[1] Hermann owned a lumber mill and box-making company, and young Paepcke grew up in an upper-middle-class home.
[1] The company was highly successful and made boxes for Procter & Gamble, Sears Roebuck, and General Electric, among others.
Speakers at the conference included business leaders Stanley Marcus, Andrew McNally III, Harley Earl, and Hans Knoll; and from the design and architecture side, Josef Albers, Louis Kahn, Charles Eames, George Nelson, Elliott Noyes, Leo Lionni, Ben Shahn, Achille Castiglioni, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Herbert Bayer,[4] as well as the architect and architecture critic Peter Blake.
[5][6] The annual conference format included keynote speakers, workshops, panel discussions and informal, social gatherings.
The existence of IDCA established a key collaborative forum on the topic on managing design within corporations for the benefit of society, as well as adding value to business.