This paper presents a displacement-based seismic design method with damage control, in which the targets for the considered performance level are set as displacements and a damage distribution is proposed by the designer. The method is based on concepts of basic structural dynamics and of a reference single degree of freedom system associated to the fundamental mode with a bilinear behaviour. Based on the characteristics of this behaviour curve and on the requirements of modal spectral analysis, the stiffness and strength of the structural elements of the structure satisfying the target design displacement are calculated. The formulation of this method is presented together with the formulations of two other existing methods currently considered of practical interest. To illustrate the application of the proposed method, 5 reinforced concrete plane frames: 8, 17 and 25 storey regular, and 8 and 12 storey irregular in elevation. All frames are designed for a seismic demand defined by single earthquake record in order to compare the performances and damage distributions used as design targets with the corresponding results of the nonlinear step by step analyses of the designed structures subjected to the same seismic demand. The performances and damage distributions calculated with these analyses show a good agreement with those postulated as targets.