The school focuses on systemic and human-centered design with the following graduate-level degree programs:[3] After a spell in London, Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy, at the invitation of Chicago's Association of Art and Industry, moved to Chicago in 1937 to start a new design school, which he named The New Bauhaus.

[4] The philosophy of the school was basically unchanged from that of the original German Bauhaus, and its first headquarters was the Prairie Avenue mansion that architect Richard Morris Hunt, designed for department store magnate Marshall Field.

However, Walter Paepcke, Chairman of the Container Corporation of America and an early champion of industrial design in America, soon offered his personal support, and in 1939, Moholy-Nagy re-opened the school as the Chicago School of Design.

Moholy authored an account of his efforts to develop the curriculum of the School of Design in his book Vision in Motion.

Archival materials are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.