In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design came under new management. 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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Past Event

Whole View: A framework for overcoming innovation myopia, Berlin

November 12, 2014
7:00-9:30pm CST
Supermarkt Creative Resource Center
13355 Berlin

Whole View


Dean of IIT Institute of Design, Patrick Whitney will show a novel yet simple framework that helps organizations see the how innovations in capability, business models and user understanding can support each other to increase the chances that great new ideas are realized.


Creating innovative ideas is easy; it is getting past organizational barriers to implementation that is difficult. Designers, entrepreneurs, and consumers are perpetually buzzing about "the next new thing", yet the failure rate is still very high. Startups and VCs can live with a 10% success rate, but this is not acceptable to mid and large companies, government agencies or NGOs. Innovation is often confused with new technological capability, but we now know that business models and understanding people’s needs are equally important. The problem is the people in each of these areas operate with competing conceptual frameworks and approaches that prevent adequate understanding each other. Progress in one area is neutralized by confusion and lack of stakeholder alignment.


 Hosted at Supermarkt by










iconmobile   Founded in 2003, the iconmobile group is an international global product innovation and design firm connecting brands with their audience in the most direct and engaging way possible. The company blends many years of design and user experience with deep technical expertise and business sense. iconmobile works for global clients in various industries, ranging from automotive to consumer goods. 

 

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