What we do

Research at the University of Brighton in design history has pioneered new methods of analysis and practices of interpretation to transform understandings of how design is produced, marketed and consumed. 

In our remit as one of the university's Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs) we support and foster research networks among scholars and practitioners of design not only at the University of Brighton but nationally and internationally. We help bring their work to the attention of new audiences and collaborators, ensuring the impact of their research is felt among communities than can use it for their own development.

Our record in postgraduate research in design history is excellent, and the University of Brighton has created the platform upon which many leading professionals have built their careers in academic research, teaching, archival practices and museum curation.

We collaborate with partners in cultural organisations and design professions on funded research projects in design history leading to publications across a wide spectrum, co-curated exhibitions and public outreach events that reach varied audiences.

Find out how to join us as a member, student, collaborator or visitor.

Our academic themes in the Centre for Design History

The Centre for Design History currently organises its research by five main areas that serve to identify our thematic strengths. Themes are interconnected and many researchers work across and between them.

Transnational design histories

Since the University of Brighton’s earliest developments of design history as a formal discipline in the late 1970s, there has been considerable emphasis on understanding design in its global contexts.

This includes how design historians and cultural analysts address the political and social implications of rapid industrialisation on local design traditions and the imposition of an internationally-orientated language of design.

Researchers in the Centre for Design History are engaged in post-colonial design history writing, considering transnational histories, re-visiting the nodes and locales of design production and exchange, as well as voicing the importance of a re-invigorated and more representative global design map.

Research partners in our Transnational design histories strand include:

  • School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai,
  • Konkuk University, Seoul,
  • Korean Design History Society, Seoul,
  • University of Applied Arts, Vienna, 
  • Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, 
  • Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.

For further information, contact CentreForDesignHistory@brighton.ac.uk.

Asian temple on street corner with colourful street banners

Fashion and dress histories

Histories of dress and fashion are longstanding scholarly interests at the University of Brighton.

Researchers are especially committed to telling the stories that dress and clothing can reveal about those who have been marginalised due to ethnicity, race, geography, gender identity, social position, or simply because they did or do not fit neatly into pre-existing categories.

With our Dress History Teaching Collection and close connections to other institutional collections of dress and textiles, we are particularly interested in object-based scholarship, but our researchers consider a wide range of images, objects and texts in their work.

Research partners in our fashion and dress histories strand include:

  • Austrian Center for Fashion Research,
  • Historic Royal Palaces, UK,
  • Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton and Hove
  • Victoria and Albert Museum, London 
  • Worthing Museum and Art Gallery.

For further information, contact CentreForDesignHistory@brighton.ac.uk.

Grainy photograph of two black male models in fashionable suits and hats. Indoors, bare floorboards and pale pink walls. Seated man in blue, standing man wears a white jacket.

Looks curated by Maria McCloy from the exhibition Fashion Cities Africa, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Image courtesy of James Pike and The Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust.

Design Activism 

This strand of research of the Centre for Design History draws on a longstanding focus of scholarship at University of Brighton on visual and material culture as the embodiment of activism.  

Harnessing a range of analytical methodologies, our research focuses on recent and longer term histories of activism through design, and also identifies design history as a potential form of activism. We develop new perspectives on the history and contemporary significance of dispersed objects and images of design activism - including posters, pamphlets, billboards, banners, zines, exhibitions and items of clothing - as an often disregarded part of social, cultural and political life.

We place an emphasis on how these objects of design activism, across diverse media, intersect socially and spatially with the urban experience and the identity politics of various communities. This takes research into design activism into an ‘expanded field’.  

Our research partners in the Design Activism strand include:

  • University of Basel; Bauhaus Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin,
  • Hochschule der Künste Bern / Haute école des arts de Berne, 
  • ECAL, École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne, 
  • Parsons The School for Design, New York,
  • University of São Paulo; Tsuda University, Tokyo.

For further information, contact CentreForDesignHistory@brighton.ac.uk. 

Patterns of stuck, ripped paper. Traces of wheat-pasted posters on hoardings in New York. Photograph courtesy of Alex Todd

Traces of wheat-pasted posters on hoardings in New York. Photograph courtesy of Alex Todd

Museums, archives, and exhibitions

The Centre for Design History in collaboration with the University of Brighton Design Archives reframes research into the relationship between museums, exhibitions, archives and design.

Our work centres on the historical and contemporary practice of exhibition design, the display and interpretation of designed objects in museums and collections, and the social, economic and political agency of museums, exhibitions and archives as designed objects. Our scholarship ranges from the theoretical to the applied, spanning the modern era to the contemporary. We have particular interests in decolonial/postcolonial and participatory approaches to design and our practice-based initiatives probe the relations between design, exhibiting and collecting. We host a thriving postgraduate community and a lively programme of talks by practitioners, and many of us work in formal collaboration with the institutions we study.

Research partners in our Museums, archives and exhibitions strand include:

  • The British Museum, London,
  • De La Warr Pavilion, Hastings,
  • Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture, 
  • Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove,
  • Victoria & Albert Museum, London,
  • Shiv Nadar University’s Center for Archaeology, Heritage and Museums.

For further information, contact CentreForDesignHistory@brighton.ac.uk.

Exhibition overview James Gardner Evoluon

Sustainability in design

The Sustainability in Design strand at the Centre for Design History critically examines how sustainability is, and has been framed, practiced, and perpetuated through design and its histories. 

We challenge dominant narratives in design that prioritise Western-centric, technology-driven solutions rooted in individualism, design heroism, and white saviourism. Instead, we explore whose histories, systems, and knowledges are sustained—or excluded—through dominant modes of design and its practices.

Our work moves beyond tracing the history of sustainable design to interrogate the "design of design" itself—its systems, structures, and the unsustainable legacies they have created. We question the politics, economics, and geographies underpinning design, centring marginalised perspectives and practices to rethink sustainability as a pluriversal and relational concept.

By addressing these intertwined concerns, we aim to reframe sustainability through a lens that is inclusive, critical, and deeply aware of design's complicity in perpetuating unsustainable systems while seeking transformative alternatives. This strand contributes to contemporary sustainability research by foregrounding relational, systemic, and justice-focused approaches to design. 

Research partners in our Sustainability strand include: 

  • Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, 
  • Media Design School, Auckland New Zealand, 
  • National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, 
  • School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, India. 

 

Stick tipped in honey resting on a pebble: a CDH sustainability workshop run by Dr Sarah Baker.

Honey and a pebble: sharing positionality through taste and materials during a CDH workshop run by Dr Sarah Baker from the Media Design School, Auckland, NZ, 2023. Photograph courtesy of Sally Sutherland.

 

Our impact and outreach from the Centre for Design History

A hallmark of research in the Centre for Design History is the strong relationships between University of Brighton researchers and partners in the cultural sector (principally galleries and museums) on research projects that support high-level research.

These provide significant financial underpinning for published outcomes (catalogues), online platforms and exhibitions while leading to wide public engagement through visitor figures and public outreach programmes for informal and formal learning.

History of design research at Brighton has pioneered new methods of analysis and practices of interpretation to transform understandings of how design is produced, marketed and consumed:

  • Firstly, it has changed understanding among policy makers and professionals of how transnational networks of design work.
  • Secondly, it has shaped the study and public appreciation of the history of design through publication and exhibition, and it has determined the kind of design that is collected and displayed.
  • Thirdly, it has become an international nucleus for curriculum development in design history with impact on the teaching of the subject at all levels, nationally and internationally.
  • The University of Brighton’s pioneering work in the history of design has changed the way design is taught and the way it is viewed.

Who we work with

The place of the University of Brighton in establishing international dialogue as a centre of excellence in Design History is witnessed by the active interchange with academic partners located in institutions across the world.

Among the most notable of these are the Papanek Foundation, University of Applied Arts, Vienna; National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; Ambedkar University, New Delhi; Research Centre for Material Culture, Leiden; Cooper Hewitt - Parsons New School, New York; Wolfsonian Florida International University; Tsuda University, Tokyo; University of São Paulo, and University of Rennes.

The Centre for Design History’s partnership and co-location with the University of Brighton Design Archives ensures researchers of international standing regularly visit the university and through which new fruitful exchanges and plans are developed. 

In Brighton, the Centre for Design History benefits from a close partnership with the Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton and Hove, enhanced by co-curation and research projects across a range of collections, and collaborative doctoral supervision.

Other key partnerships in the Sussex region include with De La Warr Pavilion, investigating the opportunities for digital engagement with museums and galleries led by Dr Lara Perry and with Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, in Objects Unwrapped, uncovering hidden histories of objects from the museum’s collections led by Dr Annebella Pollen.

Many Centre for Design History members lead PhD design history studentships in the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards scheme. These have involved partnership with, among others, the British Museum, V&A Museum, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Design Museum and National Science and Media Museum, Bradford. 

High viewpoint of a group seated around a long table each sewing a section of a tapestry replica of Picasso's Guernica

Public sewing at Jubilee Library, Brighton, remaking a tapestry banner of Picasso's Guernica. Image courtesy Dr Nicola Ashmore.

Our research output from the Centre for Design History

Details of research publications and other outputs fostered by the centre and achieved by its members, along with funded projects delivered by the centre, can be accessed on the Centre for Design History's database of research.

Our recently funded projects