Brighton University Design Council Archive

While the Design Council’s slide library was transferred to Manchester in 1995, its archive of photographs, posters and documents was given a new home at Brighton University, which also catalogues the Council’s current material. The archive holds more than 100 000 photographs, the majority being black and white, and 4000 which are digitised. Brighton’s archive holds 200 exhibition posters, all of which are posted on its website in low resolution (72 dpi). It also contains more than 4000 document files relating to the Council’s (in its various guises) initiatives.

Fees for licensing and loaning duplicate images are negotiated on an individual basis, depending on the nature of the client’s work. Commercial projects are charged higher fees than enquiries for images to be used for charitable and educational causes.

Images are divided chronologically by design discipline such as interior design, graphics, textiles and so on. Although there are limited resources for enquiries of the ‘general selection’ variety, anyone with a date or subject in mind can receive a fax of appropriate images to choose from. An appointment system for visitors is in operation. Publishers with larger requests will often send a researcher to the archive for a couple of days to select appropriate images.

The next phase in the archive’s development will be a new on-line facility, which is due to be launched in the Autumn. While it will have an individual Web address yet to be announced, visitors will be able to link directly from the archive’s homepage (see below). Digitally held photographs and posters, giving an overview of the collection, will be available to browse in thumbnail form or used by students directly. Clients will be charged if they want to publish high resolution scans.

Contact: Dr Catherine Moriarty, curator or Dr Lesley Whitworth, assistant curator 01273 643219/09 www.brighton.ac.uk/descoarchive/

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