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

Alumni Listening Tour: Chicago

March 9, 2017
6:00-8:00pm CST
IA Collaborative
218 South Wabash Avenue
Chicago, IL 60604

Where is the field of design going? What skills and competencies should our new graduates be trained in? How can ID help you stay competitive as a designer? What additional value can we offer you in your current role?

Our new dean, Denis Weil will be traveling the US on a listening tour to meet and reconnect with the ID community. In Chicago, join us at IA Collaborative where we will be hosted by Kathleen Brandenburg (MDes 1998).


IA Collaborative is a global design and innovation consultancy.  Working at the intersection of design and business, of creativity and strategy, IA combines human centered design and strategic business consulting to help multinational organizations and emerging leaders address their most complex business challenges. IA Collaborative Founder Kathleen Brandenburg is a graduate of the IIT Institute of Design, as are many of the firm’s design researchers and consultants.

Register