Who We Are
Türkiye Design Council aims to contribute Türkiye’s social and economic development with design-oriented approaches. It promotes young designers and provides a basis for the production of qualified design. It creates design awareness for a better world. Türkiye Design Council discusses social and economic visions together with interdisciplinary design thinking and practices. Through this process, it accomplishes its duties as an NGO by gathering public and private actors with sustainable methods.
What We Do
The council carries out its activities under four main headings: urban, education and research, media, culture and industrial collaborations. It conducted urban projects that spread all around Türkiye. Also, since its establishment, Türkiye Design Council has been carrying out studies aimed at raising design awareness at an early age. In this direction, workshops and trainings are organized to help them develop their imagination, abilities and motor skills. For this reason, it is collaborating with Finland-based design school Arkki. One of the most outstanding media project s of the council is iskele.co. Having started its broadcasting life in June 2020, iskele.co is a design-driven video content platform. The platform, which aims to facilitate access to the resources available in the design world and to present them to designers as a selection, contains many local and foreign contents.
Within the scope of Media and Culture Studies, we are working towards making design accessible to everyone and laying the groundwork for everyone who has ideas about it. We develop projects that bring Türkiye’s ancient arts to the present, as well as creating spaces which enable artists to produce. In April 2021, we initiated an EU project titled ‘’From Ancient Anatolian Crafts to Contemporary Designs’’ as coordinator financed under the “Grant Scheme for Common Cultural Heritage: Preservation and Dialogue between Türkiye and the EU–II (CCH-II) in partnership with Brumen Foundation (Slovenia) and Traditional Arts Association (Türkiye). It is aimed to spread the examples of ancient values combined with contemporary designs in Türkiye and Europe within the scope of this project, which was launched to carry the Anatolian crafts at risk of disappearance into the future by means of intercultural cooperation. Another important cultural project is with Istanbul Airport. İGArt is an art program that aims to increase the visitor experience by transforming Istanbul Airport into one of the city’s qualified culture and arts areas. Also, we organize workshops and design trainings at different scales in order to contribute to the development of pioneering individuals who will lead change and to raise design awareness for people of all age groups. We are conduction ‘Strategic Design and Management Certificate Program’ with Istanbul Technical University to provide the designers with information about the basic concepts and techniques related to the management and business world.
Türkiye Design Council is located on the upper floor of the Kuzguncuk Pier in Istanbul. İskele Design Platform was established in 2018 as a public area that allows gathering, learning and producing with interdisciplinary design approaches. It aims to sensitize society to value added of design and creates awareness about this subject. It makes design accessible to everyone, thanks to its comprehensive program of events and libraries that make the economic and social impact of the design visible. Talks, screenings, workshops and trainings are organized in İskele to interact with professionals and students, to stimulate imagination and diversify their perspective. Also, the council established a “design library” in Kuzguncuk. In this library, we aim to have the resources that students and all designers who are trained in design can benefit from, and bring young people and children to design at an earlier age, and create interest and excitement in them.