The Pratt Institute's 50 Most Groundbreaking Designs

The prestigious Pratt Institute celebrates its 125th anniversary today, and accordingly, we are celebrating the iconic artwork that has come from the school's esteemed alumni and faculty. As an art, design, and architecture institution, Pratt has been the starting point for talented students, who have gone on to improve, beautify, and change the world.

We chose 50 out of the 125 artworks they are honoring at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel tonight, based on their relevance and resonance. From the Chrysler Building to the Big Bird costume and Dunkin Donuts logo, here are The Pratt Institute's 50 Most Groundbreaking Designs.

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Artist: Howard Richmond

Year: 1936

Medium: Illustration

Richmond designed this simple sans serif logo for Life Magazine in just a few days. The image is now commonly recognized as the representative symbol of the publication.

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Artist: Michael Gross

Year: 1984

Medium: Graphic Design

Gross designed the very recognizable No Ghosts logo when he worked as the associate producer of the film Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters is ranked 28th on the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 funniest movies.

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Artist: Belle Kogan

Year: 1935

Medium: Product Design

This duck-shaped alarm clock used the inexpensive and durable material of plastic, which at the time was a new medium to work with. Using plastic made mass production of the clock possible, while today Kogan's clocks have become collector's items. Kogan was one of the first American female industrial designers.

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Artist: Robert Riger

Year: 1958

Medium: Photography

Riger photographed this landmark moment during the National Football League championship as Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas made a pass against the New York Giants. Riger was an artist that captured the essence of American sports in the times following World War II.

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Artist: Roger Cook

Year: 1974

Medium: Graphic Design

Cook, with his partner Don Shanosky, designed 34 internationally recognizable graphic symbols that were chosen to be displayed on public signs. The artists were hired by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), while the graphics were used by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

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Artist: Herb Meyers

Year: 1985

Medium: Product Design

Meyers' firm Gerstman & Meyers designed this Teddy Grahams box that featured the bear-shaped cookies bursting out of the package. Teddy Grahams sales were said to have reached $100 million within the first nine months after its launching.

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Artist: Peter Max

Year: 1969

Medium: Lithography

Max's poster art incorporated color-saturated aesthetics that were prominent throughout the late sixties. In 1969, the pop culture artist and entrepreneur was featured on the cover of Life magazine, and in 1970, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco showed "The World of Peter Max"—a solo exhibition.

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Artist: Richard Meier

Year: 1997

Medium: Architecture

The Getty Center includes a museum, conservation center, library, scholarly center, and gardens. The complex is located on a hilltop in Los Angeles, and Meier has received multiple awards for his designs.

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Artist: Charles Pollock

Year: 1963

Medium: Furniture Design

The Pollock Executive Chair features an aluminum rim that not only physically holds the chair together, but also visually unifies the structure. Designed for Knoll, the chair goes well with elements of office workspaces and skyscrapers.

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Artist: Andrew Serbinski

Year: 1996

Medium: Transportation Design

Serbinski came up with an original design for the Kawasaki MK9, to make a point that improved aesthetics could have a profound impact on the functionality and charm of the sports bike. Serbinski is the owner of MachineArt Industrial Design, and his concept bike won an IDEA Gold Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America in 1996.

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Artist: Stefan Sagmeister

Year: 1999

Medium: Lithography

Sagmeister created this poster for a 1999 AIGA Detroit lecture. The artist had his assistant carve some of his lecture's important points into his torso, with the intention to, as the artist puts it, "visualize the pain that seems to accompany most of my design projects." This poster is now included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Design Museum in London.

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Artist: David Stiles

Year: 2007

Medium: Architecture

This Tolkien-inspired tree house is located in East Hampton, New York. Stiles built the construction that was showcased in Architectural Digest in 2007, and also published The Tree House Book, a how-to book on building a tree house. Stiles has written 20 how-to books with his wife Julia.

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Artist: Jean Shin

Year: 2009

Medium: Installation

Shin reworked over 2,000 athletic trophies that were donated by local residents to create figures of American workers. Her installation is redolent of the protests and celebrations that are held on the National Mall, and depicts a mass of common Americans using trophies originally created as special awards.

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Artist: Frank Eliscu

Year: 1935

Medium: Sculpture

The Heisman Trophy is given as an annual award to the most outstanding college football player. Eliscu's design, reflecting the dynamic movement of football players, has won the National Academy Prize and the Herbert Adams Memorial Gold Medal.

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Artist: John F. Sierks

Year: 1947-51

Medium: Architecture

Sierks was the leading architect in the construction of Levittown, the first suburban residential town featuring mass-produced housing. The area was designed as WWII veterans were returning to America and the demand for affordable housing was high. As part of the project, 17,447 homes were built by 1951. Sierks took part in designing several other Levittown projects in the United States and Europe.

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Artist: Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon

Year: 2005

Medium: Painting

Street artist Swoon displays transient installations. The technique used in Swoon's prints and paste-ups are reflective of the way the works eventually fade away, and form and content converge.

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Artist: Manuel R. Vega

Year: 1963

Medium: Illustration

Vega created the colorful Toucan Sam, whom we all recognize as the face of Froot Loops cereal. The mascot still appears in television commercials and remains an icon of the cereal, but Vega has left the world of advertising to instead become an art instructor for youth.

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Artist: Mark D. Stumer

Year: 2008

Medium: Architecture

Stumer renovated the Temple Young Israel, expanding the building to house more facilities, and creating an entrance and atrium area that joins all areas of the structure. While incoporating more contemporary styles, Stumer also made use of the angled shape formed by the property's borders.

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Artist: Max Weber

Year: 1915

Medium: Painting

Weber was one of the first American artists to experiment with Cubism. The fragmented shapes and lines of Weber's work reflects the European modernist influence on his work. Weber had a solo retrospective at the Museum or Modern Art in 1930, the first American artist to be featured at the museum.

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Artist: Carlos Zapata

Year: 2003

Medium: Architecture

Zapata designed an extension of Chicago's Soldier Field, which was claimed to be one of the best building-planning projects of 2003 by a New York Times critic. His work is modern and gives the stadium an overall unconvetional shape and look, featuring an asymmetrical seating bowl.

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Artist: Myron Waldman

Year: 1930

Medium: Illustration

Betty Boop was a popular character during the Great Depression, and still remains widely recognized today. Waldman was the head animator of New York's Fleischer Studios, and participated in the creation of the character. The Huffington Post regards Betty Boop American animation's first sex symbol, and Waldman won the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Award and the Winsor McCay Award for his contribution to the field of animation.

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Artist: Harry Allen

Year: 2004

Medium: Product Design

This piggy bank was made using silicone molds from a real pig (that was not killed for the purpose of this project). Allen is an interior and industrial designer, and some of his works are part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.

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Artist: Ayse Birsel

Year: 1993

Medium: Product Design

Birsel designed a snap-on, snap-off bidet seat for Japanese company TOTO, targeting the American home improvement market. The Zoë Washlet won the Industrial Design Excellence Award in 1996.

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Artist: Josef Albers

Year: 1959

Medium: Painting

Albers felt that color perception is a subjective experience, and used geometric shapes to create over a thousand works that highlight the different projections and interactions of color. This painting shows yellow squares of difference sizes, perhaps layered on top of each other, bordering a smaller gray square.

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Artist: William Boyer

Year: 1955

Medium: Transportation Design

The Thunderbird was the first personal luxury car manufactured in the United States, and since its release has sold over two million models. Boyer led the design team that created the original two-seat Thunderbird.

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Artist: Alfred Mosher Butts

Year: 1948

Medium: Product Design

Since it first went on sale at Macy's in 1952, Scrabble has sold over 150 million sets and has grown to become one of the most known and played board games in the world. The game was designed while Butts was an unemployed architect during the Depression, and after initially being refused by many game publishers, was brought to its deserved popularity after collaborated revisions were made with a game-passionate entrepreneur.

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Artist: Todd Bracher

Year: 2002

Medium: Furniture Design

Bracher's multipurpose sofa was given an I.D. Design Award in 2003, while Bracher was deemed the International Contemporary Furniture Fair's best new designer in 2008. The piece is part of the collection of the Freud Museum in Vienna.

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Artist: Paul Calle

Year: 1969

Medium: Illustration

While astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins prepared for their Apollo 11 mission, Calle observed and made sketches of the process. The preparations were only open to exclusive access by NASA employees, but Calle had the privilege of watching the astronauts. Calle's final selection, made from over 40 sketches, features Armstrong setting his foot down on the moon, as practiced on Earth.

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Artist: Joseph Caroff

Year: 1962

Medium: Illustration

Caroff is the man who created the well-known 007 logo, the number 7 with a silhouette of a gun barrel extending from the side. Although he is not a secret service agent like James Bond, Caroff is a designer of book covers and movie posters.

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Artist: John Cafaro

Year: 1997

Medium: Transportation Design

Cafaro designed the Corvette C5 in reworking the original coupé into a convertible with a rounded, fluid exterior. The C5 set a new standard for Corvette models to follow, and was given an Autoweek Magazine Award. Cafaro was inducted to the Corvette Hall of Fame in 2002.

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Artist: Lucia DeRespinis

Year: 1980

Medium: Illustration

DeRespinis designed this logo using round letters—reminiscent of the round shape of donuts—and her five-year-old daughter's favorotie colors pink and orange. The logo has grown to become widely recognized and has been representing the chain for more than 20 years.

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Artist: Marc Harrison

Year: 1979

Medium: Product Design

Harrison created this food processor for easy use by all consumers, including consumers with disabilities. He relied on hand-motion studies and came up with a new design that was friendly to a more universal customer base. The DLC-X has been displayed at the Philadelphia Museum or Art and the Whitney Museum or Art.

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Artist: John Herlitz

Year: 1970

Medium: Transportation Design

Herlitz worked as an automobile designer for Chrysler and created this version of the Barracuda that marked the beginning of a new design era for high-performance cars. The Plymouth Barracuda is a wide-body muscle car, compared to Chrysler's original compact version, while the original model is much desired by vintage car collectors.

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Artist: Alex Katz

Year: 1965

Medium: Painting

This painting features Katz's wife Ada as his subject. Ada was Katz's favorite subject to paint in expressing flatness, light, and color for around 50 years. In 2006, Katz showed 40 paintings of Ada as part of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York.

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Artist: Jeff Kapec

Year: 1999

Medium: Product Design

The Tanaka Kapec Design Group, experts in medical equipment indsutrial design, came up with this user-friendly design for Oral-B's floss dispenser. Oral-B hoped that this would encourage more customers to floss.

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Artist: Franz Kline

Year: 1954

Medium: Painting

Kline created black-and-white abstract paintings that highlighted the signifiance of lines. As a notable artist of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Kline believed that simply painting black on white also involves painting the white, and that the two are of equal significance.

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Artist: Sam Lebowitz

Year: 2005

Medium: Product Design

Lebowitz's tea kettle is a rounded jug or pitcher shape. It hosts the whistle on its lid instead of the spout, and an easy push of a button will open the lid. Both the design's aesthetic and practical qualities won it the title of honoree at the 2005 Housewares Design Awards.

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Artist: Jacob Lawrence

Year: 1940-41

Medium: Painting

This piece, from Lawrence's Migration Series, portrays the mass migration of black Southerners to the North. The painting was the first work by an African American artist to be part of the Museum of Modern Art's collection, and speaks of the many issues of Black America.

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Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe

Year: 1975

Medium: Photography

Patti Smith's debut album Horses features a portrait of the musician taken by Mapplethorpe. Patti Smith herself picked the photograph to be put on the cover, and in 2002 the New Yorker called the cover “one of the most recognizable images in the iconography of rock and roll.”

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Artist: Kermit Love

Year: 1969

Medium: Costume Design

Love created this iconic Sesame Street character that appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1970. Big Bird is the first of two Muppets (the other Kermit the Frog) to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Artist: Lloyd Morgan

Year: 1929-31

Medium: Architecture

Under the architectural firm Schultze & Weaver, Morgan designed the Waldorf Astoria Hotel as one of the various luxury hotels he designed in the 1920s. The Waldorf Astoria was the largest, tallest and most posh hotel when it was built, and still remains popular today.

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Artist: Abraham Nathanson

Year: 2006

Medium: Product Design

Bananagrams is an anagram game in which players must form words with tiles. The first player to use all tiles wins. In 2009, the Toy Industry Association named Banangrams the 2009 Game of the Year.

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Artist: Hawley Pratt

Year: 1969-79

Medium: Illustration

The Pink Panther was originally created for the opening and closing sequences of the detective series featuring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. Pratt co-created the character, then went on to produce cartoon shorts and a television series based on the Pink Panther himself.

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Artist: Stan Richards

Year: 1995

Medium: Advertising Design

This Chick-Fil-A campaign is promoted by cows who cutely can't spell. Richards is the founder of The Richards Group, which has executed campaigns for many corporations including Motel 6, Bridgestone, and Fruit of the Loom.

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Artist: Paul Rand

Year: 1972

Medium: Illustration

The IBM logo was first designed in 1956, but it took the next decade to master and be used as the official company logo in 1972. The stripes represent ideas of speed and progress, and the design continues to be used today.

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Artist: Lance Wyman

Year: 1976

Medium: Graphic Design

Wyman and another Pratt alumnus Bill Cannan designed this map when Washington's Metro system was introduced in 1976. Wyman is adept at incorporating icons in graphic design, and was responsible in 2011 for the redesigning of the map to include changes to the infrastructure.

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Artist: George Lois

Year: 1968

Medium: Graphic Design

The American Society of Magazine Editors voted Lois' cover as the third best magazine cover of the last 40 years in 2005. The cover depicts Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian, an early Christian saint and martyr.

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Artist: Philip Johnson

Year: 1949

Medium: Architecture

The Glass House, which was Johnson's home since it was built to his death in 2005, has been named a national historic landmark in 1997. The structure stands blending well with its surrounding landscape, and has been called "one of the most famous houses in the United States."

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Artist: William Van Alen

Year: 1930

Medium: Architecture

The Chrysler Building stands out even amongst the many great buildings that make up the Manhattan skyline. The structure features shiny surfaces, triangular windows, and a pyramidal shape at the top.

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Artist: S. Neil Fujita

Year: 1959

Medium: Painting

The album cover for Dave Brubeck's recording features an abstract painting by Fujita. In designing cover art for many legendary jazz artists, Fujita believed works of modern painting and photography went well with the style of jazz music.

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