In December 1979, then Minister of Education Dr Goh Keng Swee visited to France to study its curriculum development process. Out of this arose the idea to form a centralised institute to produce teaching and learning materials to support schools in delivering the curriculum. This departed from the British system adopted by local schools where individual teachers and schools have more control over what is taught in the classroom.

The Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore (CDIS) was setup in June 1980. It absorbed the existing Singapore Educational Media Service (SEMS), which was producing educational television programmes. Graphic artist Han Kuan Cheng was part of SEMS, which probably explains why he designed the new organisation's logo.

The design is an abstract amalgamation of the organisation's initials. An animated version of the logo was also created for publishing at the start of the many audio-visual materials produced by CDIS during the 1980s too. In 1996, CDIS was restructured.