of engineering (electrical, mechanical, plumbing) services in 2005. That same year, we designed and built the current Cleveland headquarters in Warrensville Heights and moved into a 20,000-square-foot space. Additional offices were opened, including Tucson, Arizona in 2005, Los Angeles in 2012, Atlanta, Georiga in 2019, Ventura, California in 2020, Baltimore, Maryland, and Portland, Maine in 2022.
An Eye Toward Design
In 2014, we started a dedicated design department in an effort to expand creative capabilities. The design studio focused on further diversifying our project portfolio while developing an ethos of aspirational design. The new group provided a fully comprehensive and specialized practice of design, providing services for architecture, urban design, interior design, branding, and graphic design.
This renewed commitment to an elevated design sensibility brought new and unique project opportunities, including commercial office, high-end retail environments, commercial urban spaces, and retail prototype design as well as institutional developments, multi-family residential, and assisted living facilities.
Looking Toward The Future
After forty-four years in business, we began readying ourselves for decades to come. As part of this process, the practice rebranded completely as Onyx Creative in 2018, marrying our longtime reputation of quality services and relationships with a renewed focus on aspirational design.
Onyx Creative’s team of architects, engineers, interior designers, and graphic designers is uniquely positioned to meet the challenges of a changing retail, commercial, and residential landscape with creativity, passion, and principle.
A Rebrand to match our aspirational design principles.
Firm Culture
Stability founded on values of trust and community
We are honest, human, and humble.
Our culture values trust and community. We encourage independent decision-making by employees to benefit the company and pave the way towards our future. While we award self-discipline, we also understand the importance of a support system. Our working environment is relaxed, light-hearted yet productive, always encouraging collaboration. We offer flexible schedules with a casual dress code. There is an overall quality of friendship, equality, humor, and comradery throughout our offices.
We value and invest in our people.
We are dedicated to our employees’ professional growth and offer an annual education allowance to help further their skills in any area of interest. Our leadership training is offered annually for employees to work together and propose new ideas to contribute to the firm’s culture and growth while learning how to grow their confidence and leadership skills. Lunch-and-learns are provided monthly to help our licensed architects and engineers achieve their annual required education hours.
We are open-minded and dedicated to diversity.
We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We currently have a higher-than-industry average percentage of women employees, along with employees who have originated from countries outside of the United States, such as India, Canada, Peru, Haiti, Ukraine, Bahamas, Philippines, South Korea, Moldova, and the Czech Republic. This foundation of diversity generates a wider range of skills, creativity, and engagement in our workplace, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.
We take care of our team because it’s the right thing to do.
In 2018 we remodeled a portion of our office to accommodate employee needs and create an environment for collaboration in our design department area. We continue to update our offices to create a healthier, engaging, and forward-thinking workplace environment. Additionally, we offer healthy food options through our partnership with LunchOwl, an innovative workplace lunch service. We pay a portion of the price for these items to encourage the health of our team, increasing productivity and comradery.
We provide excellent benefits, paying 100% of employees’ health care premiums and offering a wide range of benefits from two savings plans (profit-sharing and 401k), health, dental, disability, and life insurance.
