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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Chris Rudd named a 2021 “Researcher to Know”

Fourth annual list from the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC)

August 12, 2021

Chris Rudd

Christopher Rudd, Clinical Professor of Community-driven Design at IIT Institute of Design (ID), has been chosen as one of 24 “university researchers who have made a significant impact in their field” in Illinois.

He’s one of two Illinois Tech researchers to make the list.

From the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition (ISTC):

“
Rudd’s research focuses on designing anti-racist infrastructures and designing interventions to self-identified challenges caused by racism in communities. He has worked tirelessly with residents on the South and West Sides of Chicago on a series of anti-racist popups—challenging participants to engage with sensitive subjects through anti-racist participatory design.

The ISTC list looks at researchers driving innovation in Illinois—from those advancing new treatments in medicine, to those revolutionizing computing and shaping new technologies in the 21st century.

“
I believe that the anti-racist, equitable future we all deserve will be created by the people and that design can support the development of that future.
—Chris Rudd, Clinical Professor of Community-driven Design

As a human-centered designer and a community organizer with a passion for social justice, Rudd works to bridge the gap between the tech and design professions with community members.

To create the “Researchers to Know” list, which “illustrate[s] the critical role of Illinois’ university research in the national innovation economy,” ISTC asked university partners to nominate faculty demonstrating excellence, particularly those that have achieved recent milestones.

Rudd was recently chosen to participate in Chicago Urban League’s highly selective IMPACT Leadership Development Program and profiled in the Chicago Reader.