• Editorial
• Recent Events
  • Team workshop
  • Lecturette: Eva Maddox
• Showcase
  • IDology: The takeover of ID by IIT
  • My favorite class: Business Frameworks
• IDers: Past and Present
  • New IDer: Chin-Wei Chou
  • Past IDer: Tom Cannon
• Shout-Outs
• Of interest
  • What's next after the student visa?
  • Photo contest: Thanksgiving 2.0
  • Around town: The India House
  • Observed links

I have been a student my whole life except one year. That year I was a teacher. The other morning I came into school a little late and the whole place was humming.  I felt like I was on the outside for a second, momentarily removed from the deadlines and work that we all know so well.  In that second, I saw ID from a place far away, and it was good.  It was optimistic and exciting.  That's not to say that people weren't still complaining, but it wasn't the paralyzing kind of complaining. When I looked around, people were talking, collaborating.  I slipped into class and was back on the ground, a part of it.

This is the time of year when the students at the Institute of Design are on a roll. Groups are pulling their projects together and starting to see the fruit of their labors take shape. For me it's more than that, it seems that the students can feel the momentum the school has been building. The Institute of Design has been a supremely relevant institution many times in the past. Thanks to the hard work of faculty, staff and students, we are pushing this reputation even further. I'm proud to be a part of it.

Proudly representing the editorial team,
Alex Cheek

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Team workshop
by Erik Crimmin

All of us want to become better teammates. It's a crucial skill to master, we'll get more out of our education here, and the cost of ineffective meetings is too high in our time- (and sleep-) deprived lives.

To that end, an outstanding teamwork session was offered on Wednesday, October 25, by Chris Bernard, a recent ID grad. Thirty students and faculty learned the impact that personality, problem solving type (yes, it exists) and team structure can have on our ability to work effectively together.

The contents of this workshop are especially relevant at ID, where teamwork is a huge component of our curriculum. Not only are we graded largely by our teammates, but we end up learning the most from each other, especially in our larger classes. It's common sense: in order to get the most out of our classes and projects, each team member needs to be firing on all cylinders. The projects most of us work on are too complex and require too much work for only two or three team members to effectively solve.

So how do we maximize our contributions to our team?

First, we need to recognize the different ways we solve problems and how that affects teamwork. Almost everyone gravitates toward one of these four categories of problem solving: generator, conceptualizer, optimizer, implementer. The trick is to understand what your unique strengths are, and those of your teammates, and optimize their effects on the group's work. For example, generators will probably be great at initial ideas, while implementers will excel at wrapping up presentations.

Second, teams need balance. They don't perform well if every member is devising new and interesting avenues to explore throughout a project. They need teammates to rein them in and think about what can be realistically accomplished with the given time and resources. Teams also need people who are great at building off of ideas and drawing connections across disciplines. And teams need perfectionists who are excellent editors and naturally trim away unnecessary information. In short, the best teams have a mix of different kinds of problem solvers who know when and how to flex their problem solving muscles.

We learned other interesting things at this session as well, like how to give constructive feedback, what the best collaboration and time management tools are, and how to get a team "unstuck." All of us constructed a brief autobiography that was available for the entire group to read. They are fascinating simply because they provide a context for understanding who our classmates really are, before and outside of ID.

At the end of the day we gave feedback to Chris and John Grimes, the faculty coordinator of the project. The consensus was that this teaming workshop should be part of the core curriculum at ID. To our delight, that was their plan all along.

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Lecturette: Eva Maddox
by Eric Niu

On Nov 13, Eva Maddox swung by to give us a peak into her double life. On the one hand, her work with Branded Environments brought her to join Perkins+Will, a virtual firm that has invested heavily in seamless communication. Branded Environments, far beyond just saturating an environmental space with a brand, incorporates the brand identity and meaning. This involves the sustainable development of both physical and virtual touch points into restorative spaces designed to support different modes of experience.

Her for-profit work allows her to pursue social advocacy--"the fun stuff"--through Archeworks, the alternative design school she founded with Stanley Tigerman in 1993 to pit students against challenging social issues. The school continues to be an experiment. Students are encouraged to think about and understand users from different perspectives and think of creative ways to address their needs. She highlighted Mobi's World, Restorative Spaces, and the West Humboldt Park Project.

After the talk, she spent a long time answering questions from students, and we discussed at length the parallels between our schools and partnership opportunities. We invited her to our final Systems Workshop presentations on Massive Change, and she invited us to attend the Archeworks Midterm Reviews next month. It may just be the beginning of a beautiful friendship....

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In this issue we have the pleasure to start yet another section: IDology. Its aim is to be able to dig into ID’s past and bring back all these stories and memories from alumni and professors.

IDology: The takeover of ID by IIT under the fierce opposition of Mies
by Enric Gili Fort

In 1944, when the second World War was close to its end, the US government passed the G.I. Bill of Rights in order to support anyone that served in the army services. This bill, among other forms of compensation, had the mission to provide for college or vocational education for returning veterans in the hopes of smoothing their reincorporation to society. This measure had the effect in many universities in the US of causing them to grow very rapidly in the following years. Among these schools there was a recently founded school born from the merger between the Lewis Institute and the Armour Institute: the Illinois Institute of Technology.

A few years later, in 1949, IIT was considering merging with other schools to expand its academic offering and accommodate new students. The Institute of Design was one of these targeted schools. In that time, Serge Ivan Chermayeff was its president, filling the place of the founder Moholy-Nagy following his death from leukemia in 1946.

IIT had been pondering the merge for some time, but before making any decision about the merger, Henry T.Heald, president at that time of the IIT, wanted to hear the opinion of the IIT Dean of Architecture, the person who would ultimately have to integrate the school into IIT. Mies van der Rohe had held that position since 1938 when he emigrated from Germany. He agreed to join the Armour and Art Institute of Chicago’s architecture program on the condition that he would design and build the new campus that was planned for the school on the south side of Chicago. President Heald, looking for an informed opinion, wrote a letter to Mies asking about how he felt about incorporating the Institute of Design into IIT.

On March 5th, 1949 Mies responded by letter to President Heald and his words could not have been more honest and bruising. Not only he disapproved the takeover, but he also expressed his strong personal opinions about ID and Chermayeff. In his own words the integration between both schools could never succeed because “our school is based on discipline and the Institute of Design exists on extravaganza”.

His opinion about ID’s director was not much better. Mies stressed his refusal to work with Chermayeff and he even threatened to resign from his position if Chermayeff became dean of the department of Design. The relationship between Mies and ID’s founder Moholy Nagy had been less than good since both emigrated from Germany in the late 1930’s. Apparently the relationship and regard of the then ID director was even worse: total disapproval.

In the end, despite all of Mies’ contrary opinions, the acquisition happened. But obviously Mies wanted to have the last say and have his own small personal revenge. At the beginning of the 1950s, as part of the design of the IIT campus in the south side, Mies envisioned the building where the Department of Architecture and Design would reside: the magnificent S.R. Crown Hall. The way spaces would be distributed was clear for him: the College of Architecture would occupy the high ceiling and luminous first floor and the Institute of Design would occupy the poorly lighted basement.

Ironies of history and 50 years later things have changed. ID does not inhabit the basement of S.R. Crown Hall anymore and most importantly ID is now the jewel of the crown as former IIT President Lew Collen’s once acknowledged.

At the instructional level, ID has also gone through several transformations. These years have seen how ID has completely transformed itself from a school with a modernist aesthetic and tradition into one of the few design schools that currently use design methods and tools to rigorously approach problems. Quite a far cry from Mies’s perceived extravaganza.

Letter from Mies to President Heald [ PDF | 435 Kb ]



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new IDer: Chin-Wei Chou
MDes Product Design, 2008

My name is Chin-Wei Chou, MDes student in Product Design, class of 2008. I am 27 years old. I was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. I am a Christian. I have a B.S. in Industrial Design from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. I got married this June, and have no children.

How did you end up at ID? What were your motivations for coming? 

I’ve planned to pursue a master degree since I was in college. My girlfriend (now wife, also an MDes student at ID) and I both wanted to study at the same school, or at least in the same city. ID has a good reputation and also fits our different academic interests, so we moved to Chicago.

Where were you working before?

After I graduated from college, I joined the army. I was a corporal of vehicle maintenance. I gained lots of knowledge about military vehicles, especially Hummers. It’s a interesting experience to serve in the military.

What are your first impressions about ID (people, faculty, the space, the city..)?
People at  ID are very nice; the faculty is good and thought-provoking. I feel that most of students are very enthusiastic. Coming to ID was also my first time being in America (I’d gone to Hawaii when I was 15, but I’ve never been to the mainland of the United States.)  On my first trip to downtown Chicago, I was very impressed when I was surrounded by all of the skyscrapers.  It is a beautiful city filled with history. I believe the weather here will also leave an even deeper impression....

What do you think you can bring to the people here at ID (culturally, socially,...)?
Egg stewed with soy sauce, one of my favorite foods; I can also teach the Chinese language if anyone wants to learn.

Is there anything amazing from your culture or where you come from that you think people should not miss?

Food, definitely. The Taiwanese not only produce good computers but also could cook delicious food. If people go to Taiwan, I would recommend that they visit the “night markets” for excellent Taiwanese food, such as Chau-Mi-Fen (fried rice noodles), Ma-Won (Taiwanese meatball), and Dang-Ah-Bi-Go (Rice tube pudding).

Which designers or thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

Chris Bangle, the Chief Designer for BMW group. He is creative and has given BMW cars a distinguished look since he joined the BMW group. If there were more car designers like him in the car industry, I think cars that we see today would be very different. I also love Scandinavian design very much, it is simple but elegant.  I strive for the same aesthetic in my current work.

What are the websites you could not live without?
Google, Yahoo.

What kind of activities are you planning to do in your free time in case you have any while at ID?
Tour the city by bicycle to look around--of course, I'll need to get a bike first.  Discover as much about this city and country as possible.  Play guitar.

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Past IDer: Tom Cannon
Undergraduate Design Program. Class of 1959

My name is Tom Cannon and I'm from Lockport, IL. I completed ID's undergraduate program in 1959. I'm retired now, but I worked as an independent design consultant and serial entrepreneur.

What do you do now?

I've been working on learning how to be retired for about twelve years which includes spending a lot of time sailing.

From 1969 until 1980, I worked as an independent product development and design consultant with an emphasis on using a combination of market research and human factors research techniques to characterize new product concepts.

In 1981, I was asked by several former clients to develop a product based on research I had done for IIT.  That was when I started a new career as a serial entrepreneur. Except for two years between ventures when I worked at Colorado Memory Systems on development of the first low cost tape backup system for personal computers, I continued as an inventor/entrepreneur until I sold my last company to American Greetings Corporation and retired.

When did you graduate from ID?

I received my undergraduate degree from ID in June 1959 in the first class that spent four years in Crown Hall.  When I started at ID fresh out of high school, Jay Doblin was also starting his "freshman" year as the new Director.  There were still a number of older students, mostly Korean War vets, who had started at ID before it moved to the IIT campus.  There was a lot of controversy when Jay was appointed Director, so we freshmen were a bit like lab rats trying to figure out a new maze.  The vets were very serious about their studies and their example really motivated the younger students.  A few years later a graduate program was started and we benefited from associating with the people in that program.

What was your background before coming to ID?

I grew up in Lockport, a small town southwest of Chicago.  I "discovered" ID at a high school career day held at IIT.  In high school, my primary interest was art and I also took several mechanical drawing classes.  I was not particularly interested in attending college, so I did not take advanced math, physics, or chemistry classes.  I was interested in photography and all things mechanical.  When I discovered ID offered a major in photography, I applied to take the entrance exam.

Given my woeful lack of preparation in math, I still don't know how I passed the IIT entrance exam.  At the time, the freshman year at ID consisted of "foundation courses" taught by faculty from the "old" ID.  In the second year, we took introductory classes in photography, graphic design, shelter design, and product design. The intent was to give us enough exposure so we could choose a major.  By the end of the freshman year I knew my major would be product design. 

Which member of the faculty influenced you the most and why?

Probably Jay Doblin.  Jay was very marketing oriented and this probably influenced me more after I graduated than while I was at ID.  I can't honestly say there was a particular ID faculty member who was a major influence on me.  The students, however, were another matter.  For the most part my classmates were very competitive and inventive.  Also, there were some very talented upper class students and we strove to reach their level.  The same was true of the classes that followed mine.  ID was a real hothouse of creative activity that existed apart from the larger institution of IIT.  ID students spent most of their waking hours together and we were totally involved in our design projects.

What hard times did you have at ID, and what got you through them?

I never had any problems at ID other than getting enough sleep and being constantly broke.  I commuted from Lockport for three years by car or train and never knew if I could afford to continue from year to year. I did receive some scholarship money from the Moholy-Nagy auction funds that were raised each year and that helped a lot. 

If you could have changed one thing about ID while a student, what would it have been?

Jay's goal in those early years was to prepare the product design students for employment in consulting design firms or, as a second choice, one of the manufacturing firms located in the Chicago area.  (For some sense of the times, see the October 1956 issue of Industrial Design magazine, which included a special report on design in the Chicago area and a story on the Institute of Design.) Of the fifteen product design students in my class, only a few graduated from ID with the level of drawing/rendering skills that the design offices of the time wanted in new employees.  Most of us were inventors, not stylists, so we went to work for manufacturers after graduation. 

Looking back, I could say that ID should have had courses on ergonomics, market research, business management, etc.  The problem is…these were new concepts in the fifties.  For example, The Human Factors Society was founded in 1957, when I was in my second year at ID.

Can you imagine what would you be doing if you had not attended ID?

When I was at ID, I worked one summer as a weld cleaner at a Caterpillar tractor plant on the night shift.  That is probably the kind of work I would have been doing if I had not gone to ID.  However, I’m sure a few experiences like that would have driven me to get a technical education of some sort. Actually, working for some period as a draftsman, machinist, welder or in some other craft is a good background for being a product designer. I have known a number of excellent product designers who entered the field this way.

For me, ID was a place to learn and become reasonably skilled in certain techniques that allowed me to communicate design concepts to engineers and others in the manufacturing firms I worked for after graduation.  In 1962, after working two years at GTE Labs followed by two years in the Army, I enrolled in the graduate design program at Southern Illinois University and spent two years being exposed to the ideas of Bucky Fuller.   During that time, I read a lot about operations research, market research, economics, management, and other areas that influenced my later activities.

What is the last book that has impressed you the most?

That would be The Coming Singularity by Ray Kurzweil.  His concept of an exponential trend of accelerating technology is something I can appreciate through my own life experiences. If Kurzweil's concept that technological advancement occurs at an exponential rate is true, and I think it is, then everyone under fifty years of age is in for a very exciting and challenging ride. 

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

1. Keep in mind that everything you learn at ID is just a base for you to build on.  What you accomplish in the future will depend on what you learn after ID.

2. If you aren't passionate about what you are doing, stop doing it as soon as possible and find something you can be passionate about.

3.  At some point you need to determine the level of risk and stress you can tolerate.  I have known a number of excellent designers who tried self-employment and learned they were much happier working for someone else.

Any final thoughts?

Looking back on my career, the thing I take the most satisfaction in was playing a small part in moving the practice of industrial design away from a styling orientation to a more professional activity based in large part on applying human factors and consumer research.  In 1969, I joined The Human Factors Society and presented several papers at the Society's annual meetings.  By 1975, a small group of industrial designers who were members of the Society had started the Consumer Products Technical Group within The Human Factors Society.  In 1977, I had the honor of serving as chairman of the First National Symposium on Human Factors and Industrial Design in Consumer Products.  This meeting, held at the University of Cincinnati, was the first of a series of such Symposiums that provided, for the first time, a professional forum where industrial designers, design educators, and human factors researchers could present and discuss their work. The group, now called the Product Design Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, is still going strong after thirty years. 

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• To David, Kristy, Jereme, and the rest of the recruitID team, for putting on such a well-organized and stimulating networking event.  Thanks for all of your hard work!
  from the engageID staff

Care to thank a fellow IDer? Shout it out. Email us at newsletter [at] id.iit.edu.

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Photo contest: Thanksgiving 2.0
by Chris Finlay

Seasons greetings, all. The Web 2.0 class is formally requesting that you share your Thanksgiving with us. We are holding a contest for best of category for Thanksgiving photos.

We are even working on getting a celebrity photographer to judge the contest just to spice it up! Check our site www.thanksgiving2.com next week to find out who. Go to the site and email one picture representing your Thanksgiving and a one word description (happy, funny, sad, soft(?) etc.). For those with a Flickr account you can go to: www.flickr.com/photos/thanksgiving2

In the spirit of the season and ID please pass this request on to all of your friends and family.

Thanks for the help! If you have questions you can email: capturetheevent [at] yahoo.com

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Around town: The India House
by Amy Palit

Observed