News | University of Brighton Design Archives

A black and white portrait of Sir Misha Black. Taken from the Design Council Archive housed at the University of Brighton Design Archives.

University of Brighton Design Archives honoured with the Sir Misha Black Award

The award, considered one of the most prestigious of its kind, is in recognition of the “innovative work in building an impressive complex of resources that embrace teaching, research, the preservation of knowledge and its dissemination nationally and internationally”. The Award for Innovation in Design Education was inaugurated in 1998 to recognise those who, by…

Archivist presents papers in Manchester and Venice this month

On Friday 9 February, Archivist Sue Breakell gives the invited keynote address at a symposium organised by the AHRC-funded project ‘Life on the Outskirts’, at Manchester Metropolitan University. The project explores the multiple challenges and opportunities faced by small creative archive collections and those working with them, using the archive of the fashion designer and…

A colour image of the accompanying book cover for the Design On Britain exhibition at the Jewish Museum in London, 2017

‘Designs on Britain’ exhibition

The University of Brighton Design Archives has lent 35 works to a major exhibition opening next week at the Jewish Museum in London. The exhibition considers the significant influence of Jewish designers who migrated from other parts of Europe during the twentieth century, escalating the influence of continental modernism on design in Britain. The Design…

A colour photograph showing tobacco packaging collected by Barbara Jones. Photo: University of Brighton Design Archives.

Two Design Archives presentations with an urban focus on same day

On 16 June the Curatorial Director and Deputy Curator will each be speaking at events with an urban focus. Catherine Moriarty at ‘The City as Modernist Ephemera’ at London South Bank University and Lesley Whitworth at ‘Architecture, Citizenship, Space: British Architecture from the 1920s to the 1970s’ at Oxford Brookes University. Lesley Whitworth’s invited presentation examines…

A colour photograph of Sue Breakell looking at archival boxes at the University of Brighton Design Archives

Design Archives receives further HEFCE endorsement

The University of Brighton Design Archives has retained its place among the country’s top museums, galleries and collections by once again receiving funding from the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE). Funding was first awarded in 2010 and, following a competitive review process that took place in Summer 2016, the archives will continue to receive £60,000…

A collage of three posters from the Design Council Archive, advertising events in the Design Centre. University of Brighton Design Archives.

Design Archives collaborate with Margaret Howell

Partnerships underpin many of the activities of the University of Brighton Design Archives be they AHRC studentships, research council-funded projects or artist residencies. This year, we have teamed up with leading British designer Margaret Howell to support the charity Open City. Curating an annual calendar project, Margaret Howell has previously collaborated with the RIBA and…

Britain Can Make It

To mark the 70th anniversary of the 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition, the Design Archives have launched several initiatives to provoke research and showcase our resources. The original Britain Can Make It catalogue and its supplements have been digitised to increase access to this important research resource. Published by the Council of Industrial Design,…

A colour photograph of a rusty paperclip on an archival piece of paper

‘Materiality and the visual arts archive: matter and meaning’

Booking is open for a symposium on materiality in art and design archives, organised by the Committee for Art and Design Archives (part of ARLIS/UK and Ireland) in collaboration with the University of Brighton Design Archives, taking place on the 23 September. Within the expanding digital environment that encompasses professional and personal experience, ideas of…

A colour photograph of students from the FACP Archive Research meeting the Design Archives on the South Downs in Brighton

Archives collaborate to trace history of Critical Fine Art Practice

In 1971, a group of art students working in photography and film, interested in questions of visual perception and new practices of conceptual art, set up a studio at Brighton School of Art and called it Experimental Studies. By the mid 1970s the students and early conceptual artists who taught in Experimental Studies – including John Hilliard,…

General view of the Design Research Society exhibition at the University of Brighton Gallery. Curated by Dr Lesley Whitworth.

Design Research & Its Participants

Design Research & Its Participants is an invited curatorial intervention in the fiftieth anniversary conference of the Design Research Society, taking place in Brighton 24-27 June. Curated by Dr Lesley Whitworth, Design Archives’ Deputy Curator, the exhibition examines the inter-play of individuals associated with a range of design organisations active in the later twentieth century….