University of Brighton Design Archives

black and white photograph of a man holding a telephone receiver to his ear while looking at a box with a miniature screen showing a live feed of the caller on the other end.

Before Teams, Zoom or even Skype, there was the Bell Telephone Co picture-phone. This early prototype was the precursor to the more famous model unveiled at the New York World's Fair in 1964.

Featured in the journal Design, December 1957
@DesignCouncil Archive
ID: 57-3351

Key Dates (Diary) - Diary - Design History Society To help us give you the best experience possible, please accept all cookies

We now have a Key Dates section on our website so you can keep up-to-date with our events, deadlines, and membership renewal cycle.
Take a look here:

In the newest episode of Research Talk we explore how authors are embracing transitional agreements while also using rights retention to make their work open quickly and without extra fees. Listen to the full podcast: ji.sc/45i3iXJ

Class Today! 🔔

Join us tonight for a powerful lecture w Yvonne Tiger as she explores the life and legacy of Angel De Cora — a groundbreaking Ho-Chunk artist, designer, writer, & educator who helped shape #NativeAmerican visual culture.

bipocdesignhistory.com/products/pai... #DesignHistory

The cover to the Southern Railway's leaflet for the opening of the Main Line Electrification of the Brighton line for the section from Coulsdon to Three Bridges. It is bright and colourful and uses very 'jazz' style lettering to give an idea of 'sparks' playing on electricity. The central motif, thistle shaped, shows the four London termini of Victoria, Charing Cross, London Bridge and Cannon Street with lines meeting at the "Y" in CroYdon and feeding south to Merstham, Redhill, Reigate, and stations via Gatwick (Race Station not yet airport) and Three Bridges. The leaflet also noted "Many more trains - Less Time! Less cost - more daily cheap tickets" and shows "Southern Electric" in the Southern's "Sunshine" lettering.

The back cover to the Southern Railway's leaflet for the opening of the Main Line Electrification of the Brighton line for the section from Coulsdon to Three Bridges. This shows a line diagram with services from Victoria, Cannon St, London Bridge and Charing Cross in yellow, with south London intermediate suburban stations shown, as far south as Coulsdon South at which point the newly electrified services are shown in a red line. South of Three Bridges the map notes "To Brighton (Opening in 1933).

On this day, 17 July 1932, the Southern Railway inaugurated electric trains from Coulsdon to Three Bridges, part of the scheme to electrify the Brighton Main Line on their third rail system. This /moderne' style leaflet is v much in the Southern's style. #railways #graphicdesign

↘️ flic.kr/p/2q4zmxi

@jisc.bsky.social's ArchivesHub hosts our catalogue here: archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/designarchiv...
or from our website, pick a collection & click the link to redirect you to the catalogue on the Hub: blogs.brighton.ac.uk/brightondesi....
designarchives@brighton.ac.uk if we can help with anything too!

grey poster with many white squares with simple black symbols/illustrations inside such as a telephone, a person, a tea cup, a shower, and so on.

Before emojis was the Zeichensystem or 'Sign System'- pictograms designed by Otl Aicher to easily communicate w/ international visitors during the Munich 1972 Olympics & which influenced the DOT pictograms developed by the US Dept of Transportation
Icograda/ICOD Archive
ICO/3/13/120
#WorldEmojiDay

Some really exciting roles on our project and the wider @marlboroughprods.bsky.social team 👀

Call for Zines from archivists and archives. 📜📚
www2.archivists.org/news/2025/ca...

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

📣 call for applications 📣
Two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop.

Our fellowships support early career historians to develop expertise in public, radical and digital history & to gain experience of working in an editorial team.

Please share widely!

www.historyworkshop....

We’re hiring: Membership Administrator

Join the HA team in our London office as a full-time Membership Administrator

Check out the full job description and application details: www.history.org.uk/membership/news/4310/membership-administrator-job-opportunity

yellow magazine cover with an image of a cheese plant and another green leafy plant in red pots

Architectural Review, special issue 'Plants Indoors', May 1952
Cover designed by FHK Henrion
FHK Henrion Archive
#EYANature @exploreyourarchive.bsky.social

📣 Art History Festival 2025 📣

We are thrilled to announce the return of our UK-wide #ArtHistoryFestival2025. Join us this Sept. for a week of free talks, tours, workshops and more.

Now in it's 5th year, the festival celebrates the richness of art history and the people who bring it to life.

Designing and planning your oral history project (London) - Oral History Society This course, run jointly by the British Library’s oral history department and the Oral History Society, is aimed at anyone who is planning a medium to large scale oral history project, particularly on...

Are you an #oralhistory project manager, bid writer, researcher? Planning a medium to large scale #oralhistory project?

Few places left on our 'Designing and planning your oral history project' course @britishlibrary.bsky.social #London on 25 July: www.ohs.org.uk/events/desig...

Colour photo of a stack of microfiche

Fun find from last week: the Leicester Polytechnic library catalogue, 1978 on MICROFICHE! Don't forget to squint... We’re kicking off stocktaking week 2 today. Stay tuned for more gems on our upcoming blog post! #archives #libraries #oldtech @librarydmu.bsky.social @exploreyourarchive.bsky.social

A reminder that the deadline for this year's Design Writing Prize is tomorrow! Be sure to submit your application before 11:59pm BST on 15 July 2025. More details: buff.ly/uclFNVy

black and white photograph of a person using a sewing machine

'Learning From the Source', reflections from Nancy Bailey, one of our sixth form placement students from @varndean.ac.uk on her time in the Design Archives.
Read more here:
blogs.brighton.ac.uk/brightondesi...

Photograph from Design, July 1978
@designcouncil.bsky.social archive

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC NEW SERIES Book History for the Future SERIES EDITORS: Lisa Gitelman, New York University, USA Tom Mole, Durham University, UK Sarah Werner, Independent Researcher, USA Book History for the Future aims to define the cutting edge for a new generation of book historians, as book history enters a new chapter of its evolution. Books sit at a densely trafficked intersection of social relations, status negotiations, emotional investments, material possibilities, desires, aspirations, and dreams. They require an intellectual approach grounded in attention to physical artefacts and material conditions while also engaged in theoretical reflection, attentive to historical contexts while attuned to contemporary resonances. This series publishes books that eschew academic parochialism in favour of adventurous engagements with new theoretical developments, innovative methodologies, digital tools, and global contexts.

Exciting news, Bluesky! I’m editing a new book series for Bloomsbury with Tom Mole and Lisa Gitelman: Book History for the Future! Do you focus on material textual artifacts and innovative methodologies? We’re actively soliciting proposals, so give us a shout! www.bloomsbury.com/media/cecjzl...

Including the Design Archives' Preservation & Digital Resources Co-ordinator Sirpa Kutilainen @sirps.bsky.social with Amy Sampson from @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy
and their session titled 'Shut down – switch on: empowerment, problem solving and plugging a gap'.

CFP: "Don't Dream It, Be It": Exploring and Celebrating The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Popular Culture

Free, online conference 27-28 Nov 2025

Submit here - tinyurl.com/2hyksxn8 by 31st July 2025

📢 CALL FOR PAPERS: "Dolls Dolls Dolls" special issue in Fashion, Style & Popular Culture journal.

Guest edited by Frank New.
Submissions exploring dolls in fashion, style & pop culture
due Dec 1, 2025.
Email: FrankNew@FrankieNew.com

People standing around a long table, looking down at a variety of books and papers laid out.

Are you a PhD student using the Library for your research, or interested in doing so?

Join one of our Doctoral Open Days for a deep dive into the areas of our collection which might be relevant to your research, as well as top tips on using the Library 👇

bit.ly/BLPhDOpenDays

Lovely historians, please do share this opportunity with MA students interested in contemporary British history :) @royalhistsoc.org @ihr.bsky.social @conteurohistory.bsky.social

📢 Just announced! The programme & booking is now live for our Annual Conference 2025.

🗓️ Join us online & free on 4–5 Sept for Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Archives, Libraries, Museums & Personal Collections.

🔗 womenshistorynetwork.org/the-womens-h...
#WHN2025 #WomensHistory #Archives #Heritage

black line illustration of a woman in a knee-length, double-breasted sleeveless dress holding a tennis racket in her left hand. The image is captioned 'Tennis clothes 1931'

Fashion journalist & editor Alison Settle's archive includes some of the drawings that were used for, or referenced in her work on the history of fashion, including this hand-drawn illustration of tennis clothes from 1931, perfect for #Wimbledon

Alison Settle Archive
AST/4/B30S/5

We’re inviting expert consultants who are passionate about driving lasting change, and do meaningful work with real impact, to join our Jisc associate network. Get involved 🤝

jisc.ac.uk/news/all/joi...

Two #photography jobs at the V&A London, 3-yr full-time posts to work on the Royal Photographic Society collection. Deadline July 18th. Project Archivist in link below, Project Cataloguer in the next post. 📜🗃️📷📸

Not great pay for London - but fantastic opportunities otherwise!

Our digital edition of Fonds 2 is now ready to browse on our Student Features page: buff.ly/qKPF01Z An anthology of staff & student creative responses to our archives with poetry & prose inspired by our collections. #dmu_writers #creativewriting@dmuleicester.bsky.social @librarydmu.bsky.social

The deadline to submit entries to our annual Design Writing Prize is fast approaching! Submission formats can take a number of forms including essays, interviews, reviews, or editorial commentary. Please submit your entry by 11:59pm BST on 15 July 2025 .
More details: buff.ly/2wnpGkk

The library team had a brilliant day out yesterday - many thanks to St Peters House library at Uni of Brighton for an excellent tour, and to @designarchives.bsky.social for such an interesting talk, we came away full of enthusiasm! Thanks also to Brighton Met Library for a great visit