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

careerID: Judy Wert on Design Frontiers and How to Prepare for Them

September 25, 2020
8:00-9:00am CST
Online
ID Dean Denis Weil and Judy Wert explore the impact of recent trends on the design practice and design careers.

Design is entering its next phase of evolution. How can you make the most of it? ID Dean Denis Weil welcomes Judy Wert, co-founder of leading international executive search firm Wert&Co., in a Zoom conversation exploring the impact of recent trends on the design practice and design careers.

Weil and Wert will consider how graduate design students and alumni can equip themselves for a range of pathways. By becoming “pi-shaped,” (as described in ID’s Lead with Purpose report, p42), today’s designers demonstrate the value of their interdisciplinary skills. From innovation consulting to civic design, from healthcare to technology, design is driving organizations to realize their purpose and deliver on it.

Judy Wert has been working with the leadership of innovative companies for over 25 years. A design practitioner by training, she is a trusted authority in the world of design and business who has earned an international reputation as a pivotal force in executive search. Judy was featured on the High Resolution video podcast and profiled by Fast Company in “What Companies Really Want in a Designer…”

This talk is part of ID's careerID series, where the ID community comes together to learn about current and future roles for designers.

IIT Institute of Design (ID) builds responsible, cooperative, intelligent futures. Founded by László Moholy-Nagy as The New Bauhaus in 1937, ID is known for pioneering human-centered design and systems design. Today ID is home to the only US design school devoted completely to graduate students. But ID is more than a graduate school. ID is an international community of learners and practitioners who are addressing the biggest issues of our time by eliciting a power unique to humans: creativity. Learn more about ID at id.iit.edu.

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