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Undergraduate Communications Design

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Our aim is for Communications Design students to become versatile and astute communicators; critical and conceptual thinkers; and engaged cultural producers.

Housed inside the School of Design on Pratt’s historic campus in Brooklyn, the department of undergraduate communications design is a recognized leader in the field. Students learn to engage audiences, explore technologies, develop visual languages, challenge preconceptions, redefine problems, and identify opportunities through the lens of communication design.

Our location allows students to participate and find inspiration in New York City’s dynamic visual culture and thriving creative industries. Our graduates leave equipped to pursue a spectrum of exciting career paths as creative professionals. Our alumni continue to distinguish themselves in design studios, cultural institutions, branding agencies, and independent enterprises making significant contributions to the fields of art and design, publishing, education, film, gaming, advertising, and many more.

The Curriculum

The Communications Design curriculum embraces the multi-faceted and interdisciplinary nature of communication design practice. Our courses and projects promote the rich exchange embodied in a studio culture that values the development of individual perspectives, critique, visual literacy, media fluency, experiential learning, and innovative formal outcomes.

Second-year coursework introduces fundamental theories, methodologies and skills central to communication design. Courses prompt students to define and explore a design process that engages research, historical and contemporary contexts, experimentation, audience, technology, and play in the construction of meaningful visual forms.

Upper-level studio courses prompt students to engage in increasingly complex projects that introduce time-based media, visual systems, branding, and installations. Beginning in the third year, students develop an individual focus or set of interests inside the larger discipline through courses in their chosen area of emphasis: graphic design, illustration, or advertising art direction. Electives both inside the department and throughout the institute supplement the core curriculum allowing students to explore ways of thinking and making throughout the visual arts.

The department hosts a weekly visiting artist and designer lecture series and invites guest critics to participate in open critiques taking full advantage of the wealth of talent that New York City has to offer. The program also supports international exchange and study abroad programs for students who are interested in expanding their learning experience abroad.