Selling the University of Brighton Design Archives to retail historians

This contribution to the journal of the Business Archives Council defines possible uses of material contained within the University of Brighton Design Archives as appropriate to retail historians. Attention is drawn to the largest collection, that of the Design Council, who maintained a longstanding engagement with the retail sector, through which they hoped to promote sales of well-designed British products. This was encouraged through a programme of training, exhibition and publication, the records of which survive. An over-view is given of the archives of individual designers who were active in the fields of retail architecture, packaging design, and display design. The potential for deepening scholarship, or engendering new debates within retail history are outlined.