Collection by Kelsey Keith
Pratt Institute at 125
Last week marked the opening of a new Pratt Institute exhibition celebrating 125 iconic works of art and design made by the school's alumni and faculty over the last 125 years. At turns suprising and educational, the anniversary show is a snapshot of Pratt's sprawling academic influence and includes everyone from artist Eva Hesse (who majored in advertising design) to graphic designer Robert Brownjohn, Chrysler Building architect William Van Alen, photographer and Steiglitz pal Gertrude Kasebier, and logo designer Paul Rand—not to mention the engineer who designed Charles Lindbergh's airplane. Take a walk through design history as we present a few of the works on display.
The American Institute of Graphic Arts (now AIGA) asked Pratt alumnus Roger Cook and his partner Don Shanosky to design a set of 34 internationally recognizable pictograms that were ultimately adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation to guide users of public spaces. The pictograms now reside in the permanent collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.
A pioneer in universal design, Pratt industrial design alumnus Marc Harrison "relied on hand-motion studies to redesign the Cuisinart food processor to meet the needs of consumers with disabilities." Other Pratt graduates, like Paul Mulhauser who worked on the OXO Good Grips line, have also ventured into the growing field of universal design.
Controversial, envelope-pushing... Fulbright scholar? Graphic design savant Stefan Sagmeister received the scholarship to study at Pratt after finishing his undergraduate degree in Vienna. Here, Sagmeister had an "assistant carve the details of his talk [at the AIGA Detroit] into his torso" and used it on the promotional poster.