The Design Council began on 19 December 1944 as the
Council of Industrial Design (COID), founded by
Hugh Dalton,
President of the Board of Trade in the wartime Government. Its objective was 'to promote by all practicable means the improvement of design in the products of British industry'. S. C. Leslie, the council's first director, played an important part in the
Britain Can Make It exhibition of 1946. His 1947 successor Sir
Gordon Russell established the organisational model for the next 40 years. Under
Sir Paul Reilly the organisation changed its name to the
Design Council in 1972. The Design Council was incorporated as a registered charity by royal charter in 1976, On 1 April 2010 it incorporated a subsidiary trading company called Design Council Enterprises Limited to transact "fundraising activities that are not primary-purpose charitable activity." On 1 April 2011, it ceased to be a non-departmental public body of the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and became an independent registered charity, although it continued to receive grants from the department. It also officially merged with the
Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) on the same day although Design Council CABE was incorporated four days earlier. In 2017, Design Council appointed Sarah Weir (OBE) as their CEO.
The Design Centre Sir Gordon Russell, who was heavily involved in the 1951
Festival of Britain, examined ways to reform the education and training of new
industrial designers. The Design Centre, in London's
Haymarket, was officially opened on 26 April 1956.
The Design journal Between 1949 and 1999, the Design Council published
Design (), a "well-regarded magazine of its own" The journal ceased publication after the summer issue of 1999.
The Design for Planet mission In 2021, Minnie Moll introduced a bold new mission to the Design Council: Design for Planet. The mission aims to galvanise and support the 1.97 million people working in the UK's design economy to help address the climate crisis and achieve net zero and beyond, making design regenerative, not extractive. == Awards given ==