Modeling Complexity | Courses | Institute of Design

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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institute
of desiGn

Modeling Complexity

Introduces visual techniques to translate complex topics into models, diagrams, and frameworks.

Objective & Outcomes

This course introduces students to visual techniques to translate complex topics into models, diagrams, and frameworks to effectively tame wicked content into a knowable, sharable conception of a topic. This skill is increasingly important as designers wrestle with large-scale problems that include subjects and characteristics too numerous to conceptualize using memory and cognition alone.

Upon completing this course, students will have the tools to understand ambiguous topics, the skills to build relevant explanations, and the ability to help others navigate vexing design challenges.

Typical Schedule

Session 1: Intro to Models & Modeling
Session 2: Abstraction
Session 3: Time
Session 4: Causality
Session 5: Concept Maps
Session 6: Stock & Flow
Session 7: Modes of Use, Visual Strategies