In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
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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Chicago Reader Profiles ID Instructor Chris Rudd

Considers Rudd an emerging leader in the city

January 12, 2021

Chris Rudd, ID instructor specializing in community-driven design at IIT Institute of Design (ID), has been profiled by the Chicago Reader, which has characterized him as the “anti-capitalist face of design.”

“Rudd straddles formal institutions and grassroots organizing, contributor Ashley Lukasik writes, “using design as a catalyst for creating equity while simultaneously demanding the field dismantle its own inherent racism.”

In the article, Rudd considers the relationship between anti-racism and capitalism, and ID students Jessica Jacobs and Justin Walker discuss his contributions to design and ID, as well as his impact.

“
The impulse to teach seems to come naturally to Rudd. Top of mind right now is his push to exact an anti-racist agenda in the field of design, starting at IIT Institute of Design with his graduate students, fellow faculty, and administration. Rudd's agenda didn't start with the recently globally amplified Black Lives Matter movement—it's been central to his reason for joining the school from day one.

In September 2020, Rudd was selected by the Chicago Urban League as one of 38 2021 IMPACT fellows.

Read more at the Reader.