We’re Parsons— and we’re designing a world you want to live in

Parsons School of Design—consistently ranked among the top art and design schools in the United States and around the globe—has sent changemaking artists and designers out into the world since its founding more than 120 years ago. Today we’re part of The New School, a major university in New York City offering programs in subjects ranging from the liberal arts and humanities to the performing arts to media, management, and more. Here and at our Parsons Paris campus, a diverse community channels its creative and critical capacities into fostering a more equitable, sustainable, and beautiful world through innovative art, design, and architecture.

WHAT CAN YOU STUDY HERE?

Degree Programs

Architectural Design (BFA)

Architecture (MArch)

Architecture and Lighting Design

Dual Degree (MArch/MFA)

Art, Media, and Technology (BFA) Parsons Paris only

Communication Design (BFA, MPS, AAS)

Data Visualization (MS)

Design and Technology (BFA, MFA)

Design and Urban Ecologies (MS)

Design History and Practice (BFA)

Fashion Design (BFA, AAS)

Fashion Design and Society (MFA)

Fashion Design and the Arts (MFA) Parsons Paris only

Fashion Management (MPS) on campus or online

Fashion Marketing and Communication (AAS)

Fashion Studies (MA)

Fine Arts (BFA, MFA)

History of Design and Curatorial Studies (MA)

Illustration (BFA)

Industrial Design (MFA)

Integrated Design (BFA)

Interior Design (BFA, MFA, AAS)

Interior Design and Lighting Design

Double Major (MFA)

Lighting Design (MFA)

Photography (BFA, MFA)

Product Design (BFA)

Strategic Design and Management (BBA, MS)

Strategic Design for Global Leadership (MS)

Textiles (MFA)

Transdisciplinary Design (MFA) newschool.edu/parsons/academics newschool.edu/parsons/continuing-education

Continuing and Professional Education Parsons also offers certificates and courses that help you prepare a portfolio, explore art and design, or fast-track your career or entrepreneurial ambitions.

Executive Education newschool.edu/parsons/executive-education

Parsons Executive Education—part of Continuing and Professional Education at The New School— offers business leaders transformative skills for a rapidly changing world.

Contact Us

To learn more about our programs—ranging from undergraduate and graduate degrees to continuing and professional education programs—visit us online.

Inspired by Africa, Made in Bed-Stuy

Sherl Nero ’61 and the Design Works of Bedford-Stuyvesant

Today everyone knows Brooklyn as a hotbed of creativity. Fewer know of a Black-owned design company in Brooklyn that flourished in the 1970s and whose design director was a Parsons alum. Re:D dug into the New School Archives to learn more.

Sherl Nero (1939–2006) studied fashion design at Parsons and went on to work as a sportswear designer. In 1971, she was hired as design director by the Design Works of Bedford Stuyvesant (DWBS). The newly established business was backed by the economic development program of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, an economic initiative launched by Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1967. DWBS was the brainchild of textile designers Leslie and D.D. (Doris) Tillett and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Nero was instrumental in creating DWBS’s distinctive fabrics and surface designs, inspired by research trips to Benin, Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo. In 1971, House Beautiful described the aesthetic as “bold in concept and color with a strong African feeling,” extolling such motifs as “huge banana leaves in sun yellow or flame red, abstract fish scales in pale coral and white.” The design scholar Phyllis Ross writes, “Nero used her tremendous knowledge of craft traditions and techniques, such as batik and block printing, to imbue mass-produced goods with the character of handcraft.”

The launch of DWBS was greeted with major shows at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Many of its designs were licensed to leading textile manufacturers such as Burlington Domestics, Martex Fabrics, and Pepperell.

DWBS closed in 1979, but today its contributions are attracting new audiences through exhibitions and articles by scholars like Ross. The textile manufacturer F. Schumacher & Co. offers DWBS’s Fish Scale pattern in a range of colors, helping to keep Sherl Nero’s talent alive.