IIT Institute of Design

Maybe We Are Not Geniuses
ID student Elizabeth Graff (MDes 2024) reflects on Doblin’s comments from 50 years ago and what design looks like today.

Visit the link to learn more : https://id.iit.edu/story/maybe-we-are-not-geniuses/

Simplifying Medication Adherence with Thoughtful Design

Fifty percent of treatments fail because patients forget their medication. PillPal, a user-friendly medication management system provides users with an unmissable medication reminder. PillPal involves the entire care team in the work to increase medication adherence and increases peace of mind for patients, their families, and their doctors.

The PillPal system contains three elements: the physical dispenser device, the healthcare provider dashboard, and the patient app.

Visit the link https://bit.ly/3XnfORe to learn more about the PillPal system, created by ID students.

Get ready for a dynamic lineup of sessions and workshops at the Design as Activism Symposium! Dive into topics like community-led design, actionable strategies for values-driven design, and the intersection of design and activism.

✨ Walking the Walk - Define Your Values, Design Your Practice: What does it mean to design for change? What does that look like as a practice? Join Nermin Moufti and Kristin Lueke from Field of Practice in this interactive workshop delving into how we continuously craft a design practice grounded in shared values.

✨ MAPPED - Making a People's Pathway for Engaging Design: MAPPED is Chicago’s public platform for documenting community projects across the city—built, envisioned, or planned. Design Trust Chicago invites urban explorers from across the city to gather and learn how to contribute to MAPPED and collectively build a design library of community visions.

✨ How To Share Your Power - A Conversation About Co-Design: Despite consensus on the need to redistribute power for equity, it’s rarely practiced. This panel, led by Sara Cantor from Greater Good Studio, engages local non-profit leaders in exploring co-design frameworks, barriers, and strategies for shifting power.

Explore our sessions and plan your schedule. Expect practical takeaways and methods that you can apply directly to your work in built environments, visual communication, placemaking, and community building.

In-person tickets are sold-out, register for a virtual access through the link : https://id.iit.edu/design-as-activism/

This event is supported by the Terra Foundation as part of its Art Design Chicago initiative in connection with the Chicago History Museum’s Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art in the 1960s-70s.

Spotted–a beautiful day, students between classes.

The Institute of Design was founded as “The New Bauhaus” in 1937 by Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy. Since then, our school has evolved, responding to the changing needs of the design field and the world while staying true to our rich legacy.

To celebrate our 85th anniversary, we distilled our history into 4 eras

Era 01: Experimentation – Driven by the disruptive changes in the mid-1930s, ID embraces fearless experimentation that explores new visual languages and emerging technologies.

Era 02: Systems – Moving towards a vision of being “the best functionalist design school in the world,” ID focuses on understanding and examining the systems in which design must function.

Era 03: Human-Centered Design – ID pioneers human-centered design, also known as “design thinking,” emphasizing a deep understanding of people—human desires, needs, and routines.

Era 04: [Era in Process] – The present era, name tbd, where we are navigating an unprecedented commingling of the digital, biological, and physical which requires multidisciplinary, multigenerational thinking and a radical approach to collaboration.

Stay tuned—we’ll dive deeper into each of these design eras.

Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3MdmpaM

After welcome cupcakes, multiple tours to welcome new students to the building and the city of Chicago, a basketball game, and a myriad of workshops, we’re now set for the semester.

Explore the photos to get a taste of the festivities that we had during our orientation week!

Core77 Design Awards honor ID’s project, “Future Archetypes of EV Charging,” both in the Consumer Technology and Transportation categories!

Congratulations to the ID team who sought to address the obstacles for EV adoptions, such as charging infrastructure, slow charging times, and the high cost of batteries.

The students approached this problem through the lens of Capital Design: the idea that design can influence private and public investment as well as the decision-making processes that drive innovation.

Through rounds of prototyping and design, the ID team identified two main archetypes that enable a future where EV infrastructure and its many benefits are available to anyone.

To learn more about this project, visit the link here: https://bit.ly/4fNcZ37

Team: Jie An (MDes 2023), Deaa Bataineh (PhD 2023), Jerick Evans (MDes + MBA 2023), Isaac Jang (MDes + MPPA 2023), Mitchell Kunichoff (MDes + MPPA 2023), Jordan Ostapchuk (PhD 2024), Keval Parekh (MDes 2023), Pranjal Shah (MDes 2023), and Ayaka Uriu (MDes 2023), led by ID Professor Carlos Teixeira

Join our Design as Activism Symposium to hear from these leaders on how design can challenge social inequities and drive meaningful change.

📣 Anne H. Berry, Director of the School of Design at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) – Anne is a writer, designer, and co-creator of Ongoing Matter: Democracy, Design, and the Mueller Report. She is also the managing editor of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection, an anthology centering teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.

📣 Sara Cantor, Co-Founder, Greater Good Studio – Sara leads a team that engages communities and stakeholders in the co-creation of programs and services that are innovative, inclusive, and impactful.

📣 William Estrada, Multidisciplinary Artist & Educator – William develops community-based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy, and cultural access in contested spaces.

📣 Sharon Bautista, Qualitative Research Manager, Code for America – Sharon speaks regularly and teaches courses on inclusive design and sustainable organizational change and also serves as a mentor for the EPIC Equity Fellowship Program.

📣 Nick Adam, Design�Director, Span – Nick crafts meaning-filled visual identity systems, harnessing the qualities of identity to shape typographic nuances, design strategies, and interactive experiences that shift culture.

Register today through the link in our bio.

This event is supported by the Terra Foundation as part of Art Design Chicago in connection with the Chicago History Museum’s Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art in the 1960s-70s.

The first week of the semester—the calm before the creative storm. These white walls will be covered inch to inch with ideas and sketches just a few weeks from now.

Mark your calendars for NOWHaus 2024!

This Sunday, August 25, the ID community comes together at Bridge 410 in Chicago for a night of creativity and fun. NOWHaus will feature a mix of Pecha Kucha, Group Presentations, and Prop Presentations—giving students and faculty a platform to share their unique passions and interests.

Whether you're presenting or just enjoying the show, it's going to be a night to
remember! Join us and be part of Chicago’s ID community.

Tickets will be available for purchase at the venue. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected].

How can we use generative AI to facilitate care and decision-making for our beloved pets?

Three ID students – Sunmin Ko (MDes 2023), Han Wen (Vanessa) Chang (MDes + MBA 2024), and Eunji Kim (MDes 2024) explored this question in our Interaction Design Workshop. In 14 weeks, they developed Pawssistant, a concept for an app-based pet care platform designed to provide real-time support and transform complex pet health data into actionable insights using AI, enabling informed and confident decision-making for pet owners.

“We aimed to set a new standard in pet health and wellness. Pawssistant is a companion in the pet care journey, ensuring that pets receive the best possible attention and care,” said Sunmin Ko about the project (MDes 2023).

To learn more about the project, go to this link: https://bit.ly/3WQqDKq

"It’s not the prototype, it’s the prototyping."

In our book “Where Must Design Go Next?”, ID faculty delve into in-depth conversations with designer, writer, educator, and Latham fellow Jarrett Fuller, addressing contemporary design challenges and discussing how ID navigates them.

In this book, Kim Erwin, Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Design Methods & Equitable Healthcare Action Lab Director, talks about the importance of prototyping and visualizing – not necessarily for the creative outputs, but for the analysis and decision-making that happens during the prototyping process.

To learn more, go to this link: https://bit.ly/46LC3Ua

Our new student orientation for the Fall Semester begins! We’re very excited to welcome our new cohort into the ID community. Here’s to a great year ahead.

At ID, we use design to solve our own problems too. Feel like there are not enough spaces on campus for collaborative work? Well, let’s build one!

Pictured here is the impromptu construction of The Nook, a now well-loved corner of ID made possible by Marty, a drill, and a handful of students.

When you get to campus this fall, be sure to find it in the building and leave an avatar 😄

Did you know that our design work at ID has international impact?

ID Professor of Behavioral Design Ruth Schmidt’s research was featured in the first UNESCO Open Science Outlook report, contributing a new model to assess scholarly impact. The research was done in collaboration with Universiteit Leiden / Leiden University and DORA (Declaration of Research Assessment).

Behavioral design combines human-centered design and behavioral science. To learn more, go to this link: https://bit.ly/4ddDnkV

Every summer, a team of ID students travel to Taiwan for a 6-week international design experience as part of ID’s annual Taiwan Immersion Program (TIP).

With the guidance of ID Associate Professor Marty Thaler, this year’s TIP team, Vanessa Chang (MDes + MBA 2024), Samantha Chandra (MDes 2025), and Bhavani Sriram Prasad (MDes 2025) came to Taiwan and joined DRIVE, the internal design team of the Far Eastern Group (FEG), a Taiwanese multinational conglomerate.

Founded by FEG Chief Innovation Officer Jeff Hsu (MDM 2012), DRIVE has partnered with ID since the inception of TIP, which aims to bring a multidisciplinary perspective to solving problems, enabling students to work closely with the C-suite of large companies and immerse themselves in a new environment.

Curious to see what the team experienced in their adventures in Taiwan? Keep swiping to live a week in a life of the TIP team!

Our proposed SXSW panel needs your votes!

At ID, we believe it’s design’s responsibility to ensure that AI can be a force for good. In that spirit, this panel considers approaching AI from the local level. Anijo Mathew (Dean, Institute of Design) and Albert Shum (former CVP, Design, Microsoft) will share global highlights on how AI can be activated responsibly for local issues.

Interested? Help us make this panel a reality by voting for it here: https://bit.ly/3LVpFav

Counting down the days to our orientation week and the beginning of the Fall semester 🥳 Can’t wait to see this building full and buzzing again!

Tomorrow night! Reserve your spot today.

Great opportunity to become a more informed voter and learn how democracy, design, and policy serve the people from Sam Pitroda (M.S. EE ’66) and Evan Chan (M.D.S. DSGN ’19)!

Register for this IIT Institute of Design event, The Idea of Democracy and learn more about the July 2 session at https://bit.ly/3L43gat.

You have cancer. You need to decide on treatment. But first: you need to understand the treatment being offered.

Since 2018, Tomoko Ichikawa, ID Associate Professor of Visual Communication, has worked with a team of collaborators, including ID students and radiation oncologist Dr. Daniel Golden, to create a growing portfolio of discussion guides that educate patients about cancer treatment. The discussion guides are used by doctors in their first consultation meetings with patients.

The first four guides have now been translated into Spanish, further widening access to marginalized communities that experience pronounced health inequities.

We love it when we can see design making a real impact in people’s lives. Learn more at this link: https://bit.ly/3KFOQNM

From Taiwan to Milan, ID is an international community of learners and leaders. So, naturally, we’re active around the globe. Our immersion programs take our faculty and students outside of the walls of our campus and put them all over the world, collaborating alongside many different people—from Asia to Europe.

If you’re interested in learning more about our immersion programs, go to this link: https://bit.ly/3VDv0ZH

ID is headquartered in Chicago. Milan, arguably, is design’s historical headquarters.

A city with a rich culture, Milan is also home to the innovative Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi), known for its forward-thinking approach.

ID students joined a cohort of 22 next-gen designers at the PoliMi-hosted spring 2024 AI + Design Immersion, in which PoliMi encouraged students to use AI to address future human well-being.

Our student Yiwen Teng recounts her experience here: https://bit.ly/4c1I0hv

How can we transform the dreaded snack duty in youth sports into an opportunity for healthy snacking?

Behavioral design combines approaches from human-centered design and insights from behavioral science to actively design behavior and habits. In ID’s Behavioral Design workshop, Elizabeth Graff (MDes 2024), Jie An (MDes 2023), and Ran Konaka (MDes + MBA 2023) asked the question: If presented with the opportunity to provide their children’s teams with sustainable, nutritious snacks for young athletes, would this change parental behavior?

Leveraging behavioral design principles, the students developed a solution that transforms snack purchasing behavior at youth sports events and promotes healthier food choices. To learn more, go to this link: https://bit.ly/3VzBPLT

At ID, We Go Way Beyond Design Thinking. In Where Must Design Go Next?, ID faculty delve into the latest thinking in design through conversations with designer, writer, educator, and Latham fellow Jarrett Fuller.

In this collaborative exploration, ID faculty members engage in six in-depth conversations, addressing contemporary design challenges and discussing how ID navigates them.

To read more go to: https://id.iit.edu/story/new-book/

A new kind of leadership?

Creative leadership. Built here. This Thursday at 7:30 CT, ID will host a webinar where potential students can learn about our graduate programs that expand the tenets and applications of human-centered design, systems-based design, and holistic design—so you can identify and build new ways forward in any industry or role. We will discuss our degrees in Master of Design, Master of Design + MBA, Master of Design + MPA, and Master of Design Methods.

Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-curriculum-night-tickets-806860209607?aff=oddtdtcreator

The deadline for Fall early applications to MDes, MDes + MBA, MDes + MPA, MDM, and PhD programs is tomorrow!

In Where Must Design Go Next?, ID faculty delve into the latest thinking in design through conversations with designer, writer, educator, and Latham fellow Jarrett Fuller.

Faculty contributors include Weslynne Ashton, Erwin, Tomoko Ichikawa, Anijo Mathew, Matt Mayfield, John Payne, Zach Pino, Ruth Schmidt, Maura Shea, Carlos Teixeira, and Martin Thaler.

For more information, go to https://id.iit.edu/story/id-faculty-discuss-designs-next-step-in-new-book/

On this , we thank those who have served.
Bridget Soldan (MDM 2018) advocates for Veterans in the work she does at Booz Allen's Veterans Experience Office account.
https://bit.ly/3st7nHu