ID@85:
85 Years of Making the Future

Institute of Design (ID)
3137 S Federal St, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60616

We have partnered with the Institute of Design to organize this original exhibition, ID@85: 85 Years of Making the Future, which uses 85 key stories to demonstrate the vital role of design — and ID — in improving everyday life, from gas stations to space stations; camping shelters to an app for urban explorers; a better bar of soap to a doable reimagining of water resources for food, energy, and manufacturing.

The stories told here fall into four eras of ID’s extraordinary impact on design.

• Experimentation

• Systems

• Human-Centered Design

• [Era in Process]

Together the individual stories form a larger narrative of invention and evolution and attest to ID’s outsized role in the field of design in the United States. While there have been prescient updates to the school’s curriculum at every stage, the constants include earnest creativity in the face of ever-changing technology and industrialization; advocating for design as a systematic, democratic way to solve problems; and collaborations for optimal results. For 85 years (and counting!) ID has invested primarily in students, and therefore, in the future of design — in the practical, gratifying value of collegial work for the public good.