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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.

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Martin Thaler Shares Lessons in Product Design in New Book

Book discusses principles of design

By Andrew Connor

October 30, 2020

101 Things I Learned in Product Design School
Marty Thaler

Marty Thaler

ID studio professor and product design expert Martin Thaler is the co-author of 101 Things I Learned in Product Design School. The book is a collaboration with Sung Jang, associate professor and chair of industrial design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and series editor Matthew Frederick.

In connection with the book, Thaler and Jang discussed principles of design with students from ID and UIC on Tuesday, November 10, at 7pm in exploreID: New to Design, a Zoom webinar.

The book is the latest in the 101 Things I Learned series, in which academic and industry experts break down their respective fields into essential lessons, particularly for those still finding, or changing, their professional paths. The lessons range from “why every product is a part of a system” to “the difference between being clever and being gimmicky.”

“
At ID we welcome students from every background, from former teachers to biologists, who seek to understand design from a fundamental and principled perspective. In my teaching, I try to demonstrate the principles of design through physical products: how these fit into an experience and systems approach. We work on projects to develop a student's ability to combine high-level concepts with craft skills. It's this perspective that informs many lessons in the book.
—Martin Thaler

A seasoned product designer and educator, Thaler has taught full-time at ID since 2008, leading workshops that inform a human-centered approach to product design. In celebration of the Bauhaus centenary, Thaler contributed a chapter, “Bauhaus Products for Our Time,” to Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press, 2019). He also advised on ID’s collaborative research project with Fortune magazine, “100 Great Designs of Modern Times.”

101 Things I Learned in Product Design School was released October 13, 2020, and is available in digital and physical formats.

This story was originally published on IIT News.