President's Welcome

The Design Society is an international non-governmental, non-profit organisation of design scientists, practitioners and educators. Our members share a common interest in design: the creation and embedding of artifacts in our physical, virtual, psychological, economic, and social environment. Our mission is to contribute to a broad and formalised understanding of all aspects of design, and to promote the use of such generated knowledge for the good of humanity and the world we live in.

The Society was founded in 2001 to continue, broaden, and formalise the earlier activities of the WDK (Workshop-Design-Konstruktion) organization, rooted primarily in engineering design since the 1980s. The Society is broadly based, flexible, democratic, professional and agenda-driven. It encompasses all disciplines relevant to design and transcends national boundaries; while decentralised with respect to geographic regions and cultures, the Society seeks to support and complement national activities. The initiatives, themes, issues and questions addressed by the Design Society are discussed and disseminated through its Special Interest Groups, Chapters, Conferences, Workshops, Summer Schools, and publications, notably, the flagship biennial International Conference in Engineering Design (ICED) and the Design Science journal.

The Society is particularly interested in supporting young design researchers, students and practitioners; and it seeks to cooperate with other societies and associations that share its mission and goals.

We live in an increasingly designed world, not only because of the artefacts and technical systems that we create, but also because of the effect these artefacts have on our entire physical world and the societies we live in. As its creators, we have responsibility for the designed world: to gain deeper knowledge of this design and to implement our gained knowledge for the benefit of all.

We welcome you to join us!

 

Gaetano Cascini
President

For further information please address: president@designsociety.org