Design Management

Shaping the 21st Century

The mission of the Design Management (DM) graduate program is to build on Pratt Institute's international reputation for developing creative leaders. DM advances Pratt's mission through our mission to provide an educational experience that can help shape 21st century strategic leaders able to bridge the disciplines of design and business and catalyze innovation. Our program objective is to develop reflective leaders who can collaborate to create sustainable strategic advantage using our Triple Bottom Line by Design (TBLD) strategic framework.

Participants collaborate with faculty to achieve the following outcomes:

• Apply theory to practice to discover and define opportunities to bridge design and business.
• Demonstrate the power of collaborative practice used to design and deliver innovative advantage.
• Evidence the value of strategic design leadership and triple bottom line design (TBLD) 
• Deepen reflective practice and professional development.

Program participants achieve these outcomes by:

• Engaging in simulations and applied practice projects that test theory against the dynamic and evolving realities of design and business.
• Working in teams to discover opportunities and tackle "wicked problems" that cannot be effectively addressed without collaboration.
• Leading learning and catalyzing change through the department's international publication Catalyst:  Strategic Design Review.
• Designing applied research projects that deliver strategic and innovative approaches to key global and business challenges.
• Developing team charters and professional and personal development plans and engaging in ongoing peer coaching.

The Design Management Program

(DM) is a two-year program created to bridge the disciplines of design and business management. It is tailored to provide an executive education more focused than an M.B.A. on the special needs of design leaders managing design firms or managing design teams in creative industries. Participants come from a variety of disciplines, including industrial design, interior design, graphic design, fashion design, communication and information design, interactive media design, and architecture. The curriculum is designed to develop strategic management skills in six study areas related to design management: operations management; financial management; marketing management; organization and human resource management; management of innovation and change; and management of local, regional, and global suppliers, distributors, and markets. The courses provide participants with an integrated focus on the role of design in the creation and management of strategic and sustainable advantage. The program leads to an accredited academic degree, the Master of Professional Studies (M.P.S.) in Design Management; participants are required to take 42 credits to complete the program. Courses are held at the Pratt Manhattan Campus.
 

The DMP’s academic calendar is modeled after successful executive M.B.A. programs. Its schedule of alternating weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) allows participants to carry their full job responsibilities while they study. Two five-day weeks—at the beginning and middle of the program—and an intensive integration experience at the end of the program provide the opportunity for several brief, intensive courses, including behavioral simulation and negotiating modules. These weeks establish and maintain relationships among students in each class, which many participants in executive programs consider especially valuable.

To CONTACT the Design Management program, please email dm@pratt.edu.

For INFORMATION ON ADMISSIONS to the Pratt Design Management program, click here and scroll down to the Design Management section within School of Art and Design.

 In 2009, Pratt Design Management launched CATALYST Strategic Design Review.

Learn more about CATALYST and check out the latest issue, Designing A New Economy.


"CATALYST's timely coverage of strategic design and its outcomes, its social and environmental consciousness, its lively and beautifully crafted layouts, its liberal mix of topics make it unique among publications. These merits are especially noteworthy in the context of academic journals, known for their over-intellectualizing of their subjects and bland writing--CATALYST is a pioneer in the field."

- Susan Szenasy, Editor in Chief of Metropolis Magazine