Departmental Mission

Mission & Philosophy

Illustration is the art of communicating concise ideas with images in every kind of media. Through images, illustration shows us who we are by rendering how we perceive, interact with, and think about the world. It gives us vent to daily frustrations in cartoons, clarifies data in financial reports, guides our movements in maps and signage, and lets us enter our daydreams in children’s books. Illustration relies on three crucial skills that are applicable to a wide range of fields: conceptualizing ideas (how do we see the world?), creative problem solving (how do we convey that vision?), and precise, evocative rendering skills (can we depict it accurately?). The Illustration Department at Parsons School of Design teaches a broad range of students to be exceptional visual communicators. Graduates confidently pursue multifaceted careers including editorial illustration, cartooning, toy design, animation, children’s book illustration, fine art, graphic design, textile and surface design, typography, digital photography, web design, and film. The Illustration Department gives students a well-rounded art education. The focal points of the program are: technical proficiency in both traditional drawing and new media applications; conceptual thinking and creative problem solving; literacy in the history of art, design, and illustration; social and cultural-based illustration. With these tools, students are well equipped to enter and elevate any creative field they wish. To that end, students are encouraged to vigorously pursue their own personal and professional artistic journeys with a solid educational foundation and the support of a diverse department.

Facts & Figures

Students: 172 Faculty: 35

Facilities

The Department of Illustration is located in the heart of Greenwich Village at Fifth Avenue and 13th St., Studio Classes are set up for drawing, painting and critique, predominantly conducted at 2 West 13th Street on the 8th floor. In addition to classrooms and studios, the department also makes use of the New School University’s technology center, the Knowledge Union, at 55 West 13th Street for their digital courses. This 12,000 square foot facility houses multimedia classrooms equipped for computer video, and sound presentation, as well as digital video editing stations, digital audio production and mixing suites, and a large open lab of computer work stations.

Corporate & Industry Partnerships

• Animation and Web: Curious Pictures, The Moderns, Radical Media, Oven Digital, Funny Garbage, 4 Front Video Design, Loop Filmworks.

• Illustrators: Natalie Ascencios, Juliette Borda, Jordin Isip, Melinda Beck, P.J. Loughran, Ryan Wallace, Laurie Rosenwald, Otto Steininger, Josh Gosfield, Ruth Marten, Mirko Illic, Lauren Redness, Bob Sikoryak, Clayton Brothers, Joe Soren, Eric White, Adrian Tomine, Guy Billout.

• Publishing: The New Yorker, Money Magazine, Center For Book Arts, Penguin/Viking Books, Golden Books, Sony Records, PictureBox, The Ganzfeld, Hallmark • Comics: Drawn & Quarterly, Marvel Comics, DC Comics/Warner Brothers.

• Design: Frierson and Mee, The Moderns, The Pushpin Group, The Ink Tank, IN Production Design, Hyperakt, Mastermind, Tribeca Designs.

• Education: Art Start, Center for the Book Arts, University of Dundee, Scotland.

• Galleries & Museums: American Museum of Natural History, Jonathan Levine Gallery, The Jewish Museum, Yeshiva University Gallery, China Brilliance Gallery, Cinque Gallery, Society of Illustrators.

• Other: Illy, Artnet, New Line Cinema, Alternative Pick, The People’s Platform, Riley Illustration, Richard Solomon, Janet Zweig, Children’s Television Workshop, The Puppet Company, Sonic Youth.

Highlights

• A previous partnership with Illy, the coffee company, has yielded multiple projects. Illy’s house magazine, illywords, features illustrations exclusively by Parsons students and its series of chapbooks, illystories, are all wrapped in Parsons student-illustrated covers. Illy’s temporary gallery space in Soho, which has recently shown the likes of Julian Schnabel, James Rosenquist and Jeff Koons, hosted an exhibition of student work from Kenna Kay’s “Beyond Illustration” class. Working with famed toy designer and Kid Robot co-founder Tristan Eaton, Ms. Kay’s students have each modified one of Mr. Eaton’s existing designs. The diverse and spectacular results were displayed at the illy Gallery.

• Every year the Society of Illustrators runs a prestigious national student scholarship competition, open to all students studying in Illustration Departments across the United States. This past year, four Parsons students were chosen, making the cut from 5,000 to 101 works to be exhibited at the Society of Illustrators. Industry partners such as Hallmark sponsored the awards.

• 2005 marked the inaugural edition of the annual “Pimmy” award given to a contemporary master of illustration. Each year’s recipient is determined by the department, with the intention of establishing a modern canon of illustration. The Pimmy is marked by a lecture open to the public and a book signing. In the future, the department will add an exhibition to the program. The inaugural Pimmy was awarded to Mike Mignola the cartoonist, illustrator, and film designer whose creation Hellboy has achieved notoriety in comic books and cinema.

• The department has begun a long-term sketchbook exchange project with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland. Parsons illustration students are drawing in ten blank sketchbooks. These sketchbooks will then be sent to Duncan, where students will draw in response. The books will be sent back and forth eight times in an ongoing visual exchange.

• In conjunction with the department, Dan Nadel hosted an evening at the Lang Center with famed painters Peter Saul and Jim Nutt, which was featured in the New Yorker. More lectures with prominent artists in all media are planned. Julian Hector, a senior, completed a spectacular mural for the New SchoolTheater at 66 Fifth Avenue, as well as an illustrated diagram for the upcoming “Subversive Art” exhibition at Parsons.

• The Department has initiated a collaborative program between Parsons and Harvard’s Current magazine. This student-run magazine is overseen by Newsweek and reaches two-dozen college campuses around the country. The Department is exclusively supplying illustration for Current and arranging for other special projects, including visual reportage, cover stories, and illustrated political commentary, and, in conjunction with the Photography Department, some photography-based features.