Jon Otis

Jon Otis, IIDA | IDEC, is a Tenured Full Professor at Pratt Institute. He is an educator and multidisciplinary designer, He is the Founder of O|A Object Agency, based in Brooklyn. Since 1998, he has been a member of the faculty at Pratt Institute School of Design, teaching in the department of Interior Design. Professor Otis’ pedagogical focus has been:

Interior spaces are experienced by humans as both sense-giving and signifying. Spaces present us with a way of situating ourselves inside, and making sense of our world. They also provide material and cultural affordances (objects) that are meaningful for our survival and development.

That is why embodied meaning occurs most often in our interior spaces. We live and become what we are only in and through our engagements with our many environments and dependent on our embodied activities with our physical surroundings. The meaning of any space, object, quality, event, or action occurs by way of some experience. Meaning is relational, and the meaning of a certain space would be the possible experiences it affords us — either now, in the past, or in the future. 

Otis is the founder and principal of OlA—Object Agency, a multidisciplinary design studio and design strategy agency whose work includes interior architecture and design, exhibition design, branding and visual communications, product design, web/media design, and strategic consulting; clients have included: Sundance Channel, Nike, General Motors, Mercedes NA, Herman Miller, Corning Museum of Glass, Vitra Design Museum, Tandus|Centiva, Tarkett Flooring, George Nakashima Woodworker, American Seating Company, Edelman Leather, Bentley Mills, National Basketball Players Association, St. Nick’s Alliance, and various residences for private clients; awards include a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Lusk Memorial Fellowship to Italy, Design Intelligence Most Admired Educator in 2009; was guest editor/curator for Phaidon Press’ Room (2014); is active in the AAM, IDEC, IIDA and has lectured at various American universities, at industry conferences (NeoCon), and in Canada, Singapore, Finland, and France.

Professor Otis was named IIDA Educator of the Year in 2017.

He recently completed his tenure as Vice President on the IIDA International Board of Directors (2018-23) and in 2022 Founded the Diversity by Design Fund (dxdf), administered by the IIDA Foundation whose mission is to advance educational initiatives that increase awareness of opportunities in design, cultivating a field that actively embraces diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, nationality, disability, socioeconomic standing, and intellectual viewpoint.

Professor Otis is presently Chair of the IIDA Foundation Board of Trustees, and on the Design Industry Foundation (DIFFA) Advisory Board. Additionally he is the Academic Advisor for the IIDA Advocacy Council, and on the Professional Advisory Board for Lot21/Design for decarbonization.

As Director of the Creative Xchange at the Pratt Research Yard, Otis has led funded student/faculty team projects in Kingston, NY, And Chicago, IL., working with the MADworkshop Foundation, Kimball International, Merchandise Mart Properties, Momentum Textiles, and JSI Furniture Group.

Some of this work has been featured on the ‘Imagine a Place’ podcast.

Professor Otis has lived and worked in Milan. Italy and Copenhagen, Denmark, and speaks Italian.

B.A. English/Journalism, Moravian College; M.S. Interior Design and Architectural Studies, University of Massachusetts; Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Executive Education Seminars.

Italian Language Certificate, Dante Alighieri School, Milan Italy.