COMMUNICATION ARTS
ILLUSTRATION
With a concentration in Illustration at Pratt, your education will differ from programs at other schools specifically because it is part of a larger major and not a stand-alone discipline. The advantage of this to our graduates is that they enter the field not only with an excellent grounding in all media, including painting and drawing, but having mastered—in required classes—conceptual thinking, problem solving, typography, and photography, as well as 2- and 3-D design and current computer software. Recommended electives include sequential art, motion graphics, independent publishing, web design, and business classes. Our alumni can—and do—succeed in widely varied careers from advertising and graphic design to film to display to fashion merchandising and children’s books. Our students who choose to concentrate in Illustration are successful, in short, because they are prepared for everything.
PRATT STUDENT WORK
PRATT STUDENT WORK
ADVERTISING ART DIRECTION
With a concentration in Advertising at Pratt you will be charged with conceiving and executing brilliant ideas and strategies that both engage and move consumers to action. You’ll learn what it takes to be an art director in a top advertising agency, and you’ll explore every detail that impacts an ad visually and verbally, from typography to photography to copywriting to digital and video applications. A faculty of award-winning and seasoned industry professionals will help you develop your own unique creative process and teach you how to communicate clearly and conceptually. They’ll work with you on the branding process, utilizing the potential of new media, and developing strategic insights that will make your portfolio stand out from the crowd. If you’re an artistically inclined dreamer who sees no limit to the power and potential of an idea, Advertising may be the course of study and the career for you.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
With a concentration in Graphic Design at Pratt, you will learn to balance the conceptual problem-solving and technical skills required to craft effective and impactful messages, design systems, artifacts, and experiences and express ideas and solutions across all media platforms. From the design of an app, an identity or a website to package and signage systems, graphic designers integrate all elements into meaningful and effective communication. As our major Communications Design embodies convergent disciplines, students are educated to translate form to content and develop, filter and strengthen that content through required advertising, illustration and imaging courses. Pratt graphic designers are nimble; alumni of the program are successful design practitioners as well as authors and authorities in their chosen disciplines.
Pratt's undergraduate Communications Design department is a multi-disciplinary studio where students from each area of concentration engage and challenge each other, developing their own approaches to a variety of solutions. Their career paths are many and varied with success and fulfillment as the common denominator. If your goal is to develop your own creative voice rather than to be a part of a chorus, Communications Design at Pratt is the major for you.
FINE ARTS
CERAMICS
The Ceramics Curriculum allows majors at Pratt to investigate the exciting, diverse, and extraordinary uses of clay as a medium. Among the most ancient of artistic and practical materials, clay is infinitely malleable and transformational. Mined from nature, as well as made synthetically, clays can be molded, built, extruded, thrown on the wheel, fired, glazed, painted on, printed on, and used in very unique ways by artists. While objects and vessels are the most common products associated with ceramics, contemporary ceramists create installations, architectural environments, sculptures, and ceramic paintings. There are no limits to the possibilities of this amazing material and every artistic skill is called upon in its use.
DRAWING
Drawing is a universal impulse that defines what is fundamentally human. Animals were drawn on cave walls over twenty millennia ago and today we still see drawing’s influence in every form of visual and spatial expression. Pratt’s undergraduate Drawing curriculum encompasses the full range of mark-making, from traditional practices to the latest technologies. As Drawing majors, students will be challenged to explore all possibilities of what a drawing can be and which conceptual approaches, tools, and techniques best convey their ideas and intentions.
JEWELRY
Pratt Institute is uniquely positioned as the only school in New York City to offer a comprehensive concentration in jewelry and metalsmithing, leading to a bachelor's of fine arts degree. The undergraduate Jewelry curriculum in Pratt's Department of Fine Arts embraces all aspects of design, creativity, fabrication, and social responsibility in jewelry and metalsmithing. Its highly qualified and award-winning professors bring a diversity of knowledge and experience to students. The cross-disciplinary approach to learning fully prepares students for higher education, industry positions, and entrepreneurial pursuits.
PAINTING
Painting is the largest area of emphasis within the Department of Fine Arts at Pratt. In the Painting curriculum students will develop a sense of purpose while learning to express ideas effectively in a visual language and developing a mature studio practice. The undergraduate painting curriculum intentionally embraces diverse styles and working methods that range from direct observation from life and working from photographs to making work entirely driven by abstract ideas. Such diverse approaches are reflected in the work of Pratt’s award-winning professors, all of who are active in the New York art world. Through training in the skilled use of materials and focused discussions in the histories and critical traditions of painting, students will graduate well prepared to advance their careers as young artists.
PRINTMAKING
Our Printmaking curriculum is routed in how the print, from its earliest form, has been a way to document, communicate, and disperse information both written and visual. The Printmaking Concentration at Pratt Institute promotes the exploration of visual representation through the medium of print as a primary art form. The program’s structure is based in the traditional mediums of relief, intaglio, lithography, and silkscreen while encouraging the use of photo processes, digital, and alternative methods. The studio courses foster imaginative approaches in addressing formal, technical, and conceptual creative problems. Course work is augmented by offsite visits to the abundance of print collections, collaborative studios, museums, and galleries that NYC offers. The Printmaking Faculty consists of recognized artists who encourage our print majors to explore the medium of print, the form it takes, and their own vision with conceptual and theoretical rigor.
SCULPTURE
Sculpture majors at Pratt explore a multitude of mediums, techniques, and ideas reflective of contemporary practices in a dynamic learning environment. The Sculpture Curriculum is built around core studio and elective courses that investigate diverse conceptual approaches, mediums, and processes. Students have access to extensive Wood, Metal, and Ceramic studios/shops as well as advanced digital and alternative mediums. The curriculum builds progressively toward mastery of concepts, processes, and tools so that by the senior year, students are working independently in their own studios, developing their most advanced work within a course structure of public presentations, individual, and group critiques. The graduation year culminates in a BFA Thesis exhibition on the Pratt Campus that is open to the public.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
In its most basic sense, Industrial Design is a field of artists, designers, and inventors who create the objects we live with every day-from toothbrushes to jumbo jets, from cameras to computers. At Pratt, abstraction and pragmatism coexist. Common design abstractions include line, plane, color, form, structure, and volume. To these we add the principles of accessibility, responsibility, and enlightenment. Accessibility underscores everyone's right to access everything all the time. In this carefully balanced environment, tempered by reality and vision, students are encouraged to design the everyday forms of the next century.
INTERACTIVE ARTS
Students in this concentration explore computer-human interaction to convey meaning in the form of physical installations, interactive objects, and online artworks. This includes the combination of video, animation, text, audio, and imagery in an interactive environment. Recommended electives include courses in sculpture, history of new media, programing, interactive installation, online media, robotics, electronic music, and sound.
DIGITAL ARTS
Pratt's Digital Arts major includes animation (both 3-D and 2-D) and interactive arts as concentrations in its BFA in Digital Arts. Students develop their artistic sensibilities through the study of the theory, practice and history of new media. Working closely with highly accomplished faculty, students apply contemporary practices in the fine arts, independent animation and creative industries to the production of digital animation, motion arts and interactive artworks. Students are expected to integrate their required studies in the liberal arts and sciences into the development of substantive artworks. Bachelors emerge prepared for graduate study or professional work and are poised to make meaningful and culturally responsible contributions in the digital arts.
In Pratt’s Department of Digital Arts, undergraduates will develop aesthetic sophistication, digital craftsmanship, conceptual sophistication related to digital media and an understanding of the potential of art and technology. Graduates demonstrate an expertise in their discipline, a unique voice in their medium and knowledge of historical works in art and technology. Students also learn to create professional documentation and presentation skills to launch their careers in the Digital Arts. This 134-credit program may be completed in four calendar years.
Undergraduates study in one of three Digital Arts Concentrations:
FASHION
Fashion education at Pratt Institute is trans-disciplinary in nature, closely allied with illustration, photography, film, performance, visual studies, and material culture. The practice of fashion is taught as one’s cultural embodiment within a social framework and learned through rigorous attention to production, craft, and contemporary aesthetics. Students build a vision and a language through conceptual processes, emphasizing curiosity, imagination, improvisation, and play. They communicate that vision through proficiency in construction and illustration skills, fluency with materials, traditional techniques, and digital technologies as well as synthesis of germane research. Interdisciplinary and collaborative classroom opportunities set the program apart, offering students tools and creative engagement beyond the fashion milieu.
PRATT STUDENT WORK EMMA HASTILE
PRATT STUDENT WORK MACY SMITH
PRATT STUDENT WORK CATHERINE YOUNG
INTERIOR DESIGN
Interior Design at Pratt provides the ultimate learning environment—New York City, interior design capital of the United States—as well as a challenging course of study for students preparing themselves for a career in a field with enormous possibilities and potential. It is widely acknowledged that interior design education, as it is taught across the United States, began at Pratt. Our alumni have made significant contributions to the quality and character of our our built environment for decades and it is certain that tomorrow's graduates will continue to make an environmentally mindful impact on our culture and sense of place.
PHOTOGRAPHY
The Department of Photography is committed to the education of artist and professionals. The curriculum is designed to create a broad-based knowledge of photography from traditional photographic techniques to the digital darkroom, including aesthetics, history, and artistic and professional practice. The student moves from a highly structured program in the sophomore year to a more self-determined program in the senior year. The program culminates in an individual exhibition as well as a senior group show at a gallery in DUMBO, a center of contemporary art in New York City. Students leave Pratt having had the experience of curating, hanging, and promoting their own exhibit, in addition to a finished portfolio of their work. This approach is intended to facilitate the transition from student to independent artist/professional.
