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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Why Design and Not, Say, Project Management?

Designers thrive in the face of ambiguity.

By Lead with Purpose Research Team

February 3, 2020

A diverse group of graduate students working together at Institute of Design in Chicago.

The Institute of Design released the Lead with Purpose report to highlight design’s central role in realizing executive vision. 

While project managers can be effective at breaking down large projects and making things happen, they need specificity in order to be successful. Designers thrive in the face of ambiguity. The intent set out by the organization’s business leaders should be visionary, and as such, it will likely be lofty as well. Designers can take the same competencies and methods (foresight, systems thinking, etc.) that they put toward building products or solutions and orient them toward achieving that vision. This is how they determine, shape, and take responsibility for the Intent-to-Effect Pathway.

Designers can take the same competencies and methods that they put toward building products or solutions and orient them toward achieving executive vision.

Our interviewees believe that design’s ability to define the Intent-to-Effect Pathway makes it uniquely qualified to close the gap between vision and reality within an organization.

 

Explore the full 2020 ID Report in our Resource Library. You can also download the PDF.

Related

100 Great Designs of Modern Times, 2020

2020 Report: Lead with Purpose

Taking Responsibility in the Age of AI