Offered through the Department of the History of Art and Design, the Advanced Certificate in Design History is a 15-credit program that provides deepened study of the histories and theories of design to those pursuing a Pratt graduate degree in any discipline as well as Master’s Degree holders interested in a stand-alone certificate. 

• The Program offers students a rigorous foundation in the questions particular to the field of design history as well as flexibility to pursue more focused study through a range of electives that span the history and theory of interior, industrial, fashion, illustration, graphic, and communications design.  It offers students and professionals expertise and insights that will increases students’ professional knowledge and skills whether teaching, making, writing or administrating. 

• Courses are dynamic; they are continually updated to reflect contemporary concerns and scholarship in design history, especially in regard to sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion. 

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Advanced Certificate Coordinator
John Decker
jdecker@pratt.ed
 

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
Required Courses
Take one course:		3
HAD-613	History of Industrial Design
HAD-641	Origins of Contemporary Communication Design
HAD-664	History of Interior Design
Elective Courses
Take 4 courses from the following:		12
HAD-606	Topics in Design History
HAD-644	Design in the Age of Impressionism Expositions, 1851-2015
HAD-648	Consuming Design, From Pleasure to Politics
HAD-651	Problems in the History of Art & Design
HAD-652	Architecture & Landscape in the Ancient Americas
HAD-667	Gender and Sexuality in Interior and Fashion Design History
HAD-668	Leisure in the Empire City: Modernity And the Interior Architecture of Entertainment
HAD-669	Modern Latin American Design
Total Credits		15

Graduates of the program will be able to:

• Analyze, interpret, and connect, in written and oral presentations, processes and networks of production, circulation, sustainability, and display of designed objects, spatial sensibilities, and critical discourses around the various design disciplines across cultures and histories;

• Employ the questions, vocabulary and perspectives specific to design history and theory;

• Demonstrate the ability to conduct skilled and creative research using a variety of materials, resources and methods specific to the fields of interior design history, industrial design history, fashion history, illustration, as well as graphic and communications design history;

• Critically engage in the ongoing dialogue about the methodology of design history. 

• Articulate the complexities and ambiguities of multiple perspectives in design history and theory based on coursework that foregrounds inclusivity, diversity as priorities.