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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Moneta Ho Kushner

Director, Head of Consumer Design at WhatsApp

Moneta Ho Kushner is a Director of Product Design at WhatsApp, where she heads design for the product’s core consumer experiences including messaging, sharing, and calling.

Formally trained as an architect, Moneta made a career switch to UX design to work on products that impact people at a global scale. She’s been able to achieve that through her work at WhatsApp and in previous roles leading design for Facebook Communities, Google Search Ads, and Microsoft Windows. Outside of work, Moneta can be found enjoying life in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two rambunctious children.

Shapeshift Session

Designing AI Experiences for Global Scale | Thursday, May 29

About the Summit

Shapeshift Summit

Program

Immersion