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.

institute
of desiGn
Search

Andrés Lemus-Spont & Marya Spont-Lemus

Co-Creators | ¡Anímate! Studio

Andrés Lemus-Spont is an artist, designer, educator, fabricator, and proud child of Mexican immigrants. Much of Andrés’ work engages with themes of community empowerment, equity, and creative exploration, particularly focusing on how collaborative play, craft, and experimentation can lead us to radical futures.

Marya Spont-Lemus writes, makes and remakes, facilitates and organizes, and learns and unlearns. Much of Marya’s work seeks to build community through shared reflection, creation, and action, often around environmental justice on the Southwest Side. Marya is a queer white U.S. American woman of Polish, Irish, and Swedish descent. Her fuels include generalized anxiety, incessant questions, and deep love.

Andrés Lemus-Spont & Marya Spont-Lemus are session presenters for the Design as Activism Symposium.