News - Pratt Institute

Three professional portraits in black and white. The left image features a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, wearing a black blazer over a white top, smiling softly. The center image shows a man with dark hair, lightly graying at the temples, resting his chin on his hand, wearing a black blazer and white shirt. The right image features an older man with gray hair, also in a black blazer, grinning while wearing a patterned tie. All three subjects are looking directly at the camera.

Commencement 2026 to Be Held on May 19 at Radio City Music Hall

Journalist and Editor David Remnick will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary degree, and Dr. Mariët Westermann and distinguished alumnus Ted Shaine will receive honorary degrees.

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Pratt Institute Ranked #5 in World’s Top Art & Design Universities

From Pratt Institute News

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 also place Pratt in the top three universities for art and design in the United States.

Undergraduate Digital Arts

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Building a Career in Character Design

From Pratt Institute News

Game Arts senior Kaeden Green blends visual storytelling, game design, and athletics during her time at Pratt.

A group of five people pose for a photo in front of a blue backdrop with the word "Pratt" displayed prominently. The individuals include a man with a shaved head and beard, a woman wearing glasses and a white, lace-like top, a woman in a striped dress, a woman with short, white hair in a black leather jacket, and a woman in a black top with white stripes. They are all smiling and standing closely together.

Pratt Alumni Honored for Creative Impact Across Art, Design, and Urban Planning

From Pratt Institute News

At the 2026 Alumni Achievement Awards, graduates from across generations gathered to celebrate the careers of Nanette Carter, Vann Graves, and Lian Farhi.

Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment

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Underground Railroad Find in Manhattan Faces Uncertainty

From Pratt Institute News

Visiting Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation Michael Hiller discusses the recent discovery of a safe passageway in the Merchant’s House Museum, along with the effort to preserve the landmark building, in this Q&A.

Graduate Studies

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The Next Step in Fashion

From Pratt Institute News

Graduate student Peilin Chen shares thoughts on collaboration, fashion, and interning at New York-based brand Altuzarra.

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Pratt Students Respond to W.E.B. Du Bois

From Pratt Institute News

Celebrating shared threads of inquiry, current Pratt students engaged with the groundbreaking work of W.E.B. Du Bois.

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In the Press

Wirecutter

The Best Advice We’ve Found on Preserving, Storing, and Digitizing Family Memories

Feature citing Anthony Cocciolo, dean of the School of Information, on the importance of preserving original order and material integrity when organizing and digitizing family archives; highlighting Pratt’s expertise in archival practice, conservation, and digital curation to safeguard personal histories for future generations.
HuffPost

Here’s Why You Wear A Different Size Clothing For Every Brand You Wear

In a HuffPost feature on the lack of standardized clothing sizes, Pratt visiting assistant professor Keena Hudson explained that mass production ushered in a “try to fit as many people as possible” approach to sizing, rooted in outdated data.
Teen Vogue

Meet Kristin Mallison, the Sustainable Indie Designer Loved by Millie Bobby Brown, Lisa and More

Teen Vogue spotlights Pratt alumna Kristin Mallison for her viral, sustainability-driven fashion brand and high-profile celebrity clients. Mallison credits Pratt’s fashion program with “really push[ing] for recycling,” shaping her upcycling approach and long-term commitment to waste reduction.
SURFACE

Designer of the Day: Chen Chen & Kai Williams

Surface spotlights Pratt alumni Chen Chen and Kai Williams as “Designer of the Day,” highlighting their Brooklyn studio’s material-driven practice spanning furniture, lighting, and collectible works, including their recent show Basic Instinct at The Future Perfect.
The New York Times
Overlooked No More: Pamela Colman Smith, Artist Behind a Famous Tarot Deck

A New York Times Overlooked obituary revisits the life of Pratt trained artist Pamela Colman Smith, the long-uncredited illustrator of the best-selling Rider-Waite tarot deck, highlighting her expansive career as an author, publisher, suffragist, and mystic.
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Curbed

39 Reasons to Love New York

New York Magazine’s “39 Reasons to Love New York Right Now” spotlights a citywide rise in art-school enrollment and notes that Pratt’s drawing and painting programs hit their highest enrollment levels in nearly 15 years, underscoring strong demand for a creative education.
Brooklyn Rail

Alex Strada with Gaby Collins-Fernández

In this Brooklyn Rail conversation, artist Alex Strada discusses Public Address, her citywide public art project formed through deep interagency collaboration and informed by her broader socially engaged practice—including her role as the Fine Arts’ Civic Engagement Fellow at Pratt Institute, where she previously developed the community-centered project Collective Mobilities.
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Back to the Roots

The article highlights a collaborative experimental dining project, “Farm is Table,” co-created by visiting Interior Design professor Allan Wexler, in which the table is literally embedded into the earth to explore hyperlocal food, ecology, and the blurring of art, agriculture, and architecture.

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The Daily Hub

A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute

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Pratt faculty and students recently hosted a Right to Flight workshop, “an interdisciplinary public-engagement project exploring how historic preservation, textiles design and creative practice can respond to the ecological realities of urban life.”

Apr 13, 2026
Zhou Yichen, MFA Fine Arts ’21, was profiled in China Daily in a piece that explores the backstory and public reaction to his game Grandma. “When Grandma was released in early 2025, Zhou did not expect it to make any perceptible splash. He posted a few images online, fragments of dialogue and gameplay, without much explanation. Strangers began writing to him, first in comments, then in longer messages, emails and private notes. They shared stories of their own: grandparents who had died, parents they had cared for, and losses that had not yet settled into memory.

Apr 13, 2026
Visage Brut, the public installation designed by Chair of Graduate Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Design Andrew Holder’s firm, The Los Angeles Design Group, is on display at the 2026 Coachella Valley Music Festival. “Born from an experimental collaboration with software-assisted steel fabricator Stud-IO Construction, the installation transforms an industrial material used in retail construction into an expressive form. Its mesh and selectively skinned surfaces shift from sculptural mass to filigreed lattice as light changes, and nighttime illumination animates its dual nature. Encountered as both landmark and invitation, ‘Visage Brut’ offers shaded niches, intricate surfaces, and a layered legibility that encourages festivalgoers to slow down and look closely.”

Apr 13, 2026
Grace-Marie Cooney, BFA Fashion Design ’25, was profiled in the Cape Cod Times. “Grace pursued fashion further at Pratt Institute and again found solid support, a fashion internship in her last two years, and a job walking out the door with J. Crew in New York. Now designing for Calvin Klein, she’s 22 years old, an iron will, living in a gentle soul.”

Apr 10, 2026
5th-year art and design education students Michael A. Rodriguez, Vicky Zhang, and Emily Morillo conducted a project to restore a community-facing mural in Puerto Rico. They worked with high school students to emphasize the importance of mural restoration. An upcoming exhibition created in collaboration with the Instituto Nueva Escuela and funded by Pratt’s Graduate Student Engagement Fund at Pratt’s Nancy Ross Project Space will showcase their work as well as results from a mosaic collage lesson that was taught to one of the younger groups (ages 9–12).

Apr 10, 2026
Stefan Sagmeister, MS Communications Design ’88, will host the Art Director Club’s 105th Annual Awards in New York on May 13 as part of Creative Week 2026. “The ADC has always been proof that craft, beauty and commerce aren’t enemies—they’re co-conspirators,” said Sagmeister. “I’m honoured to host a room full of people who still believe that.”

Apr 09, 2026
Kai Gaitlin, BFA/MA Art and Design Education ’25, helped create a community mural for John Ericson Middle School 126.

Apr 09, 2026