Design associations are coalitions that enable designers to promote their work through a variety of means.
They provide platforms for the exchange of experience and information, help members manage their economic and political interests, and provide information about design protection by means of trademark registrations, utility models, and patent (Intellectual Property).
Design associations also post recommended rates of pay in order to give designers (and clients) a point of reference while negotiating contracts.
Despite these efforts, they have been unable to successfully legalize or even codify rates of pay in the field of design. Furthermore, designers’ interests are only partially represented in comparison to other professional fields. Other professional associations can be traced back to trade guilds of the Middle Ages, and have evolved into highly organized and effective institutions that charge membership fees to finance their lobbying activities. Professional associations of architects and advertisers have also proven to be more effective than those for designers.
Yet designers are still less willing to join associations and prefer to invest in self-marketing, because it seems more efficient. This may be because designers even those who claim to embrace collaborative methods still view the prospect of sharing information and support with potential or real competitors with skepticism. Nevertheless, enhanced communications between designers could do much to strengthen design’s economic and social significance, and also improve communications between designers and the public.
The first design associations were founded directly after the Second World War, mainly by artists and artisans who wanted to professionalize the practice. Their collaboration with interested clients had a significant impact on the design profession, as well as the organization and content of design education. They wanted to popularize a pragmatic approach to design and establish the designer as a natural partner in the development and production process. In order to achieve this, designers cooperated with design centers to organize exhibitions, lectures, and design prizes (Design Awards).
Although it would appear that design is popularly acknowledged today as a legitimate practice, it is still uncertain as to whether it will ever achieve the same professional standing as other more established practices. The impact that design associations will have on clarifying the profession’s evolving status also remains to be seen. Changes in the design profession mean that designers today have to be general practitioners as well as specialists. The mid-1960s saw a surge in the number of active design associations, after large corporations began establishing design departments and employing large numbers of designers.
As a result, design associations became very popular as quasi-trade unions that also provided a platform to discuss issues relating to the profession. Design associations experienced another boom in the 1980s,when the concept of “design” began being discussed and researched in earnest by sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, and linguists.
This resulted in the professional practice of design expanding far beyond the then standard fields of industrial design and visual communication. Although some older design associations viewed this development with skepticism, the broadened definition and discourse on design opened up new possibilities for many individual designers.
Small and midsize design firmsbegan replacing large design departments, and independent entrepreneurs without corporate interests began shaping the design scene. Nonetheless, design associations have still not met the challenge of establishing a binding and comprehensible definition of the profession.