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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ID Commencement 2020

Join us online Saturday, May 16

By Kristin Gecan

May 7, 2020

All degrees for the 2019–2020 Commencement Ceremony at Illinois Tech will be awarded on Saturday, May 16, 2020, in a virtual ceremony.

ID students, family, and friends are invited to watch the Opening Ceremony starting at 10am on May 16. ID’s own ceremony will be available beginning at noon on May 16. The program for the ID ceremony is available below.

We also invite family and friends to peruse REFLECTIONS: EOYS (End of Year Show) 2020, which will open on May 15, 7:30pm. View Program