IDEO at a Glance

IDEO is a design company known for its human-centered, interdisciplinary approach. As early leaders in the practice of design thinking, we create positive impact through design by applying our creative mindsets and skills, and by teaching others to do the same. We help clients and customers around the world build the capacity and outcomes required to navigate today’s complexity and lead their markets.

As problem solvers, we drive change, build new ventures, and design digital and tangible experiences for business, social, and governmental sectors through co-creation with our clients. As teachers, we help individuals, teams and organizations cultivate the confidence they need to step into the future with optimism and creativity.

We are 600+ designers, builders, entrepreneurs, engineers, data and behavioral scientists, teachers, researchers, and other specialists.

We have studios in North America (Cambridge, Chicago, Palo Alto, San Francisco), Europe (London, Munich) and Asia (Shanghai, Tokyo), as well as project spaces around the world.

IDEO's managing leaders today are distributed globally across our studios, so we no longer have a headquarters in the traditional sense.

Fast Facts

IDEO’s roots date back to 1978 in Palo Alto, California.
We started calling ourselves IDEO in 1991.
IDEO is pronounced “EYE-dee-oh.”
We’re part of the kyu collective.
Our founder is David Kelley. Our co-CEOs are Tim Brown and Paul Bennett.

IDEO’s interdisciplinary teams blend expertise drawn from dozens of skills and domains. Here are just a few:

Brand Communications
Circular Economy
Citizen-centered Government
Digital Transformation
Learning & Education
Emerging Media
Environment
FinTech
Food Science
Health & Wellness
Mobility
Toys, Games & Play
Venturing

In addition to design and consulting services, we offer resources for building the creative capacity of individuals, teams, and organizations:

ExperienceInnovation
Innovation and change workshops and facilitation for team-based learning.

IDEO CoLab
A platform for collaborative impact that brings organizations together to tackle emerging opportunities.

IDEO U
An online school that teaches design-based problem-solving skills.

OpenIDEO
An open innovation practice that builds communities to tackle social challenges.

The Teachers Guild x School Retool
Building the capacity of school communities to set and pursue equity aspirations, so that every student is future-ready, no matter who they are, where they live, or how they learn.