We are proud to say we have members in over 50 countries worldwide. Here you can find everything about being our member, benefits, fees, questions asked and more.
The Design Society is a Charity but the activities of the Society cost money. Membership fees give good value to the member and income to run the Society. In particular, maintaining the website, maintaining the publication database and having an efficient administration all need to be supported by income. The Society believes that the benefits of joining the community are good value and that it offers an important resource to designers.
Please note that none of the Design Society officers in the Board of Management or Advisory Board are paid. Everyone gives their time and financial commitment to Design Society activities because they believe it is a worthwhile community to support.
You get:
The fees are set by the Board of Management. The Society wishes to encourage young design researchers and offers an Associate fee as well as a Full member fee. A full member pays £100 per annum (depending on geographical location). An Associate pays £20 per annum.
No. The fee depends on where you live and work. The Design Society wants to encourage membership of its community from those interested in design working across the world. Therefore membership fees are differentiated according to the gross national income (GNI) per capita of the member’s home country, using the annually updated World Bank Atlas method.
For further information, please download the current table of countries, their allocation according to the World Bank Atlas method classification, and the related Design Society membership fee: World Bank Classification.
We offer the option of paying by Future Pay which may suit your requirements.
By signing up to this agreement it allows you to authorise our bank to deduct the membership payment annually from a credit card. You decide the date. Organising this for the first week in July makes sense as this is the beginning of the DS year.
After logging in at www.designsociety.org please click on Renew Now then tick the box for Recurring Payments Service.
By following the instructions you should be able to set a date telling you when payment is deducted each year.
Contact admin@designsociety.org. The Membership Administration will help you personally.
It makes sense to pay on line because the process is more efficient but, No, you don’t have to.
You can organise a bank transfer directly to the Society. To organise this you need to contact the Membership Administrator admin@designsociety.org. You will be sent the necessary information to process this.
Write to the Membership Administrator admin@designsociety.org.
Possibly, but the rules in each country are different. It is up to your employer to decide. You need to ask them.
Your application is processed by the Society Administrator and overseen by the Design Society Applications group. This is a group of Advisory Board members who oversee the application process.
The Board of Management and the Society Administration take its responsibility to its members very seriously. Your data is stored on a secure server. Our data protection policy complies with European legislation.
We never sell lists of contacts for our members and we only use them for the purposes of furthering the aims of the Society for example to send details of design research events.
If you have any concerns, please contact the Society Administrator admin@designsociety.org.
Click on this link. You need to enter your email address and a new password will be sent to you.
Yes you can. You can change your password and enter your personal details on to the system. You need to enter your email address so that we can send you newsletters and a new password if you forget it.
