Without abandoning its impressive grounding in local architectural history, an outward-looking A&D is re-tooling its strategy. The department’s collection traditionally has been dominated by architectural drawings and plans; today, Ryan and Rosa acquire objects in disciplines ranging from interiors and furnishings to industrial design and fashion to new media. In the first exhibition she’s curated for the museum—“Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Graphic Design,” opening Thursday 27—Ryan examines communication design.

Ryan says graphic design was an obvious choice for a show because it’s everywhere: “Graphics are so important to our everyday life, to how we navigate and interpret the world around us,” she says. You can’t accuse the Art Institute of grandstanding: Instead of feting a celebrity graphic designer such as Bruce Mau or Stefan Sagmeister, the museum has enabled Ryan to focus on the English design consultancy Graphic Thought Facility, which is virtually unknown in the U.S.

Ryan’s subject is all the more remarkable because GTF—which was founded by Paul Neale, Andrew Stevens and Nigel Robinson in 1990—doesn’t represent the cutting edge of contemporary graphics. The firm has blue-chip clients such as the London Design Centre, home furnishings retailer Habitat and the Frieze Art Fair, and its portfolio encompasses mostly printed materials rather than digital media. But GTF’s ability to lend a handmade, individually crafted look to mass communication has put it at the forefront of its field: Its brilliant, customizable MeBoxes epitomize its clever DIY aesthetic.

GTF’s approach is a reaction to graphic-design trends rooted in the 1980s and 1990s. It rejects both the slickness that resulted from digital excess and what Chicago designer Arnold Goodwin calls “the cult of the hero-centric designer”: a prima donna foisting genius ideas on unwitting clients. “They don’t come with big manifestos,” Ryan observes. GTF has by no means turned its back on new technology, but “they’ve slowed down the process and look at graphics as a craft,” she says. This makes their work appropriate to A&D’s new mission, which Ryan describes as “trying to expand the definition of what design is, and how it’s presented in a museum setting.” Design devotees will certainly be watching; for A&D’s sake, we can only hope that others will be converted.

“Graphic Thought Facility” runs through August 17.