Newest members to join the association

• The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had seen the proliferation of many societies.
• Which sought to promote design as a significant activity, whether from a social, cultural, political, or economic point of view.
• These included such diverse bodies as the Swedish Society of Industrial Design (Svenska Slodforinengen), which had been estab¬lished in 1845 to encourage and promote handicraft in industry.

Design-historical writing has often obscured much of the wider picture of the professional status of the designer and the role of design in industry through its general focus on successful partnerships between designers and industry: attention is drawn to Sweden, for example, where Wilhelm Kige worked as Art Director for the ceram¬ics manufacturer Gustavsberg, and Simon Gate and Edward Hald helped to establish the artistic reputation of the glass manufacturer Orrefors. However, the widely-felt uncertainty of the connotations of terms commonly used in the interwar years such as 'commercial art' or 'graphic design', 'industrial art' or 'industrial design' reflected the inability of designers to establish a clearcut professional identity or status.

The long-term difficulties inherent in efforts to achieve recognition of the design profession in manufacturing industry can be seen to reside partially in the conflict between notions of the individual artistic personality and the economic and technological realities of manufac¬turing industry. Indeed, for much of the twentieth century there has been considerable reservation about designers in manufacturing circles. Several instances of such suspicion early in the century can be detected in the debates about design and standardization in industry. But there was also considerable disagreement amongst designers and their propagandists themselves, centering on opposition of individual¬ity and standardization, subjectivity and objectivity, and artistic licence and social responsibility.