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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Kim Erwin and Larry Keeley at Transform

Professor Kim Erwin and adjunct professor Larry Keeley spoke at Mayo Clinic’s Transform conference.

September 9, 2014

Mayo Clinic’s conference, Transform brought design minds and medical thought leaders together to inspire the future of healthcare. Over three days of talks, forums, and networking activities, doctors, community organizers, and designers made the case for a new human-centric vision of healthcare. Professor Kim Erwin and adjunct professor Larry Keeley were both invited to speak at the event.

Kim Erwin presented actionable communication methods that make innovative ideas stick stating, “You have to get people to see things from the future, not critique them through the past.” She recommends prototypes to elicit actionable feedback and make sure designers are not seen as a people apart. She asked that we think of communication is a platform not a signal and make it an integral part of the innovation process.

Kim also had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with Chris Farrell, economics correspondent for Marketplace, a nightly American Public Media radio show and editor of APM’s Marketplace Money. Kim and Chris discussed some of the concepts in her book Communicating the New. Her interview will be featured as part of an Minnesota Public Radio series on innovation to be released in the next few months.

Larry Keeley closed the second day of Transform with an examination of the levels of innovation. He described modern innovation as “more about elegant integration than primary invention” requiring crowds, clouds, partners, and prizes. The change coming will bring ecosystems with more value than individual companies.

Watch Kim’s presentation | Watch Larry’s presentation