The records consist of three series, Office files, Student work, and Student work: Grouped projects and exhibitions. The files include departmental records from the years spanning the chairmanships of Richard Yelle (1986-1998) and Tony Whitfield (1999-2009). The bulk of the files were created during Whitfield's tenure as chair. Files were also created by other Parsons School of Design faculty and administrators, including Atim Annette Oton, who served as associate chair of the Product Design Department during Whitfield's chairmanship; and PJ Carlino, Parsons director of administration, 2001-2007, and assistant chair of Product Design, 2000-2001.

Office records consist of audiovisual materials, contracts between Parsons School of Design and external partners, correspondence and memoranda, electronic files, e-mail and website print-outs, event and trip-planning documentation, meeting minutes and agenda, press and publicity materials, proposals, reports, and syllabi. In general, files tend to document a discrete moment or single event rather than a range of activities over time. Many files contain only one or two documents. A mix of analog and born-digital files are present in this record group, encompassing textual and visual documentation of the Production Design Department's activities.

The student work series represent an array of student projects. For the most part, only those projects with an indentifiable date and student creator(s) have been retained. The student work in this series was stored in an open shelving area of the Product Design office before transfer to The New School Archives. Documentation of student work may also be found in the Office files series, most commonly in publicity-related files containing photographic images of projects, but was stored separately from the work itself in a filing cabinet with other administrative records.

The grouped projects series primarily consists of files in which multiple projects are documented, including files on exhibitions featuring student work.