What Are People For
Design Philosophy by Patrick Whitney
Patrick Whitney is a pioneering figure in human-centered and strategic design, who prepared the field to address today’s complex challenges decades before they came.
Whitney served as the Dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design from 1987 to 2016, where he established the first Design PhD program in the United States, before joining Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a Professor in Residence and Brown University School of Public Health as a Distinguished Senior Fellow.
He has published and lectured throughout the world about making technological innovations more humane, the link between design and business strategy, the behavioral dimensions of systems change, learning in the digital age, and design for the base of the economic pyramid.
Through research, advising, mentoring, and teaching, Whitney changed how design is understood, used, and taught around the world.
BusinessWeek profiled Whitney as a “design visionary” for bringing together design and business, Forbes named him as one of six members of the “E-Gang” for his work in human-centered design, and Fast Company has identified him as a “master of design” for linking the creation of user value and economic value.
What Are People For: Design Philosophy by Patrick Whitney is a multimedia legacy project offering a 360 degree view of Patrick Whitney’s life and legacy.
Composed of a documentary film by award-winning filmmaker Gary Hustwit and a book designed by the Smithsonian’s National Design Award recipient Rick Valicenti, What Are People For serves both as a portrait of a visionary thinker and a timely meditation on the role design can play in shaping a more meaningful and democratic future.