Diane L. Louik, 54, president of Urban Essence Designs Inc., an interior design firm, was also a designer of museum-quality jewelry.
Mrs. Louik in 1993 organized a petition drive in Glencoe to urge the village not to kill deer there.
A resident of Glencoe, she died Tuesday in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The clients of her design firm included commercial and residential customers in Chicago and on the North Shore. Her jewelry has been on display in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and at the Volcano Museum in Hawaii.
A graduate of the Harrington Institute of Interior Design, she attended Lake View High School and Wright Junior College.
Mrs. Louik organized an animal rights group called Friends of the Glencoe Deer in an effort to stop village officials from using lethal means to eliminate what they perceived as a surplus of deer there.
In a 1993 Tribune interview, she argued that an increase in the number of deer in the areas was a myth and that the village was sending the wrong message to its children by killing the animals rather than finding other means to resolve the problems created by any deer.
She asked, “In a society where . . . we are trying to curb the insanity of killing and child abuse, why would a well-informed community like Glencoe promote violence and an intolerance of other creatures?”
Her husband, Myron, is her only immediate survivor.
Visitation will be from 9 to 10 a.m. Friday in Weinstein Family Services, 111 Skokie Blvd., Wilmette.
Services will follow there at 10 a.m.
