Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education
 
Professor Sir Christopher Frayling who represents the College of Medallists on The Awards Committee, read the citation for University of Brighton Design Archives:
 
Since the 1970s — around the time of Misha Black’s retirement from the Royal College of Art — the University of Brighton, even before it became a university, has been, as it continues to be, at the forefront of the history and interpretation of design in this country. Its courses on, and research into, the history of industrial design on the one hand, and the history of dress on the other, helped to lay the foundations of the subject — long before there were any journals or magazines devoted to it, or museums or exhibitions or broadcasts, come to that. When, in the early 1980s, we at the RCA were setting up our postgraduate programme in the history of design — in close partnership with the V&A — we turned to the Open University for help with architecture and Modernism, to the Courtauld for the decorative arts and especially textiles, and to Brighton for design, and design for manufacture.  

But tonight’s well-deserved award for innovation in design education, building on that tradition, is for one particular aspect of Brighton’s long-term commitment to the subject—and that is the Brighton Design Archives. These archives, which have expanded very considerably in content and ambition over the past 20 years, consist of an assembly of over 20 collections of material from design administrators, design managers, professional organisations, and from some of the most significant individual designers of the 20th Century. The archives include those of the Design Council, the Design Centre — right back into the origins — the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) — with which Misha Black, and indeed our host Mary Mullin, were closely connected — and the International Council of Graphic Design Association (ICOGRADA), as well as the personal papers of F.H.K. Henrion, Barbara Jones and Theo Crosby among many others. Many organisations and individuals have been keen to deposit their archives somewhere safe and dependable — and in the right cultural context — and they knew they could rely on Brighton.

I can remember when the Design Council archive — going back to the old Council of Industrial Design days — was transferred to Brighton. I happened to be on the Design Council at the time — and this coincided with new guidelines from the Ministry about transparency and the public availability of the Minutes of Meetings. Whenever anyone said anything outrageous, which was surprisingly often, another member of the Council was almost bound to turn to the minute-taker and add, “Remember, this could end up in Brighton.” (So I’m afraid you got the version with ‘expletives deleted’.)

These archives have been recognised as of international significance by the key funding bodies the Getty Institute, the late lamented Higher Education Funding Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.

But the reason for this Award tonight isn’t only for the contents of the Archives, and their preservation for future generations, increasingly important though these are. It is also, and primarily, for their pioneering work since the early 2000s in the areas of access and digitisation — engaging their various publics, specialist and non-specialist — in both processes and content, and putting the Brighton Design Archives at the forefront of debate about the very nature and significance of archival work today. Much has been written about this aspect of their operation. At the same time, the Archives’ collecting policy has emphasised lesser-known as well as better-known designers; women and design; ethnic minorities and design — all of which are of great interest to today’s up-and-coming scholars researching questions of identity. Its access policy has enabled researchers — from academe and from professional practice — from all over the world, to make intellectual and creative use of its holdings; and its visual images have appeared in numerous exhibitions and catalogues. The Archives also host a number of their own doctoral students researching design and curatorial issues.

All of which we took into account when making the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education this year to the Design Archives at the University of Brighton. We were unanimous in our judgement that they were especially worthy recipients — of whom Misha himself would no doubt have wholeheartedly approved.

Citation for The Award