Chicago—A warm Sunday evening welcomed 80-plus students from Kendall College of Art and Design at Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., to the college's "Big D(esign)" class at NeoCon® 2008. The 13-year-old class is offered to interior design, graphic design, furniture design, and industrial design students.

This year's program continued examining the many facets of practice that make up design with a big "D," while supporting Kendall's focus on social responsibility. Freakonomics author Steven Leavitt's keynote on Monday morning offered a radically different perspective on economics that was not only entertaining, but helped show that there is more than one way to dissect a problem—a good lesson for young design professionals. It was then on to searching the Merchandise Mart for the latest in design, products, messaging, and branding.

Tuesday morning's provocative keynote by Robert Kennedy Jr. provided a thoughtful platform that led into the program at the Gleacher Center at the University of Chicago, where 20 students from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., participated.

This year's program was supported by Haworth, who provided five speakers. Branko Kolarevic, the Haworth chair in integrated design and associate professor of architecture at the University of Calgary, and a specialist in digital media in design and construction, shared insights into the global world of media integration and specifically creating seamless digital collaboration between architecture, engineering and construction within very complex projects. Jeff Reuschel, director of design at Haworth and Rod Vickroy, design director at SmithGroup and former design director of the workplace studio at Perkins+Will, spoke about Haworth's Global Headquarters project, and their experience implementing a research driven project, successful in sustainable objectives, and a leveraged asset in their corporate branding initiative.

Iain Thorpe, Kendall alumni and head of design for North America in the Haworth Design Studio, demonstrated the immensity of global influence and how much it impacts product design, and Nicolai Czumaj-Bront, from the Haworth Design Studio, shared his experience as an industrial designer. Urshula Barbour and Paul Carlos, partners in Pure+Applied, a practice that works in publishing and exhibit design addressed the challenge of teaching integrated design, running a studio, generating ideas, selecting clients, and finding time to sleep.

The day at Gleacher Center ended with Rose Tourje and Lila Grant, the founder and the vice president of strategic management, respectively, for the Asset Network for Education Worldwide (ANEW), a nonprofit organization that collects, organizes, and repurposes surplus FF&E for donation to the underserved. Under the tagline "Doing right with what's left," they have created an environmentally, fiscally, and socially responsible solution to prevent tons of used materials from going to landfills while satisfying the needs of many who would otherwise go without. After an architectural boat tour, Wednesday wrapped the class with the Merchandise Mart's annual student day activities.

—Michelle Kleyla