1985
The Innovation Centre opened at the Design Centre, to provide a showcase for ‘novel high tech products’ and to tell the stories behind them.
After visiting the Drive Forward exhibition, Mrs Thatcher was quoted on the front cover of 1985’s annual report linking great British design to the success of the UK economy.
1987
The Safer by Design exhibition, and its accompanying book on ‘managing and designing for product safety’ helped companies and individual designers protect themselves against customer dissatisfaction and compensation claims.
1989
Cartoonist Mel Calman helped to explain the Design Council’s services with a series of cartoon illustrations used in booklets and postcards.
1990
D magazine was launched to showcase student design in Europe. A year earlier Princess Anne opened the Young Designer’s Centre, an educational space within the Design Centre aimed at schoolchildren and students in colleges and universities.
1994
The Design Council was reborn as a new, slimmed-down organisation, more like a think tank. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Chairman John Sorrell launched a future-gazing initiative which saw children across the country filling and burying time capsules.
1997
Prime Minister Tony Blair launched Millennium Products, which set out to gather and celebrate 1 ,000 examples of British design and innovation in the run-up to the year 2000.
1998
The Design Council left its Haymarket headquarters after 42 years and moved to its current home in Bow Street. The third and fourth floors of a former BT telephone exchange were redesigned for us by interior designer Ben Kelly.
2000
Millennium Products got their own showcase at the Millennium Dome when the Spiral of Innovation opened. It was an open-air ramp spiralling 75m along a gentle two-metre incline. Around 500 products and services were featured. Photograph by Edmund Clark.
Now
In the 21st century, we’ve helped business people, communities, technologists, ministers and public sector managers discover design and use it to make the UK competitive and improve everyday life. We’ve also supported educators and designers to help keep UK design among the world’s best. Find out more about our work.