Conferences, congresses, courses and competitions

A large part of the Council"s remit was concerned with education, and DCA/13 contains material illustrating the specific forms some of these initiatives took. It consists of administrative files for a wide spectrum of conferences, congresses, courses and competitions organized in conjunction with, and on behalf of industry, educators and the retail sector. 5 of the files date from the 1950s, but the overwhelming majority are from the 1960s and 1970s.

The early material is quite diverse and relates to (eg.) early Council congresses; initiatives to do with colour, and the farming environment; as well as various aspects of training for the retail and distributive sector. But from 1970 management and European issues increasingly dominate, and following the Council"s name change in 1972, aspects of engineering design assume greater importance. There is a long chronological sequence of files associated with the Poster Awards administered by the Council from 1962 onwards (numbered 377). Their partners in this venture varied over time but included the Advertising Association, Advertising Creative Circle, British Federation of Master Printers, British Poster Advertising Association, British Transport Advertising Ltd, Civic Trust, Confederation of British Industry, Design and Industries Association, Display Producers and Screen Printers Association, Incorporated Society of British Advertisers Ltd, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Society of Industrial Artists (and Designers), Society of Typographic Designers, Solus Outdoor Advertising Association, Town Planning Institute (Town and Country Planning Association).

The Training Services Section is responsible for opening many of the files in this series.

The surviving files have been retained in their original numeric order as allocated by the Council"s Registry. This means that records in a series do not necessarily have consecutive file numbers, and may not be located together.

Record created by Lesley Whitworth, with minor edits by Sue Breakell, August 2010.

The work of the Training Services Section is also strongly represented in DCA/19.

Whitworth, Lesley, "Promoting Product Quality: the Co-op and the Council of Industrial Design", in Lawrence Black and Nicole Robertson (eds), 'Taking Stock: The Co-operative Movement in Twentieth Century Britain', Manchester: Manchester University Press, (2009).