Why Is Design Always Talking About Complexity?

More from With Intent All episodes →

1. 

   S3 · E2 · 15 Oct 2024 · 28 min

   LifeStraw: Revolutionizing Safe Water Access Through Innovative Design

   Hosts Thamer Abanami and Albert Shum explore the story of LifeStraw, a groundbreaking water filtration device that's changing lives globally. Dive into LifeStraw's origins, innovative technology, and unique business model that balances profit with purpose.

2. 

   S3 · E1 · 7 Oct 2024 · 45 min

   Geometry vs. Geography: Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 New York City Subway Map

   In the season premiere of Institute of Design's podcast, With Intent, explore Massimo Vignelli's 1972 NYC Subway Map. The design itself was a modernist milestone critiqued for practical flaws. Hosts Thamer Abanami and Albert Shum discuss balancing aesthetic innovation with functionality, offering lessons in user-centered design and its impact on systems and society.

3. 

   S3 · 1 Oct 2024 · 4 min

   The List

   In this introductory trailer to With Intent Season 3, hosts Thamer Abanami and Albert Shum introduce themselves as this year’s Latham Fellows at the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech. They share their excitement about co-hosting the podcast and reflect on their 15-year professional partnership, including their collaborative work on a broad range of design projects and their previous podcast, The Design Vault. Their longstanding relationship sets the stage for insightful discussions on design and its impact on society. The hosts outline the themes and focus for the upcoming season, which…

4. 

   S2 · E6 · 22 Mar 2023 · 38 min

   Where Must Design Go Next?

   In the final episode of our second season of With Intent, Jarrett Fuller asks ID Dean Anijo Mathew, Where Must Design Go Next?Anijo discusses ID’s pioneering history and where it’s headed next—summarizing ID’s four eras, defining what he calls Design Plus, and contextualizing the three forces acting on design today and where they will lead us.

5. 

   S2 · E5 · 15 Mar 2023 · 43 min

   How Can Design Make the Biggest Impact?

   In the fifth episode of our second season of With Intent, Jarrett Fuller asks ID Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability Weslynne Ashton and Associate Professor of Design for Technology and Society John Payne, How Can Design Make the Biggest Impact? “In the business world and in the government space, people often look around the world for ideas to select and decide on—as opposed to create. The mindset of the designer is that we are going to get together and create something. —John Payne Weslynne and John discuss working in the private versus the public sector,…

6. 

   S2 · E3 · 1 Mar 2023 · 41 min

   What If Human-Centered Design Isn’t Enough?

   In the third episode of our second season of With Intent, Jarrett Fuller asks ID Associate Professor of Behavioral Design Ruth Schmidt and Charles L. Owen Professor of Systems Design Carlos Teixeira, What If Human-Centered Design Isn’t Enough? Ruth and Carlos discuss the capabilities and limits of human-centered design, the concept of humanity-centered design, and how the evolving role design plays in our organizations and corporations will shape our collective future.

7. 

   S2 · E2 · 22 Feb 2023 · 37 min

   How Do You Teach Design for Tomorrow?

   The second episode of our second season of With Intent asks ID Associate Dean Matt Mayfield and Assistant Professor Zach Pino, How Do You Teach Design for Tomorrow? Matt and Zach discuss ID’s ever-evolving curriculum, the relationship of design to art, how students learn about technology at ID, the recent “seismic shift” in students’ goals, and challenges and opportunities of a field in flux. Jarrett Fuller, host of Scratching the Surface, is the 2022–23 Latham fellow at the Institute of Design and the hosts With Intent this season. Tune into With Intent to discover where ID is taking design…

8. 

   S2 · E1 · 15 Feb 2023 · 33 min

   How Does Someone Become A Designer?

   Jarrett Fuller asks, How does someone become a designer? in the first episode of Season Two of With Intent. This episode features Tomoko Ichikawa, Associate Professor of Visual Communication, and Marty Thaler, Associate Professor of Product Design. Tomoko and Marty discuss ID's Foundation sequence—possibly the strongest tie that ID has today with its history as The New Bauhaus. (Foundation at ID makes it possible for nondesigners to enter our graduate school.)

9. 

   S1 · E10 · 30 Nov 2021 · 50 min

   Hope and action with Mushon Zer-Aviv

   Mushon Zer-Aviv is an activist, artist, and designer. He's currently at work on devising new ways of understanding change and the future—ways that account for the limits of forecasting and consider the "darkness" of the future as a place for hope and possibility. He also discusses systemic bias, the value of small talk, his appreciation for Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein, and Milton Friedman, and how his work brings provocation and action together.

10. 

    S1 · E9 · 23 Nov 2021 · 45 min

    Meaningful work with Marina Gorbis

    Marina Gorbis is executive director of the Institute for the Future, a place where business executives, policymakers, nonprofits, and others use foresight and futuring techniques to make better long-term decisions. For example, you might work with the Institute for the Future to anticipate and be able to plan for a worldwide pandemic. In fact, Marina worked on just such a project years before COVID hit. Now that the pandemic is real, interest in futuring has spiked. Marina talks about what futuring is and the trends she's seeing—in particular, how our relationship with work is changing. She…