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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Kevin Bethune

Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life

Headshot of Kevin Bethune

Kevin Bethune uses strategic design and industrial design in tandem to help clients realize new ecologies and holistic experiences. His background spans engineering, business, and design in equal proportion across multidisciplinary experiences at Westinghouse Nuclear, Nike, and BCG.

His first book, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation released with notable acclaim under the Simplicity Series at the MIT Press. Kevin’s second book, Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction, was released in February 2025.

Kevin also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and was recently named an honoree for The Curious 100 recognized by The Eames Institute.

About the Summit

Shapeshift Summit

Program

Immersion