About the Design Society

We are an association of individuals across the world who deeply care about design: How we create new artefacts and systems, how we think about this creation process, and what is the impact of human-created artefacts on the world we live in and on ourselves. We express our caring for design through our efforts in research, education, practice, and outreach.

Objectives

The objectives of the Society are to promote the development and propagation of design knowledge across all disciplines by:

• creating and evolving a formal body of knowledge about design and designing;
• supporting and improving design research, education, practice, and management;
• promoting co-operation among design researchers, practitioners, educators and managers;
• promoting design publications and their dissemination;
• organising international and national conferences, workshops, and student events;
• operating Special Interest Groups on different design topics and regional Chapters;
• co-operating with other bodies with similar and complementary design interests.

Origins and Activities

The Design Society was founded in 2000 building on the previous activities of the Workshop Design Konstruktion (WDK) group, especially the organisation of the International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED) series of conferences held since 1981. The Design Society is constituted as a Charity under Scottish law and is incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee and Not Having a Share Capital under UK law (Companies Act, 2006). The Articles of Association state the rules governing how the Society is to be run as a company, and incorporate the terms of the original Constitution. A copy of the Articles is available by emailing the Society's administrator .

Since 2000 the Society has held the ICED conferences biennially in Stockholm, Melbourne, Paris, Stanford, Copenhagen, Seoul, Milan, Vancouver, Delft, Gothenburg and Bordeaux. Other Society events include hosting or endorsing the conferences Engineering and Product Design Education, International Conference on Design Creativity; DESIGN, Design for X (DFX), Dependency and Structure Modeling (DSM), International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD), International Conference on Advanced Design Research and Education (ICADRE), and NordDesign. The Society publishes the journal Design Science in collaboration with Cambridge University Press, and a wide range of conference papers and proceedings; it maintains a portfolio of design resources available to members on this website, including a repository of doctoral theses; and it endorses and supports a number of design research journals, doctoral summer schools, workshops and other speciality events. Its Special Interest Groups (SIGs) address a range of design topics of current interest, and its branches in Asia and North America serve as a regional focus of activities. The Society is particularly keen in supporting young design researchers.

Impressum/Imprint

The Design Society is a charitable body, registered in Scotland under number SC 031694 and registered at:

DMEM, University Of Strathclyde,
75 Montrose Street,
Glasgow,
United Kingdom, G1 1XJ. 

The administrative address where all members mail should be sent to is:

The Design Society,
109 Dundee Drive,
Glasgow,
United Kingdom, G52 3HL.

Tel: +44 (0) 7767 165 026

To contact the Administrative team, please send an e-mail to: admin@designsociety.org

The Society is governed by the Board of Management.

To contact the Board of Management, please send an e-mail to: president@designsociety.org.