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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ID Student Jocelyn Jia featured on The College Tour

April 18, 2022

Jocelyn Jia on The College Tour

Jocelyn Jia, who is graduating from ID’s dual-degree MDes + MBA program next month, shares her ID experience with the national television show The College Tour:

I think it is much more than a design school. It is actually a supportive community made up of a group of talented, passionate, and inspiring human beings who are joined together to address the most challenging issues of our time. Being surrounded by this group of amazing designers and systems thinkers, I felt the urgent need to step out of my comfort zone. ID is the foundation of my confidence to make an impactful difference in my future work.