The Design Council (founded in 1944) is the world's first government-funded design promotional body. Founded before the end of the Second World War and originally called the Council of Industrial Design (CoID), it owed its origins to the wish of the UK government's Board of Trade to see British manufacturers increase their performance as exporters of goods. It was believed that competition in world markets would be fiercer than ever in the post-war period, and progress made by other nations towards greater sophistication in their product design needed to be equalled by industrialists at home. At the same time, British retailers, educators and the buying public were considered to be important audiences for the Council"s message. In the wake of the Council"s foundation similar bodies were established in many other countries.
Under its Directors (SC Leslie from 1944, Gordon Russell from 1947, Paul Reilly from 1959, Keith Grant from 1977, Ivor Owen from 1988, Andrew Summers from 1995, and David Kester from 2003) the Council has continued to evolve in response to the changing agendas and funding allocations of successive governments. By 1947 the Council"s internal organisation was being described as binary; its Industrial Division sought to promote the manufacture of better designed goods, and its Information Division sought to promote a responsive audience for those goods. There were sections for Education, Retail and Exhibitions within the Information Division. With minor alterations this broad arrangement continued through to the late 1970s, after which time the Council significantly scaled back its work for the Central Office of Information and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A decade later following a fundamental review it also abandoned its Marketing Services and the Design Selection initiative that had recognised well designed goods in their thousands since 1956, having been trialed at the Festival of Britain. The long established Design Council label, a black and white quartered triangle was discontinued at the same time. By this same date the Council was administering awards worth around £1,000,000 on behalf of external institutions and companies. These included Toshiba Year of Invention, Schools Design Prize, BICC Engineering Design Prize, Burton Group Design Awards, Leverhulme Travelling Scholarships in Industrial Design, Walter Worboys Memorial Trust Fund Scholarships, and the Molins Design Prize. In 1997, following another lengthy re-examination of its role, the streamlined Council adopted a revised three-pronged approach. This placed a new emphasis on the commissioning and generation of design-related research, as well as building new awareness, and creating new resources and partnerships. It was responsible for the delivery of the government"s Millennium Products initiative to identify designs that would inspire product development in the 21st century.
The Council is still in existence (http://www.design-council.org.uk/). Between 1956 and 1998 it operated from the Haymarket Design Centre in London; a public showroom that was latterly complemented by a series of regional UK operations. In the earliest years the Council occupied offices in Petty France, London, and they now have premises in Bow Street, Covent Garden. The name change occurred in 1972 when the Council embraced the more technological spectrum of engineering design. After the 1990's re-structuring a new home was sought for its historic documentation. The archive then moved to the University of Brighton. Throughout the Council"s existence, raising awareness of the importance of design for the economy and society has remained its central tenet.
From the guide to the Design Council Archive, 1944 - [ongoing], (University of Brighton Design Archives)
