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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Students

Drawing of a family

ID Workshop Leads to a New Dementia Support Website

MetaMorphers: ID’s End of Year Show

Latrina Lee speaking at commencement

Latrina Lee: Reshaping the World through Human-Centered Design

Kat Gowland speaking at commencement

Kat Gowland: We Are the Gardeners of the Socio-Technical Landscape

Robert Grossman speaking with a student

recruitID On-Demand Connects Forward-Thinking Organizations with ID Graduate Students

End of Year Celebration

Join us for ID’s End of Year Events, May 12–13

Ohare airport

A World With No Lost Bags

Cartoon man reading newspaper with problem-ridden headlines.

Helping Solutions Journalism Deliver on Its Promise

Blue Lotus Logo

Blue Lotus App Pursues Menstrual Equity

The Possibilities of Community and Connection in a Post-Climate Change World

Future Capture Instructions

Gamifying Innovation for Financial Services

Diverse group of people holding a flag

Layers of a War

Painting the Town Rainbow

Memiro cyanotype gingko image

Memiro Project Explores Uses for Self-Tracked Data

Beauty industry packaging waste

Taking Beauty Out of the Trash

Culinary Experiences That Limit Food Waste and Engage Communities

Radiation Guides 2022

Three New Guides Now Available for Cancer Patients

Student experimenting with Osmo device

Confronting the Problem of Overzealous Phone Notifications

OurWork_Neomita_CoverImage

Improving Healthcare Outcomes in Africa with At-Home Technology

Water and droplets

Tackling Chicago’s Impending Water Shortage