In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design came under new management. This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Past Event

2013 Fall Open House

November 6, 2013
6:00-8:00pm CST
IIT Institute of Design, 6th floor
350 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, IL 60602

The world is getting more complex. Designers have become central to addressing the large, ambiguous problems of our time. Whether the arena is health care, economic development, education, or public policy, design methods help solve seemingly impossible problems.


You are invited to IIT Institute of Design to meet faculty, students, and alumni and find out how design makes a difference. Learn about our Master of Design and PhD degree programs, executive education programs, and faculty and student research, as well as the divergent community of graduate students from around the world that you can be a part of.


Questions? Email design@id.iit.edu or call 312-595-4927.

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