This year, IIDA celebrated its 30th anniversary. To save you the math, we’ve been around since 1994. Always future-focused, we’ve got our eyes trained on the next 30 years—and the decades to come after. NeoCon and Design Days were a chance to look ahead at the future of design and hear insights from the top minds planning for tomorrow. From THE MART to Fulton Market, Chicago’s Four Seasons Hotel to IIDA HQ, we activated spaces, brought energy to places, and celebrated designers and designs that move our industry forward. Here are some of the best moments you may have missed.

2024 IIDA Chapter and Campus Center Awards and CLC

The Friday evening before NeoCon, we recognized the incredible contributions of chapters nationwide at our IIDA Chapter and Campus Center Awards, hosted by USG Ceilings at USG Headquarters in Chicago’s West Loop. The Alabama, Intermountain, Illinois, and Ohio Kentucky chapters all took home awards for outstanding chapter achievement, best practices, program excellence, and overall contribution to the design industry. The following day, chapter leaders from across the country gathered at IIDA Headquarters for the Chapter Leadership Council (CLC), a daylong summit on a meaningful subject: Design students. The conversation revolved around how to best support the next generation of design leaders as they prepare for careers in a rapidly changing world.

IIDA’s 30th Annual Meeting

What better way to ring in NeoCon than with a gathering of engaged, enthusiastic IIDA members? Since IIDA turned 30 this year, IIDA Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, took a walk down memory lane at the Sunday Annual Meeting, taking us back to 1994, the year the organization was born: “Schindler’s List” swept the Oscars with seven wins, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of South Africa, AOL was the way we accessed the internet, and O.J. Simpson’s slow-speed freeway chase transfixed the nation. Fast forward to 2024’s Annual Meeting, when we gathered the design community to celebrate design in all its beautiful, functional, inclusive, and boundary-pushing glory. We cheered recent legislative wins that protect and elevate interior design as a profession and highlighted the hard work of IIDA volunteers and advocates—because of their efforts, 29 states, plus Washington and Puerto Rico, have interior design legislation on the map.

We acknowledged the achievements of outstanding IIDA members, including our inaugural IIDA Icon Award winner, Lauren Rottet, FIIDA, FAIA; our Member of the Year, Sara Ables, IIDA; our new College of Fellows inductees, Robert Norwood, FIIDA, Kevin Sneed, FIIDA, Abby Scott, FIIDA, and Lisa Marie Tucker, FIIDA; and our newest International Board of Directors Vice President, Vibhavari Jani, IIDA. We heard inspiring words from our departing International Board President, Ronnie Belizaire, FIIDA, and welcomed incoming President, Erika Moody, FIIDA. And we shared thrilling news: the creation of IIDA’s Certified Design Futurist program. Designed by the Future Today Institute, the course will teach designers how to skillfully practice strategic foresight, a rigorous and systematic approach to identifying plausible futures to ensure resilience in an evolving business and cultural landscape. “We don’t know what’s coming, but we know it’s ours to shape,” said Durst.

Revel in Design

Sunday night, we gathered at the award-winning Four Seasons Hotel Chicago (recently redesigned by IIDA Icon Award winner, Lauren Rottet) to dress up, boogie down, and, well, revel in the power of design. We also celebrated design excellence, recognizing winners of the 2024 Interior Design Competition and Will Ching Competition. Revel in Design was supported by Presenting Sponsor Tarkett, Revelry Sponsor Mohawk Group, VIP Bar Sponsor Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering, and Dessert Sponsor NeoCon at THE MART.

IIDA Keynote with Bob Weis

“We’re all dreamers,” said Bob Weis, Gensler’s global entertainment leader and former president of Walt Disney Imagineering, to a room full of design professionals. “But we do more than dream. We allow creativity to flourish and we get shit done.” Weis spoke on the power of storytelling in placemaking, and his journey from Disney to Gensler.

Collective Design Live, IIDA's conversation series returned again this year with a panel, moderated by Mark Bryan, IIDA’s Futurist-in-Residence, delved into how experiential design is reshaping the industry, featuring experts with backgrounds in neuroscience and hospitality.

Read more about the programs here

Meet Us on Monday: IIDA’s Celebration on the Stairs

Monday afternoon on THE MART’s Grand Staircase we honored the student leaders shaping the future of our industry. We shined a light on IIDA’s Design Your World (DYW) program, which provides diverse high school students with exposure to the possibilities of a career in design, with a short documentary about the program’s impact on participating students. Representatives from DYW sponsors OFS, Mannington Commercial, and Gensler spoke about the importance of the education pathway program designed to build equity and inclusion in the industry. “The beauty of Design Your World is the exposure. In this program, you are around people that have diversity of thought and you find the confidence to be who you are,” said Roby Isaac, vice president of commercial design at Mannington Commercial. With summer programs in Chicago, Miami, and St. Louis, DYW has introduced many students to the power and value of design.

IIDA Student Design Charette

50 IIDA Student members from around the country gathered Tuesday at IIDA HQ to compete in the 2024 Student Design Charette, where 10 teams responded to a design challenge and presented their concept to a jury of four design leaders. This year, students designed a co-working space, focusing on adaptability, connection, sustainability, and well-being. They harnessed their creative skills using materials provided by sponsors BEHR, MillerKnoll, Wallcoverings Association, and The National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association to realize their vision.

The competition gives students the opportunity to network and learn from one another while flexing their creativity, leadership, and design skills. “I’ve had a lot of great experiences like this one being a part of the IIDA community,” said Sara Price, Student IIDA, senior at Indiana University and a member of the winning design team. But the charette was particularly special. “This was such a cool and fun experience—to meet and collaborate with so many people from different places was exciting.”

Design Days at Fulton Market

Team IIDA hit the streets on Tuesday for Design Days in Fulton Market with some very special surprise guests, the IIDA Design Dogs! We cruised the streets in an IIDA-branded “I am Mini-but-Mighty” Cooper, passed out swag, spread the “I Am IIDA” message, and introduced the cutest and furriest members of team IIDA to the design community as a way to provide joy, and welcome you into our family! If you missed us, don’t worry, you can meet the team below:

Later that afternoon, Cindy Dampier, IIDA’s Chief Marketing Officer, led a fascinating panel discussion with nonprofit Be Original Americas on the importance of craftsmanship in commercial design. Panelists included leaders from craft-forward brands: David Charne, CEO and co-founder of Fyrn, a San Francisco-based furniture maker; Carmencita Lundsten, communication and marketing director at Bolon, a Swedish flooring company; and Sean McKusick, partner at Uhuru Design, a Brooklyn-based furniture design firm. Closing out the evening, Cheryl Durst spoke with a group of Latin American designers at the MillerKnoll showroom about the deep connection between design and humanity.

NeoCon Keynote | The Power of Affirmation: Yinka IIori in conversation with
Khoi Vo and Cheryl Durst

The best conversations are engaging, moving, and thought-provoking. Those exact qualities were on display during Tuesday’s “fireside chat” style keynote, when British-Nigerian multi-disciplinary artist and designer Yinka Ilori sat down with Cheryl Durst, and Khoi Vo, CEO of ASID. Ilori, celebrated for his vibrant public installations and colorful aesthetic, spoke about the power of design storytelling, the importance of respecting the past while moving into the future, and the philosophy behind some of his projects, including the design of a flamingo-inspired playground in East London.

Coined the “architect of joy,” Ilori talked about how he blends the local and global through his use of color and Nigerian folklore, discussed his first love (chair design), and shared the importance of spreading joy through design. When kids play, he said, “they play with great freedom, but adults sometimes lose that will to be free and creative. … It’s my responsibility to remind us that we need joy.” Know what else brought joy? Colorful tote bags designed by Ilori as part of his new collection with Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering. Handed out as swag at the Momentum showroom, those vibrant totes were the talk of NeoCon, and a seriously hot commodity—consider yourself lucky if you snagged one!

(Below: Khoi Vo, Yinka Ilori, and Cheryl Durst. Photo by Elliot Mandel)