Archiving Design Organisations: A Design Archives seminar
6 June 2011, University of Brighton

Curators, scholars and students meet on June 6, 2011, to discuss the issues of “Archiving Design Organisations”. Funded by the Design History Society, the seminar is held at the University of Brighton, whose Design Archives hold the archives design organisations such as Design Council, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).

The aim of this seminar is to develop discussion about particular issues related to the archives of design organisations. As well as including museums, regional archives and university collections, it will engage design organisations that face the challenge of balancing the need to record and preserve their significant heritage with the current demands of records management in a digital era. The histories
of design organisations are critical in explaining the wider context of how and why design is provoked, produced, and promoted in broad political and economic frameworks both nationally and internationally.
Similarly, it is research into design organisations that has the most potential for engaging other disciplines and research communities, extending the remit of design history within and beyond the humanities.

Speakers will include:
Professor Jonathan Woodham, Director of Research, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton (introduction); Leah Armstrong, AHRC doctoral student (the design profession and the archive of the CSD: a research project); Jo Maude, Design & Art Direction (the D&AD and the archive challenge); Donna Loveday, Design Museum (the Design Museum: its heritage and its future); Susan Bennett, William Shipley Group for RSA history (Over two centuries of design history : the RSA archive).