Design History Society

Want to know more about the 2026 Design Writing Prize?

Submission formats can take a number of forms including essays, interviews, reviews, or editorial commentary. Submissions can also include more experimental approaches to disseminating design history research such as film or podcasts.

The DHS is committed to equity and inclusion and believes that engaging with a broad spectrum of voices and perspectives not only enriches the discourse but also uncovers new narratives within design history. We encourage applications that represent, or whose work foregrounds, diverse perspectives and under-represented narratives within the field of design history.

Deadline: Wednesday 15th July 2026
Find out more: https://www.designhistorysociety.org/awards/design-writing-prize

New on the blog: Amy Jane Barnes, a Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History at The Open University reports on her research into the collection, display and interpretation of post-1949 Chinese ceramics in UK museum collections, as recipient of the Design History Society’s Research Access Grant (Academic).
Read the report here: https://www.designhistorysociety.org/blog/view/report-collections-of-revolutionary-chinese-porcelain-ceramics-in-uk-museums-research-access-grant-academic-recipient

Don't miss your chance to buy tickets for this year's annual DHS conference 'Design in an Age of Uncertainty' at Early Bird prices. You only have a few days left to do so! Book here: https://buff.ly/WqUD9ZR

Join us this week for our Design History Society Annual Student Conference EPHEMERAL ENCOUNTERS, taking place online Friday 12 June and Saturday 13 June. Register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dhs-student-conference-2026-ephemeral-encounters-tickets-1990642090078

INTRODUCING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 💥 Zeina Maasri 💥

Zeina Maasri is Senior Lecturer in Global Visual Culture at the University of Bristol. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Cosmopolitan Radicalism: The Visual Politics of Beirut’s Global Sixties (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and co-editor of Transnational Solidarity: Anticolonialism in the Global Sixties (Manchester University Press, 2022). She is also the author of Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War (2009) and curator of related travelling exhibitions and online archival resource Signs of Conflict.

From 2022 to 2025, she held a fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, UK) supporting the development of the online exhibition and digital archival resource Decolonizing the Page: A Forgotten Golden Age of Arabic Book Arts (1950s–80s).

The Design History Society Annual Student Conference takes place next week! Register your place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dhs-student-conference-2026-ephemeral-encounters-tickets-1990642090078

INTRODUCING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 💥 Lukáš Likavčan 💥

Lukáš Likavčan is a philosopher rethinking ecology after nature. In his research spanning emerging technologies, ecology, and outer space, he traces intertwined histories of scientific infrastructures, ideas, and cultures that inform human efforts to sustain planetary habitability.

Lukáš is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a co-founder of the boutique intelligence studio Substrate. He teaches at MA Information Design, Design Academy Eindhoven, and at MA Narrative Environments, UAL Central Saint Martins, where he co-curates an R&D platform Earthsuits.

Previously, Lukáš worked as a researcher at the Antikythera think tank (incubated by the Berggruen Institute) and held teaching positions at NYU Shanghai, FAMU Prague, and Strelka Institute, where he also authored his book essay, Introduction to Comparative Planetology (2019).

Take a look at the programme for our upcoming DHS Student Conference EPHEMERAL ENCOUNTERS, taking place online Friday 12 June, 13:00-17:00 BST and Saturday 13 June, 10:15-16:30 BST: https://indd.adobe.com/view/6d10e842-5bf4-4f19-ab73-eac5cbec51ad

Our Outreach and Event Grant is designed to encourage Design History Society members to convene an event to highlight and promote the field of design history.

A total of £2,000 is awarded annually, divided amongst several applications deemed of high merit, at the discretion of a judging panel drawn from the DHS Executive Committee who undertake a blind peer review of anonymous applications. Individual applications should not exceed £1000.

Applications are welcome all year round, with the exception of events scheduled during or around the annual DHS conference. The grant will remain open from 1st January each year until all allocated funds have been distributed.

Find out more: https://www.designhistorysociety.org/awards/research-grants/dhs-outreach-and-events-grant

DHS Student Conference 12–13 June 2026 (online)
EPHEMERAL ENCOUNTERS

The word ephemeral is used to refer to things or states that only last for a short time. In times of upheaval and uncertainty, the ephemeral nature of design and design history is made apparent. Objects can be ephemeral in their nature; creators, users, and historians share fleeting encounters with materials, objects, and spaces. Wars, natural disasters, developments in technology can precipitate the disappearance of objects, sites, cultures and histories. Design historians must grapple with these ephemeralites. This conference explores ideas of ephemera, ephemerality and ephemeral encounters across the broad spectrum of design history.

Register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dhs-student-conference-2026-ephemeral-encounters-tickets-1990642090078