Advanced Design

Advanced Design is a nonprofit design organization founded in 2016. This group began as a small design sketching workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a handful of students who wanted to further develop their foundational skill set. These students, eager to bring the contagious energy of their workshops to the larger design communit... y, wanted more. This led to the founding of their first ever design conference, SQ1 CON. In addition to its annual conference, Advanced Design works on several key initiatives and developing free resources for the larger design community such as Being, Context, Outreach, Archive, Lens, ReadySetProto, SQ1, and AREA. Advanced Design also plans to tackle issues of mental health, education, politics, as well as the different avenues of design through discourse utilizing its large social platform. Advanced Design now operates between Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, San Francisco and in France, and collaborates with over 50 studios, educators, schools, and design professionals. Since its workshop days, AD has actively cultivated an environment where everyone is excited and eager to learn from some of the industrys best and most forward-thinking professionals. We recognize that no matter the skill level, student or professional, education never ends and we can always learn from one another. In addition to fostering a community-focused design environment, the goal of AD has always been to continue design education outside of the classroom whether it be through refining hard-skills like design sketchingto learning to sell ideas to a client and building leadership skills. Advanced Design is non-profit group lead by Chicago & Milwaukee-based design students and professionals. The team takes on marketing, event planning, and other roles to develop SQ1 and a number of other local events each year.Read More