Design methods for damped structures using viscous dampers have been proposed by different scholars. However, a parametric distribution among the installation locations of the dampers has not been fully considered. In this study, a conceptually optimized damping distribution pattern is introduced, in which, the nominal additional damping ratio supplied by dampers at each story is in positive correlation to the corresponding story drift. This conceptually optimized damping distribution pattern can reduce the total requirement of damping coefficient without changing the response mitigation effect. The target story drift mitigation ratio, which can be determined by the desired seismic performance demand, is adopted as the performance guidance in the design process. Given a target story drift mitigation ratio and the conceptually optimized damping distribution pattern, the required additional damping can be easily determined according to the design response spectra. A detailed design process is elaborated and a six-story regular benchmark model is employed to illustrate the proposed design method to achieve the target seismic performance. The results show that the required damping is optimized according to the specified damping distribution pattern and the proposed method is simple and effective.