At Pratt, we see communications design as a close alignment of thinking and making. Our curriculum pairs critical, cultural observation with emerging technologies and tools to help you form your own design process.
Our multifaceted and interdisciplinary Communications Design courses happen within a studio culture that invites exchange of individual perspectives, critique, visual literacy, media fluency, experiential learning, and innovative formal outcomes. You’ll explore meaningful visual forms through research, historical and contemporary contexts, experimentation, audience, technology, and play. The Illustration emphasis includes studio courses in advanced storytelling, socio-political commentary, and authorship. Electives include graphic novels, animation and 3D modeling, independent publishing, production design and character design.
The design studio is at the core of your educational experience at Pratt. It is a creative space and a community in microcosm, from which we connect to the larger community. We believe education takes place in the studio and the classroom and that the work in the studio benefits the student’s growth through an exchange of ideas, skills, and aspirations. Working with your peers in the studio deepens knowledge of the opportunities inherent in form-making and design exploration.
Maker Spaces and Labs
Sustainability and material exploration drive our passion for making. We are hands-on and immersive; using our many production labs, any communication design student can discover, iterate and refine their investigations across different media. Learn more
Thesis
By the end of your senior year, you’ll complete a thesis that reflects and shapes your future practice. Your thesis is presented at the annual design show, a public event attended by industry leaders and potential employers. Pratt Shows 2023.
Study Abroad
Immersing yourself in another culture is an incredible experience that can extend the boundaries of creativity. Study abroad programs are an integral part of the college experience, and Pratt has deep connections with university partners around the world. See where you can go.
Learning Resources
We develop disciplinary fluency in our program of study and we celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of design critical to address the plurality and complexity of the environments in which we operate. Learn about resources.
Our Faculty
Pratt’s distinguished faculty of outstanding creative professionals and scholars share a common desire to fully develop each student’s individual potential and creativity. The faculty come from diverse educational and professional backgrounds representing the breadth of Fashion Design’s complexity. This multiplicity of views and experiences provide for a tailored graduate education that is as unique as each of the students. See all Communications Design faculty and administrators.
Communication designers are leading thriving careers, addressing critical challenges, and creating innovative work that reimagines our world, at a diverse selection of companies and institutions. They also go on to become entrepreneurs and principals leading their own studios and businesses.
Thinking seriously about Pratt? Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.
Building your portfolio can be daunting. We’ll answer your questions and help you feel confident about the portfolio you submit with your application. Start building your portfolio, now.
Find yourself at home at Pratt: our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighbors. Check us out.
ComD Students! Join us at 1:30 PM on Monday, October 20 in the Pratt Studios 3rd Floor hallway for a Boba Tea Mixer and make your own delicious boba tea! 🥤
Create something special and you could win one of five giclée prints from @drool_art:
"Astral Projection" by George Kempster
"Yoshino Mountain" by George Kempster
"Time" by COVEPOSTER
"Flower 6" by Max Blackmore
"I Won't Bite" by Alexander Khabbazi
See you there! 😍
Mark your calendars: our Fall '25 UG COMD Lecture Series is COMING SOON!
Join us on October 29th, November 12th, and December 4th* for yet another round of exciting illustration and graphic design guest speakers. This is a great opportunity for undergrad students to learn from industry professionals. Each session is followed by a Q&A session and a reception with refreshments.
More details to follow along with guest announcements. Watch this space!
*Dates may change, watch for updates
@esen_karol's Branding and Messaging class visited Selman (AdAge's 2025 Design Agency of the Year) yesterday evening to learn all about their work and to gain some advice on how to advance their practice and careers.
Many thanks to @selman.nyc for hosting our students. They had an amazing time and learned so much!!
https://selman.nyc/
ComD Students: Mark your calendars! On Monday, October 20 from 1:30-3pm -- join us in Pratt Studios (3rd Floor) for a Boba Tea Mixer -- make your own delicious Boba Tea at a Boba Tea Bar ---
Make your own tea combo--🥤
Name your "Boba Tea Product" --
Use materials provided (or your own) to create a cup label/design --
Drink yummy boba tea --
Win prizes!
See you there! 😍
UPDATE
ComD Students: Mark your calendars! On Monday, October 20 from 1:30-3pm -- join us in Pratt Studios (3rd Floor) for a Boba Tea Mixer -- make your own delicious Boba Tea at a Boba Tea Bar --- and decorate cups for prizes!
Be sure to check out TYPE TONIGHT on September 19, 2025!
7:00-9:00 PM
207 Water Street
Join the typographically-inclined at @bowneprinters for an evening that celebrates a shared love of type, lettering, and the written word. The evening will begin with a casual social mixer, and follow with three presenters who will share works-in-progress and invite friendly, informal critique.
This welcoming, inclusive event is open to anyone who loves type—designers, artists, and curious newcomers alike. Whether you’re just starting out or already established, Type Tonight offers a space to connect, exchange ideas, and spark meaningful conversations.
Sign up today and be part of the conversation! Advanced registration is encouraged for this event but walkups will be accommodated as possible. Can’t stay the full two hours? No problem! Leaving a bit early is fine. Access to this event includes walking up and down a few stairs.
Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/46saxkzh
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE GUEST LECTURE: SEPTEMBER 25
What happens when psychology meets design? 🧠✨ Dr. Yasmin Ghodse-Elahi, a behavioral scientist with a PhD in Social Psychology, leads the Behavioral Science team at U.S. Bank where science and design thinking come together to shape high-impact experiences. If we want to design human-centered experience, we need to understand what lies below the surface beyond what we can see - the underlying drivers of behavior that only behavioral science can help us uncover.
Join us as Dr. Yasmin takes us to the fascinating world of behavioral design where insights from psychology help designers craft more intuitive, precise, and innovative experiences.
WHEN: September 25, 2025, 5:00 PM
WHERE: Engineering Building 307
Yasmin Ghodse-Elahi, Ph.D.
Head of Behavioral Science @ US Bank
yasminelahi.com
Attention ComD students and recent grads! The Printed Matter NY Book Fair is this week at @momaps1, Thursday, September 11 through Sunday, September 14.
Featuring over 250 exhibitors (including interdisciplinary artists, collectives, small presses, self-publishing artists, and rare book dealers), @printedmatter_artbookfairs is a great opportunity to both shop and learn!
Advance registration strongly encouraged. https://www.momaps1.org/en/events/616-printed-matter-s-2025-ny-art-book-fair
#NYABF2025
The Communications Design curriculum embraces the multifaceted 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 or illustration. Electives both inside the department and throughout the Institute expand the core curriculum, allowing students to explore ways of thinking and making throughout the visual arts.
Emphasis in Illustration
Students who select the Illustration Emphasis take a series of upper-level studio courses that explore topics particularly relevant to image-based communication, such as advanced storytelling, socio-political commentary, and authorship. Upper-level courses related to the illustration emphasis encourage experimentation with multiple technologies, platforms, and techniques. Electives provide opportunities to explore a wide spectrum of contemporary illustration practice, including graphic novels, animation and 3D modeling, independent publishing, production design and character design
In the Communications Design BFA program students will undertake a course of study where they will work towards:
Developing a professional, responsive and interdisciplinary perspective on the role of design and the designer and their relationship to economic, social, ecological, historical and political systems
Engaging with form, systems, experiences and interactions as intersecting modes of knowing, thinking, making and being, and the implications on people, communities and environments across scale
Situating making practices, research and theory in response to the legacies of design history and to global, local and personal narratives
Demonstrating fluency in challenging the use of tools, technologies and materials across media in consideration to the value systems they embody
Practicing exploration and experimentation of the interplay between thinking and making towards developing a diverse body of work
