Pratt Institute

Education

B.F.A., The Cooper Union for the Advancement o;
The City College of New York

Biography

Lee Epstein started his 43 year advertising career as an art director at legendary Doyle Dane Bernbach, where, for almost 20 years, he had great fun creating a memorable stream of award winning ads and campaigns for clients like Polaroid, Mobil, Olin, Jamaica, Clairol, Hallmark, Heinz, Gillette and Seagram’s. As DDB grew big…bigger…biggest, Lee felt the fun part of creating ads was going…going…
gone, so he got back to “small” and “fun” by putting his name on the door of his own ad agency from 1981 to 2005. During his memorable career, he’s won over 100 creative advertising awards including 20 Gold & Firsts Medals and 52 Distinctive Merits and has been either, the author of, or the subject of a wide collection of industry magazine articles. Lee holds a BFA Degree from Cooper Union and a BBA Degree from CUNY. Back in 1975, while pursuing his professional career, Lee was invited to teach an advertising art direction course in the Communications Design Dept. at Pratt. He loved it and hasn’t stopped teaching since. Lee’s been sharing his know-how and experience with undergraduate juniors and seniors and AOS students at Pratt, where, as an Adjunct Professor, he has been successfully teaching his approach to conceptual advertising and art direction with a calculated mix of arrogance and humility.