Adaptation, Transition, Response

Letter from the Editor

Outside a window in Brooklyn, the leaves are moving into new, bold autumn hues, an annual reminder of life’s constant progression that feels particularly resonant this year. As conditions have shifted throughout 2020, the world has been challenged to adapt. And Pratt’s designers, artists, scholars, educators, and visionaries have responded how they do best: with agency, action, and innovation.

It’s that brilliant, resilient spirit that we have been drawing on at Prattfolio, the magazine of Pratt Institute, as we too have been called to rethink and reinvent. Joining our colleagues across the Institute in efforts to conserve resources, we have put our cherished print magazine on pause. The Fall/Winter 2020 issue, focused on adaptation, transition, and response to change, challenges, and uncertainty, is coming to you fully digital, and with variations on our storytelling.

We’ve expanded our departments Practice and Crit, and we are excited to bring you our first exclusively online features—each of these stories the product of generous collaborations with Pratt faculty and students. For alumni, Class Notes is now accessible in digital form. Additionally, the Institute’s editorial team and Prattfolio have established Those We Have Lost, a space to honor Pratt community members who have passed during this difficult time, carrying on the tradition of the magazine’s In Memoriam section.

Throughout the fall, Prattfolio will continue to publish pieces from the new issue here, and you can also experience these stories and more on Pratt’s social media channels.

I do hope you enjoy the issue, and I welcome your responses and ideas. As we continue to move through this year of transformation, my creative colleagues and I look forward to uncovering new Pratt work, stories, and voices, along with vibrant ways to illuminate them in all the formats available to us.

—Jean Hartig, Senior Editor, Prattfolio