Pratt Institute will celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Marc Rosen Scholarship Fund for Graduate Packaging Design on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at the Pratt Institute and Luxe Pack Art of Packaging Award Gala at the University Club on Fifth Avenue at 54th Street. The annual black-tie fundraiser will honor Coty Prestige for its outstanding commitment to packaging design and will be hosted by Liz Cho, co-anchor of WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News. The event will begin with a 6:30 p.m. cocktail reception and will be followed by an 8 p.m. dinner.
The Marc Rosen Scholarship is the only scholarship in the world available to college students looking to pursue careers in cosmetics and packaging design. Each year the scholarship is supported by the cosmetic industry at The Art of Packaging Award Gala, an event that attracts the top-tier of New York City’s multi-billion dollar cosmetics industry. At Pratt, Rosen teaches a course on cosmetic and fragrance packaging design, which is the only one of its kind in the world.
This year’s scholarship winners are package design students Mehng-Huei (Monique) Chen and Ling-Yi (Linda) Huang of Taiwan and Joung Won Cha and Hyung Jin (Gina) Choi of South Korea. Cha and Huang graduated from the graduate communications design program in February 2010; Chen will graduate this spring and Choi in spring 2011.
The Art of Packaging Award is presented each year to a fragrance company that has excelled in the art form and will be awarded to Coty Prestige. Catherine Walsh, senior vice president for Coty Prestige and the visionary behind the celebrity fragrances for Jennifer Lopez, Gwen Stefani, and Sarah Jessica Parker and designer fragrances by Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Kenneth Cole, and Vera Wang, will accept the award. Walsh will be introduced by Bernd Beetz, CEO, Coty Inc. Past recipients include Dior Beauty, Clinique, Procter & Gamble Beauty, Bath & Body Works, Estée Lauder, Coty Inc., Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Calvin Klein, Lancôme, and Avon.
The Pratt program in which Rosen teaches-Communications and Package Design- is ranked as one of the top 10 graduate graphic design programs in the country by U.S. News and World Report and collegecrunch.org.
Rosen’s unique package design course has attracted over 300 national and international students to Pratt from Argentina, Canada, Ecuador, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Uruguay, as well as from across the United States.
Scholarship funds have been awarded to approximately 100 of these students, many of whom have gone on to become creative directors and executives of companies and branding agencies worldwide, including Siegel+Gale, Landor & Associates, Ogilvy & Mather, Gensler, Women’s Wear Daily, and Godiva Chocolatier, Inc. They have also worked for such esteemed clients as L’Oréal, NARS Cosmetics, Juicy Couture, Swarovski Crystal, Bourjois Paris Cosmetics, Shiseido, UBS, Public Art Fund, PBS, and Samsung; and have been recognized with FiFi, One Club, Bond No. 9 Fragrance, and Society for Environmental Graphic Design awards.
Rosen is an internationally acclaimed designer; a Pratt trustee and alumnus; and is head of Marc Rosen Associates, New York. Rosen is a seven-time FiFi award winner-the fragrance industry’s equivalent of the Academy Award. His designs are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fashion and Textiles in Paris.
For over 20 years, Rosen has designed packaging for such famous “beauty” manufacturers and fashion names as Elizabeth Arden, Avon, Bath & Body Works, Princess Marcella Borghese, Burberry, Chloé, Oscar De la Renta, Perry Ellis, Fendi, Halston, Karl Lagerfeld, Estée Lauder, Revlon, Nina Ricci, Sanofi, and Victoria’s Secret. Prior to establishing his own firm in 1989, Rosen was Senior Vice President of Corporate Design and Communications for Elizabeth Arden Worldwide.
Pratt’s master’s degree program in package design comprises a broad-based curriculum that focuses on the decision-making process for new product/package development and features courses in packaging design, brand development, visual communications, digital technology, marketing, and structural packaging. The final stage of the program is the thesis, which provides knowledge of the problem-solving process through directed research and, over the succeeding two semesters, gives students the opportunity to develop an extensive and innovative project. The Graduate Communications and Package Design program is chaired by Jeff Bellantoni.