The Fostering Arts and Design is a non-profit association of professionals and businesses connected to design. We believe that design can improve the lives of people. This is why we devote our resources to promoting creative culture, support the new generations and stimulate excellence in product design, architecture, fashion, graphic design and visual communication, the crafts and the arts in general.

Coexisting within the FAD are five associations of the different creative disciplines plus a materials centre:
- A-FAD: Artists and Artisans’ Association
- ADG-FAD: Art Directors and Graphic Designers’ Association
- ADI-FAD: Industrial Design Association
- ARQUIN-FAD: Interdisciplinary Association of Space Design
- MODA-FAD: FAD Fashion Community
- MATERFAD: Barcelona’s Materials Centre

In addition, the FAD offices are home to the Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE). A great community of professionals. In 1903, concerned about the consequences of industrialization, a group of artisans and architects founded the FAD. Today we are more than 1,000 professionals and businesses, continuing the work of those pioneers with identical passion. We are a major creative community that brings together different professional disciplines and bridges the boundaries between them, an important breeding ground for ideas and cultural activities. We seek and promote excellence by organizing awards, some of them highly prestigious ones with more than 50 years behind them, an indispensable benchmark for professionals from the different disciplines of design. We also organize awards for students of design, architecture and art which year after year are used as an inspiring springboard for next generations of professionals. We take part in major national and international events such as the Isola Design Festival (Milan), Barcelona Design Week and World Design Capital Valencia 2022. We are members of international organizations such as the New European Bauhaus and the European Creative Business Network, and local ones such as 22@Network Barcelona and the Sports Cultura Barcelona Foundation. Through MATERFAD, our innovative materials centre, we are an ideal partner in the innovation processes of businesses, supporting them in their transition towards a new green and circular economy. We work together to exchange knowledge and provide solutions for the challenges our society faces, coming up with answers through design in its broadest sense, with projects such as Ensayo General (Dress Rehearsal), an activity which each year puts the citizens to the test in a subject that concerns us as a      society.

At the Disseny Hub Barcelona
Our base of operations and epicentre of our activities is the Disseny Hub Barcelona, the meeting point for design and creative industries in the city.