International Design Organizations

This innovative volume brings together international design scholars to address the history and present-day status of national and international design organizations, working across design disciplines and located in countries including Argentina, Turkey, Estonia, Switzerland, Italy, China and the USA. In the second half of the 20th century, many non-governmental organizations were created to address urgent cultural, economic and welfare issues. Design organizations set out to create an international consensus for the future direction of design. This included enhancing communication between professionals, educators and practitioners, raising standards for design, and creating communities of designers across linguistic, national and political borders. Shared needs and agendas were identified and categories of design constantly defined and re-defined, often with overt cultural and political intents. Drawing on an impressive range of original research, archival sources and oral testimony, this volume questions the aims and achievements of national and international design organizations in light of their subsequent histories and their global remits. The Cold War period is central to the book, while many chapters draw on post-colonial perspectives to interpret how transnational networks and negotiations took place at events and congresses, and through publication.

Jeremy Aynsley is Professor of Design History and founding Director of the Centre for Design History at the University of Brighton, UK. Alison J. Clarke is Professor of Design History and Theory and founding Director of the Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria. Tania Messell is Researcher in Design History at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) in Basel, Switzerland.

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Preface Introduction, Jeremy Aynsley (University of Brighton, UK), Alison J. Clarke (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria) and Tania Messell (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland) Part One: Professions - Rules - Institutions - Personalities 1. Professional Graphic Design and Cold War Politics: National and Transnational Design Organizations, Dora Souza Dias (Brunel University, UK) 2. One Step before Organizations: Networks, Actors and Trajectories in Argentine Design (1938-1962), Verónica Devalle (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) 3. International Design Organizations and Emigré Identity: Peter Muller-Munk and American Representation in ICSID, 1950-1967, Tania Messell (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland) 4. International Design Organizations as Global Design Advocates: Romance, Reality and Relevance? Jonathan M. Woodham (University of Brighton, UK) Part Two: National - International - Transnational 5. Becoming the International Design Conference in Aspen, Robert Gordon-Fogelson (University of Southern California, USA) 6. ALADI, a Latin American Voice of Design, Juan Buitrago (University of the Valley, Colombia) 7. Internationalizing Japanese Graphic Design: From the Pre-War Period to Today, Yasuko Suga-Ida (Tsuda University, Japan) 8. Shaping National and International Design Policies: the Transnational Trajectory of the Belgian Policymaker Josine des Cressonnières (1926-1985), Katarina Serulus (KU Leuven, Belgium) Part Three: Design Definitions - Epistemologies - Differences 9. Negotiating Graphic Design between National and International Design Organizations: the Case of the Associazione per il Design Industriale in Milan, Chiara Barbieri (ECAL, Switzerland) 10. Tööstuskunsti Komitee: a Case Study of an Invisible Design Organization in Soviet Estonia, Tr'in Jerlei (Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia) 11. Design for Development, ICSID and UNIDO: the Anthropological Turn in 1970s Design, Alison J. Clarke (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria) 12. No "Good Design" Would Come of It: The International Design Conference in Aspen, 1977-2004, Penelope Dean (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) 13. XIN, A Message with Strategic Vision - An Analysis of the Meaning of the 2009 Icograda Bei-jing Congress, Yun Wang (China Design Museum, Republic of China) Select Bibliography