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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Resource Library

Cover of the hardcover book Impact by Design: Lessons from Medical Drones to Kitchen Tools and Beyond by Thamer Abanami and Albert Shum, with a foreword by John Maeda, published by the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech. The cover features a dark charcoal background overlaid with abstract geometric shapes — arrows, curves, and angular forms — in pink, blue, and brown, suggesting motion and interconnected systems.

ID Publications

Impact by Design

ORO Editions, September 2026

Great design makes impact look inevitable. Spoiler alert: it isn’t.

Written by Thamer Abanami and Albert Shum—design and technology leaders who spent decades at Microsoft and Nike shaping products—this new book is a practical guide to creating change, providing nine patterns of impact you can reference whether you’re shaping a product, a service, or a whole system.

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REPORTS

2024 Institute of Design Report - Design Industry Trends

Taking Responsibility in the Age of AI

Design Leads Organizations through Five Urgent Challenges

Lead with Purpose

Design’s Central Role in Realizing Executive Vision

 

 

Illustrations of Design Icons from the 2019/2020 list

100 Great Designs of Modern Times

Revisiting ID’s 1959 Research Study with Fortune 50 Years Later

 

 

Lead with Purpose Video Series

2 Truths About Design And What They Mean For Your Organization, featuring Lead Researcher Brianna Sylver-Galvao

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4 Design Roles to Help You Chart Your Organization’s Future

7 Critical Trends to Help You Frame the Future of Your Organization

6 Core Skills to Help You Progress from Intent to Effect

With Intent—Season 1

With Intent—Season 2

With Intent—Season 3