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 the exchange of individual perspectives, critique, visual literacy, media fluency, experiential learning, and innovative formal outcomes. The Graphic Design emphasis offers upper-level studio courses in media and platforms, visual systems, motion, interactivity, branding, experience design, sustainability and inclusivity, and encouraging critical inquiry, collaborative processes, and experimentation. Electives provide opportunities to explore user experience, independent publishing, design writing, and creative coding.
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 your 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
Students outside the University of the Arts, London.
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 communication design’s complexity. This multiplicity of views and experiences provides for a tailored graduate education that is as unique as each of the students. See all Undergraduate Communications Design faculty and administrators.
Communication design alumni 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.
Social Media
Come be a part of our community. Join us for events, follow us online, and learn more about Pratt’s impact in the world.
OPENING RECEPTION TONIGHT! 6–8PM
PROCESS IN PRACTICE
Communications Design Alumni Exhibition
Exhibition June 27–September 6, 2025
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 W 14th St, New York, NY 10011
Curated by Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox of c2-curatorsquared, with exhibition design by alumna Aryn Beitz, Process in Practice dismantles the perception of design as merely the visual result, instead emphasizing research, experimentation, iteration, and invention. The exhibition reveals both the complexity of the design process and the diverse practices that define the field today. From branding and type design to social impact work and fine art, the alumni featured in Process in Practice span the breadth of design's potential. Their practices cross disciplines and geographies—from public art in New York to storytelling through children’s books in Mexico, and from type innovation in Bangkok to sustainability in publishing and user experience.
The exhibition is a joint initiative of Pratt’s Communications Design departments—led by Undergraduate Chair Meta Newhouse and Graduate Chair Gaia Hwang—and The Department of Exhibitions. It reflects the Institute’s long-standing commitment to design as a force for good and education that empowers creative leaders.
#ProcessInPractice #PrattExhibits
A huge CONGRATULATIONS to BFA ComD rising senior Jimmy Li (@impossiblyclever, @jimmys_junkyard), the 2025 @soi128 Eisner Scholar!
The scholarship honors Will Eisner, one of the most influential comic artists of all time. Selection begins with faculty nominations of only 5 students each from programs all over the country (hundreds of submissions in total). Those submissions go through a juried review and are narrowed down to 3 finalists. At the finalist stage the students present their work and undergo an interview session with the jury, who deliberates and makes their selection—the best of the best. This year, that's Jimmy, the first Pratt student to win this scholarship!
https://societyillustrators.org/scholarship-winners/jimmy-li/
#SocietyofIllustrators #NYC #Illustration #illustratorsofinstagram
A huge CONGRATULATIONS to BFA ComD rising senior Rachel Genito (@lavender_hag), this year's @soi128 Zankel Scholar!
The scholarship, named in memory of Arthur Zankel, is awarded through a rigorous process that begins with faculty nominating only 5 students each from programs all over the country (hundreds of submissions in total). Those submissions go through a juried review and are narrowed down to 3 finalists. At the finalist stage the students present their work and undergo an interview session with the jury, who deliberates and makes their selection—the best of the best. Rachel is the first Pratt student to win this scholarship!
https://societyillustrators.org/scholarship-winners/rachel-genito/
#SocietyofIllustrators #NYC #Illustration #illustratorsofinstagram
CONGRATULATIONS to Jimmy Li (@impossiblyclever, @jimmys_junkyard), BFA COMD Class of 2026, on being selected as a finalist for Society of Illustrators' 2025 Will Eisner Scholarship!
Out of 100 students—the best of the best in the country—@soi128 judges selected the top 3. Bravo, Jimmy!
#SocietyofIllustrators #NYC #Illustration #illustratorsofinstagram
CONGRATULATIONS to Rachel Genito (@lavender_hag), BFA COMD Class of 2026, on being selected as a finalist for Society of Illustrators' 2025 Zankel Scholarship!
Out of 100 students—the best of the best in the country—@soi128 judges selected the top 3. Well done, Rachel!
#SocietyofIllustrators #NYC #Illustration #illustratorsofinstagram
Congratulations to Pratt ComD Faculty for inclusion in American Illustration 44!
From 7,453 images submitted to the annual competition, the jury selected only 378 professional and 10 student illustrations by a majority vote or better to appear in the annual hardcover award book.
_
"Reality"
and
"He's Back"
Tim O'Brien (@obrienillustration)
@american_illustration_winners
Congratulations to Pratt ComD Faculty for inclusion in American Illustration 44!
From 7,453 images submitted to the annual competition, the jury selected only 378 professional and 10 student illustrations by a majority vote or better to appear in the annual hardcover award book.
_
"Call Me Roberto"
and
"The Sex Lives of Cicada Revealed"
Rudy Gutierrez (@rudy_gutierrez_art)
@american_illustration_winners
Congratulations to Pratt ComD Faculty for inclusion in American Illustration 44!
From 7,453 images submitted to the annual competition, the jury selected only 378 professional and 10 student illustrations by a majority vote or better to appear in the annual hardcover award book.
_
"The Doll Test: Choosing Equality"
David Elmo Cooper (@davidcooperart)
@american_illustration_winners
Congratulations to Pratt ComD Faculty for inclusion in American Illustration 44!
From 7,453 images submitted to the annual competition, the jury selected only 378 professional and 10 student illustrations by a majority vote or better to appear in the annual hardcover award book.
_
"Morning Routines"
Richard Borge (@richardborge)
@american_illustration_winners
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 media and platforms, visual systems, motion, interactivity, branding, and experience design. 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 through their specific communication design interests.
Emphasis in Graphic Design
Students who select the Graphic Design Emphasis take a series of upper-level studio courses that explore topics and modes of practice, such as typographic and identity systems, visual rhetoric, interactivity, experience design, sustainability, and inclusivity. Projects encourage critical inquiry, collaborative processes, and experimentation with multiple technologies and platforms. Electives provide opportunities to explore a wide spectrum of specializations in graphic design, including user experience, motion graphics, independent publishing, design writing and creative coding.
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
