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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Design Rhetoric

Design Rhetoric

Exposes students to practical application of narrative tools to help them communicate challenging, ambiguous, and new-to-the-world ideas more effectively.

This course is not available for the upcoming semester. Consult with your advisor for similar options.
“
This course provides a wealth of knowledge to help designers be more intentional in how they communicate their ideas with others.
—Former student

Objective & Outcomes

Designers cannot afford to communicate poorly, no matter who the audience is. But truly great communicators succeed through deliberately constructing arguments that build on existing mental models while stretching the audience’s understanding: making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. This course looks at how to bring ideas to life in a logical and compelling case through the use of proven rhetorical tools: framing, emotional appeals, evidence, and narrative structure.

Upon completing this course, students can make informed communication choices and adapt communication to different contexts.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Introduction to Rhetoric as a Design Tool
  • Session 2: Framing & Form: Shaping the Narrative
  • Session 3: Metaphor (Making the Strange Familiar) & Narrative Rationality
  • Session 4: Semiotics & Ideology: The cultural construction of meaning
  • Session 5: Testimony: Building a rhetorical case through evidence
  • Session 6: In-Class Case Study: Applying rhetorical skills to a user research challenge
  • Session 7: Final Presentations

See all MDes Courses