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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Strategic Communication

Strategic Communication

Explores the use of communication design as a thinking tool, narrative tool, and activation tool to give ideas tangible form and make them more compelling.

“
This course provides a wealth of knowledge to help designers be more intentional in how they communicate their ideas with others.
—Former student

Objective & Outcomes

This course teaches students strategies for how to use communication design as a tool throughout the design process in three ways; first, through employing structure to see patterns; next, by using narrative structures and levels of voice to shape a multi-dimensional argument supported by evidence; and finally, by communicating with the intent of engaging and activating audiences. Over the arc of the course, students will both give and act on weekly critiques to move from raw, unsorted data to a developed point of view that can motivate action.

After completing this course, students can confidently use communication tools and techniques to guide their work across all stages of design.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Overview of the Course & Structuring Data
  • Session 2: Using Communication Design and Visual Structures as a Thinking Tool
  • Session 3: Developing a Narrative Point of View
  • Session 4: Levels of Abstraction, Voice & Visual Structure
  • Session 5: Testimony: Forms of evidence to inform, persuade & inspire
  • Session 6: Considering the Audience: Delivering messages that matter
  • Session 7: Final Presentations

See all MDes Courses