Design touches all of our lives - virtually everything we inhabit, use and look at has been designed. At work, at home and at play, design is all around us. Commercial success in global marketplaces, through ecologically sound, socially acceptable, safe and economically viable products and services, depends upon investment in design. A substantial proportion of this investment is in UK design education, which enjoys a strong international reputation. DEED provides professional support for the academic community that contributes to it.

Aspirations

DEED recognises the increasing significance of interdisciplinary practice in all areas of design with the advent of new information technologies, multimedia and computer-based design. This recognition also reflects the growing multidisciplinary nature of design education with the emergence of new forms of learning and teaching, hybrid design disciplines and innovative research. Following the precedents established by its parent associations, DEED provides a forum for wide ranging debates, thematic issues and professional concerns. As well as voicing and supporting generic interests across the disciplines, DEED ensures that specialist, more tightly defined, interest groups are able to use the association as a means of continuing to promote their individual identities and agendas.

DEED’s general aim, through conferences and the endeavours of individual members, is to promote and share ideas and good practice in both two-, three- and four-dimensional design education. Its central concern within design education and through educational links with industry and professional practice, has been to explore ways of maintaining quality in a dramatically changing environment. DEED aims to provide:

• a forum for professional educators and researchers to debate all matters relating to design education at Further and Higher levels in the United Kingdom
• a home for specialist groups within the Design education community, representing a wide range of interests and activities
• a mechanism for the development and promulgation of good practice in design education and related research
• a means of developing policies and of informing and influencing the public, the government, its agencies and relevant corporate bodies, on matters pertinent to the advancement of design education and research.

Deed Events

DEED supports its members and the broader academic community through a variety of activities including annual conferences, seminars, workshops, papers, and representation to the media, government and other relevant organisations. Recent conferences represented the association's significant effort to bring to the attention of government, industry, commerce and the design education sector the value and relevance of high quality design education in maintaining Britain's place in the world.

Membership and Executive

Members of DEED are drawn from all areas of two dimensional, three dimensional and time-based design education. The strength of the association is derived from the spread of membership and the breadth of experience available across this interdisciplinary constituency. The Executive is elected from and by the membership and mandated to initiate action on behalf of the association and to represent its interests by responding to issues that arise between annual and ordinary general meetings. DEED provides institutional, as well as individual, membership options. Member institutions are the main providers of Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, Bachelors/Masters degrees and MPhil/PhD qualifications across a wide range of design disciplines. DEED promotes dialog across subject associations via the CHEAD subject links group.

History of DEED

DEED was created through the merger of the committees of GRADE and NA3DDE. Both associations had long and credible histories, representing their constituent disciplines at national and international level, while providing information and development facilities for members. They have been constantly involved in research and the formulation of educational policy in response to national initiatives, advising such agencies as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD). Through their conferences the two associations have dealt with such topics as: ‘Design for Life’, ‘Learning through Practice,’ ‘Quality and Quantity', ‘Graduateness’, the Research Assessment Exercise criteria and ‘Preparing for Subject Review’. Later joint conferences reflected, as in the world of design practice, their increasingly common concerns and methods and led to the creation and launch of DEED in 1999 at the Design Council.

Contact

For general queries regarding DEED matters, please contact:

DEED
Anne Boddington
Dean of College
College of Arts and Humanities
University of Brighton
a.boddington@brighton.ac.uk