Design in action!

Founded in London in 1963 as Icograda, ico-D is the world body for professional graphic design and visual communication. ico-D network members include professional associations, design promotion bodies, design media and design education institutions. Design media are affiliated through the International Design Media Network.

Founded in 1914 as the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA is now known simply as “AIGA, the professional association for design”. It is the profession’s oldest and largest professional membership organization for design – with 70 chapters and more than 25,000 members. It works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines on business, society and the collective future.

GDC is a Canada’s national certification body for graphic and communication design and, since 1956, has established standards for design professionals, educators, and leaders. It advocates for the advancement of the design profession and it is a member-based organization of design professionals: designers, educators, administrators, students and affiliates in communications, marketing, media and design-related fields.

JAGDA was established in 1978 under the strong leadership of the late Yusaku Kamekura, who built the foundation for post-war graphic design in Japan with such masterpieces as the posters for the Tokyo Olympics. Through such activities, JAGDA has been contributing to the development of graphic design in Japan, and in the future aims to support the dynamic work of designers with even more broadened horizons.

ALADI, the Latin American Association of Design, was founded in 1980 in Bogotá, when a group of visionary designers took the first steps to give Latin America a presence in design at a world level. It promotes national and international agreements, research projects, conferences, and so on, and is also interested in all activities related to design and production.

Spanish non-profit organization of international scope constituted to coordinate and integrate the national community of designers. The different READ member associations of designers share the objectives of disseminating the culture of design, promoting the sector's activity and making it more visible, strengthening the status of design professionals and contributing to the transformation of the business sector.

The Catalan Association of Graphic Designers is an organization advocating the interests of people working in this profession. The Association provides an excellent opportunity for the graphic design industry to effectively organize professional practice and everything related to the world of graphic communication.

Private, independent and non-profit association whose objective is to promote design and architecture in Catalan cultural and economic life. Founded in 1903, FAD has become the centre of reference of design and architecture in Catalonia and Spain thanks to its constant work for the promotion of creative culture through exhibitions, professional talks, awards and events.

The Barcelona Design Centre (BCD) promotes design as a strategic element for business excellence and as a key factor for innovation as well as a discipline that can improve people's quality of life. Legally established as a private not-for-profit foundation in 1973, it is a promotion and information centre devoted to all aspects of design in business.

Multidisciplinary, nation-wide, non-profit organization of designers founded in Barcelona in 1978. One of its missions is to champion the interests of design professionals.

European not-for-profit organization headquartered in Brussels. It boasts 47 members from some 25 European countries who represent designers in every discipline of work.

The Asociación de Directores de Arte y Diseñadores Gráficos (ADG – Association of Art Directors and Graphic Designers), is a non-profit organization and member of Fomento de las Artes y del Diseño (FAD – Fostering Arts and Design). Since 1964 it has been organizing the Laus awards for graphic design, advertising and visual communication.

Trade association that brings together illustrators interested in the common defence of their professional rights. It currently boasts the support of over 500 illustrators from every branch of applied visual creation.

Barcelona's leading public facility for highlighting and promoting design and the creative industries in the city.

This core document defines ico-D’s position on design education. The Manifesto advocates that design education be a learning-centred environment, enabling students to develop their potential in and beyond academic programmes.

The Icograda Design Education Manifesto was developed in 2000 through the collaboration of an international group of designers.

This report is fruit of a collaborative effort that was led by UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) and the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. It provides empirical evidence that the creative industries are among the most dynamic emerging sectors in world trade.

A professional designer adheres to principles of integrity that demonstrate respect for the profession, for colleagues, for clients, for audiences or consumers and for society as a whole. These standards define what is expected of a professional designer and represent what distinguishes an AIGA member in the practice of design.

The object is to state the principles for an international basis of ethical standards related to the practise of design that are accepted by all member organisations of ico-D: the designer’s responsibility to the community, to the client, to other designers, etc.

Report by DDi (state agency for the development of design and innovation) aimed at raising awareness among a larger number of enterprises of the importance and strategic value of design for competitiveness. Some of it has been developed in partnership with other European design centres to enable a comparison between countries and the assessment of different alternatives concerning design promotion policies.

Guide by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports aimed at providing information to citizens about assistance for projects, grants or residencies for artists or cultural managers, creation centres, and on so, available in the field of visual arts at different levels: regional, ministerial and European.

The Icograda Archive is held by the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom. It comprises the Icograda’s library holdings and institutional documentation and an important poster collection (which includes more than 1,500 posters from 33 countries dating from the early 1960s through to the late 1980s). This collection affords the opportunity to study aspects of the history of communication design.

Les Arts Décoratifs is a unique resource centre for the decorative arts, fashion, textiles and advertising. Its vocation is to inform French and foreign amateurs, professional, students, researchers, schoolchildren and their teachers, whether at the museum, by post or via Internet. The collection consists of books, related dossiers and thousands of pieces from the various fields of the decorative and applied arts.

Consultation and research space specialized in decorative arts and design (graphic, industrial, textile, interior, fashion and services). It aims to collect and preserve documentation related to all these subjects.

It brings together the collections of four of the city’s museums: the Museu de les Arts Decoratives (devoted to the decorative arts), the Museu de Ceràmica (ceramics), the Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària (textiles and clothing) and the Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques (graphic arts).

AThis electronic resource includes documents on modern and contemporary art, design and crafts and the history of Western art, covering a period that runs from the end of the 19th century to the present day.. It also includes content from the following sources:

• Arts and Humanities Full Text
• Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI)
• International Bibliography of Art (IBA)

It is a curated database and the video streaming service of Contemporary Arts Media and Artfilms for academic libraries. It offers more than 5,000 films for arts education and arts practitioners. The company's aim is to promote art and culture in education.

International scientific journal on design and communication published in open access by the UAB. It aims to be a universal agora for debating the progress in graphic design provided by the scientific and academic community. Since 2013, it has published two annual digital issues and one printed issue.

This is an award-winning review of graphic design published quarterly for an international readership of typographers, designers, art directors, academics, students, teachers and professionals in the world of visual communication. It was first published in London in 1990 and contains interviews, overviews, profiles, history and polemics.

VMRD is a bi-monthly English magazine in India. Launched in September 2005, each issue of the magazine focuses on all aspects of retail design and visual merchandising in the context of branded shopping environments.

It covers innovative projects, ideas, news and products in retail design. The content is open to individual designers, design firms, brands & retailers, service providers and manufacturers in the retail world.

Barnes Reports provides cost-effective and timely studies on the largest manufacturing, retail, wholesale and services industries and consumer-buying trends in the United States and the world. Based on their unique, proprietary economic models, Barnes Reports annually publishes hundreds of studies with the most current and accurate information on the largest U.S. and world industries and product lines.

It is a refereed journal that aims to inform, stimulate and promote the development of research with a learning-and-teaching focus for art, design and communication within higher education. It is peer-reviewed and is published three times a year. The aim is to provide a forum for debate arising from findings as well as theory, methodologies and models of creative education.

Arts and Design Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published by IISTE (International Knowledge Sharing Platform). The journal publishes original papers at the forefront of arts and design research. The journal is published in print and online. The online version can be accessed and downloaded freely, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

In these TED Talks, some of the world's greatest designers share their creative process. Hear from Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, MoMA's Paola Antonelli, and more. TED is a non-profit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks

Section with "open" multimedia content on graphic design on the Wikimedia Commons portal.

Blog of the professional association for design, AIGA, supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

AIGA presented this project to celebrate American design and its profound impact, as well as the profession’s largest American community, which turned 100 in 2014. “100 Years of Design” is a living resource for this landmark year and into the future, which offers interviews with leading designers and significant moments from AIGA history.

European initiative aimed at identifying and establishing guidelines to measure design as a factor of economic production as well as its impact on GDP. Co-funded by the European Commission, ENISA (Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism), the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth.

Directory of all the institutional and independent art centres, including co-working spaces and networks, with individualized details and systematized information making up the "yellow pages" of Spanish contemporary art and providing a real map of visual art infrastructures.

Inclusive Environments is a Design Council Cabe initiative to raise awareness about the importance of designing places that meet the needs of the diversity of people who want to use them. It offers a guide which explains the principles of inclusive design, and gives examples of inclusive design methods for new buildings.