Most designers may scoff. Every year, at the end of the Spring semester live animals make a visit to the Brooklyn, Pratt Institute Campus. Horses, goats, sheep. Sometimes ducks and chickens. While, I may prefer the duck be on my plate with noodles, this is actually for students to draw. This visit supports the enduring practice of life drawing. Essentially this is what separates the BFA from the BA. Why do I appreciate this so much? I still draw the figure. That's what got me interested in design. I most often visit the Art Students League. Also, my colleagues at major animation studios have life drawing at work. Yes, at work. Live nude models.

For the last assignment of the year, I asked my students to play exquisite corpse. It was a good stress-reliever. And it brought to light the practice of using hand-drawn sharpie sketches first, before you go to the computer. If you’ve never played, go here. The game was centered around an assignment however. The Standing Desk. And the advantage of custom working spaces. Unique height settings for each user experience. Each height was a different set of legs. Each set of legs describes someone and their taste of work spaces. It expresses humanity and the color and fun of the standing work environment. If you want to see how a couple of them turned out, visit Cassandra Fountaine’s post from Wednesday here and Sol Ryu’s here.

It's not Andy Serkis. But, very interesting performance capture, point-by-point tracking motion graphics. Good to see this at the Junior level at Pratt Institute.

Motion posters. Much more practical than static print posters. Really enjoying this piece from a Junior student at Pratt Institute.

Standout piece from Pratt Institute Survey. It's a piece about paper consumption made up of thrown out paper into a tree. Clever. Bold.

Pratt Institute motion graphics. Movie title graphics from Junior at Pratt Institute. Reveals typography behind dominos.

Junior work from Pratt Institute. Outstanding packaging, typography, and illustration.

Great Junior work from Pratt Institute students at survey on April 26th. 

Alright makers. Here is a circuit board audio design piece. You implement the vocal sound and it alters the visual. Good to see this happening in the communications design department at Pratt Institute.

Some of the best design work from Junior Survey at Pratt Institute. 

Junior Survey at Pratt Institute. I loved the wireframe type.

Sophomore standout typography and a cute piece for Kanye and Kim.

More work from Sophomore survey on April 23 at Pratt Institute. 

This is work from Sol Ryu. Her work for the One Club, USPS and the Standing Desk project really stood out.

This is work from Cassandra Fountaine. She has a very nice illustrative aesthetic. 

This is work by Alex Hartwell. 

Work from my sophomore design procedures class at Pratt Institute. Christina Bull is a graphic design major. Her website is christina-bull.com and you can find her on twitter here.