Design Center

The Design Center began in 2003 with the creation of several hand-painted skirts for a Little City fund raising event. Recognizing the quality of the designs, the daughter of the late San Francisco fashion designer Beverly Jordan bestowed seed money to create a new vocational program in textile art.

Using techniques in textiles, silk screening, bead work, embroidery and sewing, the Design Center has enabled our artists to create one-of-a-kind works of art that have been displayed in gallery exhibitions. The Design Center’s Wearable Art products have been featured in the State of Illinois Thompson Center, the Palatine (Illinois) Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Arts Alliance Conference fashion shows. The Design Center was also featured on ABC News, Chicago. Products are available online and in Chicago area boutiques.

The Design Center's philosophy combines creative, vocational and business skills, creating a social entrepreneurial model in which our artists take ownership in the processes of design, creation and sales of their work. The program runs five days a week employing Little City residents full time and affords job opportunities for the artists to work for an hourly wage.

In our ongoing effort to create new artistic programming, the Design Center expanded in 2008, with the addition of a ceramics program. The two new studios, Ceramics-Pottery and Hand Building–Sculpture, promote hand-eye coordination and open the program to our visually impaired artists by offering tactile methods of creativity and interaction.