“I’ve always been working towards a world in which design for people, design for good, and inclusive design is just good design,” said Young, design researcher and acting chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA. For decades thought leaders have been working to pinpoint the future of good design–and educators have been simply trying to keep up. Now they’re shaping the future themselves. This year, Young collaborated with Pinar Guvenc, partner at the award-winning global design firm SOUR, to construct the first year-long, graduate-level Inclusive Design course in the United States.

Designed to train the next generation of strategic, collaborative, thoughtful, and yes, inclusive designers, Inclusive Design I & II is SVA’s response to corporate reconstruction across industries. Since November 2023, interaction has seen mass layoffs from design leaders like IDEO and technology mega-companies including Google and Microsoft, citing “weak consumer demand.” 

There is demand, just not for their products. People with disabilities hold about $490b in purchasing power in the United States, while 68% of Gen Z prioritizes sustainable shopping. With these two groups holding consumer power, organizations have come to understand that corporate sustainability means social responsibility. Solutions are scarce, as design and tech hemorrhage capital in search of a new ‘new normal.’ 

With an undefined future, the leadership at MFA Interaction Design chose to focus on the only two constants in design — people and their problems. “Every designer is a social impact designer,” said Young. “Whether they like it or not, they’re having an impact on society and people.” 

Instilling inclusion, co-creation, and engagement into design processes may provide the necessary salve to these wounds, setting a strong foundation for our future. It’s the curb cut effect when a design created for a few changes the lives of many. Think of the touch screen on your trusty smartphone, rubber grips on vegetable peelers, or closed captioning; all universal products initially designed with the disabled community in mind. “If you’re not co-creating with people, what you’re putting out there is not going to stick or it’s not going to last, and therefore it’s not going to sustain,” said Guvenc.

Initially designed in two parts stretching over the second year of the MFA program, the course starts slow—painfully slow. Much of Inclusive Design I is spent slowing down, observing, deepening vocabulary, and unlearning traditional design processes. The MFA program defines inclusive design as designing with, not for, communities we aim to serve, recognizing that lived experiences are equally as important as professional expertise. The first few classes are simple yet complex, differentiating inclusive from accessible, universal, or equitable design and exploring what it means to actively invite participants into the process as co-designers. 

“Every designer is a social impact designer. Whether they like it or not, they’re having an impact on society and people. 

Adriana Valdez Young, design researcher and acting chair of SVA’s MFA Interaction Design program

From early January to May 2024, the second-year students in Inclusive Design II were given the mammoth task of redesigning their studio bathrooms. Though interaction design is often seen as a technological field, SVA broadens this definition to include the vast system of networks, services, narratives, products, and experiences shaping our daily lives. “Inclusion, where it differs from accessibility, is not necessarily concerned about the baseline axis,” said Guvenc. “It is concerned about the entire journey and the experience.” Because of this, the faculty chose to focus on a physical, universal human experience to frame the class project in the course’s pilot year.

Left: First-year students celebrate at the DesignIt headquarters with experience designer Brooke Viegut following an expedition throughout New York City; Right: Pinar Guvenc (left) moderates a talk with Jade McDonnough (center) and Marshall Sitten (right) about practicing inclusion as designers and creatives.

This initial class has proven to be a fruitful struggle. Designing for inclusion is a complex, intentional process, filled with co-creation, value-setting, shifting mindsets, community research, and detailed prototyping. As students began conducting anonymous surveys, Guvenc and Young found the emerging designers stuck in habitual thinking and linear processes; many of the students’ first drafts included problematic language and ableist assumptions. Several final prototypes raised an eyebrow, including one with signage depicting a male and female icon perpetuating the gender binary.

“These deeply ingrained mindsets and habits take time to break,” said Young. “For me, it’s about being patient; knowing that we have planted the seed and that seed might sprout later in their design careers.”

The students’ thinking evolved greatly, even if there wasn’t a sharp pivot in their work this year. “Inclusive design is a mindset I can keep with myself, in all types of design,” said Fan Fang, product designer and soon-to-be MFA Interaction Design graduate. “[The course] helped me learn how to decentralize my role as a designer.” Fan Fang’s thesis project focuses on democratizing gaming for those who are visually impaired, designing a tactile controller for blind people to play video games and access information traditionally only visually available. Other graduate projects this year range from apps embracing generative AI to nurture critical thinking for middle schoolers (ThinkKee by Amogh Gharpure), creating a better experience for people with mobility impairments to navigate ride-share platforms in New York City (Unit by Jennie Yang), to tools supporting young people in learning to care for their hands and prevent chronic injury from extensive technology use (Handy by Mihira Patel). 

Under Young’s leadership, the MFA Interaction Design program is turning the needle toward crafting more inclusive designers. Across courses, from entrepreneurial design to game design, students have been tasked with prioritizing ethics and inclusive values, asking them to go deeper into the same projects with these contexts in mind. This year the thesis project requirements have been redesigned to include community engagement, video stories, and a detailed body of work consisting of at least three different design prototypes addressing each student’s research, deepening their understanding of design and its impact. 

If you’re not co-creating with people, what you’re putting out there is not going to stick or it’s not going to last, and therefore it’s not going to sustain.

Pinar Guvenc, partner at SOUR

Looking to the future of the program, Young and Guvenc are hopeful. Inclusive design is still in its early stages as common practice, but its impact is clear. As Black Lives Matter invigorated new diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in leadership, and the deadline for the 2025 European Accessibility Act looms, companies have a need for lower and mid-level employees who bring a thoughtful lens to their work. “I feel like there was this portal that opened to making inclusive, accessible, and community-centered design this new norm,” said Young, “and we’re jumping through this portal to help future-proof our students.” Beyond future-proofing students, inclusive design just might be the key to future-proofing our world; we’ll just have to wait and see.

co-24: MFA Interaction Design Thesis Exhibition, a walk-through exhibition of works by 21 emergent designers exploring the themes of collaboration, connection, compassion, and construction towards a more intentionally inclusive future. May 16-17, 136 W. 21st St. RSVP here to attend.

Brooke Viegut is a narrative-driven experience designer, audience-centric theater maker, design critic, live entertainment researcher, donut connoisseur, cultural producer, collector of silly little things, and the creative lead at for.play. She is the author of Anonymous Intimacy (coming 2024) and holds an MA in Design Research, Writing, and Criticism from the School of Visual Arts.

Header: a snapshot of a tabletop at MFA Interaction Design filled with inclusive design tools and inspiration. Photo by Adriana Valdez Young.

Co-chair Lita Talarico and I are very proud of our students. Guided by devoted faculty and advisors, they have developed their own products—from idea to prototype to business plan.

If I were asked to give a commencement address tomorrow, I’d show this work as one example of how today’s designers ready themselves for tomorrow (and beyond). We have been in a world where making superlative work is the essence of what we do, or should be doing. At any level—associate, BFA, MFA, Ph.D.—the mandate is to train designers to think, make and do.

It is a rewarding process. A gift for all concerned.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in art education, I went back to college to study graphic design. Because my first round in college was less than stellar, during my second time at college, I vowed to do everything I could to excel. The reasons for that dip my first time around are for another post.

When I went back, I was behind in the computer proficiency department. My younger classmates knew how to use the computer and the software. Their final submissions were the object of my envy on one too many occasions. Though we were still doing many projects by hand, others required a computer.

I had to capitalize on what I knew while I learned what I did not know. I knew research and sketching. Thus, there were few projects on which I was not willing to go deep and deeper if needed. I started to realize that design can be described as a two-part process: ideation and production.

Ideation necessitates iteration. To learn to think like a designer, one needs to be willing to try things over and over and over again. Sometimes, changing all the variables, sometimes a few variables, and sometimes just changing one variable. Before a project gets fine-tuned to meet its deadline, the ideation process is full of possibilities and options. An idea can take an infinite number of twists and turns. A twist can be the result of research or more reading. A turn can be that a typeface choice is disastrous once the printouts hang on the wall (in my classes, always upside down). Or we can realize that the format needs reconsideration altogether.

Ideation involves everything from brainstorming, researching to gain a better understanding, empathizing with the intended audience, sketching solutions and ideas, sketching some more, talking about the sketches, making connections, seeing what was unseen before, revising and revising, critiquing, giving feedback, letting those aha moments come and go. Then we do it all over again. Each part of the design process is almost a Pandora’s box. However, in design, this box is full of possibilities. And I absolutely love that.

When my student reacted hesitantly to my request to revise and try at least three different options, it woke me up. It is true that some of us are in the design profession only to earn a living or simply to have a job. But design is not all “business.” Design is a very alive and organic process that enables the creator to make interesting and unexpected connections in order to make a message visual to others. The organic process creates a rich and fertile ground for work to flourish.

There is a caveat, of course. As much as design might be like a Pandora’s Box full of ideas and connections we did not know or realize, that box needs to be fed, and it needs to be fed constantly. We feed it without much effort. Our minds process many visuals daily. We don’t realize it, but we take a lot in from the object we are looking at, its texture, placement, weight, height, colors, and many other variables. I am trying to say that each particular object of visual interest possesses much more information in itself. We need to intentionally feed our brains with content—good content—be it literature, music, theater, walks, and even the occasional out-of-range source to come up with twists and turns worth pursuing. Otherwise, our mind will spit out a recycled wave of what we have seen before.

Design is engaging with ideas and having a conversation with them. To engage these ideas, we need to be committed to the process. I would lie if I did not acknowledge that my box has been less open at certain moments in my life. Of course, we have ups and downs. But, to quote something an art teacher told me: If you don’t feed your talent, it goes away. I did not believe it then until I found it hard to think creatively again. 

One of my favorite TED talks is Your Elusive Creative Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, and Love. In it, she recalls meeting with American poet Ruth Stone, who described how sometimes her poetry came to her in the field, and she had to run to her house and write, almost grabbing the idea by its tail so it would not go away. Gilbert remarks on how her experience makes her feel like a mule. A mule that she had to push with sweat and labor to painfully produce an idea. While this contrast is dramatic for these two creatives, one thing is true: the ideas will go away to find another vessel through which they can make their way out into the world. 

I want to be there for these ideas. My description of the design process is not a scientific one. It is a practical one but sprinkled with a lot of my idealism about how design works. Yes, I believe in design. I think we should teach it in elementary and secondary schools. Though design has many valid solutions to a problem, unlike a math problem, it is through design’s process that we find solutions fitting for the problem we might be engaged with. The process makes us more human.

My student’s hesitation saddened me because their potential is great. All I can offer is a taste and hope that the taste makes them hungry for more.

Alma Hoffmann is a freelance designer, design educator, author of Sketching as Design Thinking, and editor at Smashing Magazine. This is an edited version of an original post on Temperamental amusing shenanigans, Alma’s Substack dedicated to design, life, and everything in between.

Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash.

At our next PRINT Book Club, Debbie Millman and Steven Heller will chat with beloved design educator Ellen Lupton about the new edition of her seminal book, Thinking With Type.

Lupton’s bestselling book is an essential guide to using typography in visual communication for everyone: designers, writers, editors, students, anyone who works with words on page or screen, and enthusiasts of type and lettering. Now in it’s third edition (March 2024), Thinking With Type has been expanded to include:

• More fonts: old fonts, new fonts, weird fonts, libre fonts, Google fonts, Adobe fonts, fonts from independent foundries, and fonts and lettering by women and BIPOC designers
• Introductions to diverse writing systems, contributed by expert typographers from around the world
• Demonstrations of basic design principles, such as visual balance, Gestalt grouping, and responsive layout
• Current approaches to typeface design, including, variable fonts and optical sizes and tips for readability, legibility, and accessibility
• Stunning reproductions from the Letterform Archive

Thinking with Type is to typography what Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is to physics.

I Love Typography

Ellen Lupton is a designer, writer, and educator. In addition to Thinking With Type, her other books include Design Is Storytelling, Graphic Design Thinking, Health Design Thinking, and Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers. She teaches in the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (MICA), where she serves as the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair. She is Curator Emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, where her exhibitions included Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master and The Senses: Design Beyond Vision.

Don’t miss our conversation with Ellen Lupton, hosted by Debbie Millman and Steven Heller, on Thursday, April 25 at 4 PM ET! Register for the live stream discussion and visit our Bookshop.org shop to buy your copy of Thinking With Type.

But this is a story about type!

Future London Academy is based in its namesake city, one of the world’s most diverse and vibrant. Therefore, when creating a visual identity for its new program, any old typeface wouldn’t do. So, in-house designer Polina Kirei devised a custom type system: DLX Future.

Each character of DLX Future conveys the diversity of design leadership with a unique style and personality. Yet, every letter is built on the same foundation of five shapes: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, and a wriggle wire.

Each letter, just like each person, is unique and has been designed together with the Design Leaders Alumni. Fuzzy, sharp, or whimsical… you can feel the personality within each letter.

Future London Academy

DLX needed its identity to celebrate the diversity of design experience. It also desired a flexible and collaborative type system that could scale over time. One of the coolest aspects of the new system is that it changes year to year, with DLX alumni contributing a custom glyph upon graduation.

We love DLX Future because it could be the poster child for the type exuberance we showcased in our 2024 Typography Report: A Circus of Type.

A selection of my students’ work is featured throughout this piece, with their permission.

I started reading Comey’s book after watching the Netflix show Comey Rule. But perhaps I should explain why this book made an impact on me. Words, arguments (not in the sense of fighting but preparing a compelling point), and rhetoric are very attractive to me. The better we can express our points, the better our eloquence, charisma, and credibility. Comey’s book does not disappoint in that sense. The writing is superb. At times, it drags, but it is generally a very well-written memoir of his time as the FBI director and how he got there. Comey worked under three Presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Three different leaders with a common denominator: James Comey.

Bashing these three leaders and expanding on their weaknesses would have been easy. Comey’s measured and cautious observations of them reveal quite a bit about his integrity. Especially when he refers to Obama. Comey was a Republican appointed by George W. Bush, another Republican, as an Attorney General. Obama, a Democrat, appointed him as the FBI Director. Comey’s descriptions of Obama as a person and leader are remarkable. There is a formidable sense of respect and admiration, considering they represented different political interests. That is why I stuck with the book. If someone from an opposite party can see and speak highly of an opponent’s character (assuming there is a good character to praise), that person can reason beyond their biases. Yes, it is true that Comey was not running against Obama. Still, not many can speak about, let alone write about, the honorability of an opponent.

Civil discourse is something that we have lost in this country. I grew up in the time when a handshake was as good as any written document to seal a deal. And when your word was everything. Differences of opinion were handled with grace, for the most part. Sometimes, there were unusual and out-of-hand situations, but the norm was civility. Somehow, while growing up in Puerto Rico, that changed. Tempers flared, and voices were raised. So much so that when I came to the US, I never talked about politics with anyone. When I met my husband’s parents, I was shocked by how much they talked about politics. It took me a long time to get used to it.

There is a recollection in Comey’s book I found particularly remarkable when it came to Obama. In the chapter titled “The Washington Listen,” Comey recounts his speech in Chicago regarding the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. Two days after the speech, Obama requested to meet with him. Inadvertently, Comey had added controversy to the controversy—to put it mildly. My read on the narrative was that Comey, like many Caucasians, was not able to fine-tune his read and feelings about the state of affairs between the police and the African American community. In Comey’s words, he “was trapped in his own perspective.” Thus, he came across differently than he might’ve wished. As an FBI director, what he said carried weight—in the context of having an African American president, the weight of how and what Comey said weighed even more. How Comey describes the conversation between himself and Obama was remarkable to me. Obama expressed he called him “to understand what you are seeing and thinking.” After carefully listening to Comey, Obama explained how the African American community perceives some of the terms and words Comey used. He credited Obama for helping him see beyond his perspective. More importantly, he remarked about Obama: “President Obama would never have considered such a conversation if he did not have enough confidence in himself to show humility.”

What made the civil discourse between Comey and Obama possible? Empathy, humility, willingness to listen, and freedom to disagree. It sounds so easy. Yet, it is so difficult. Even in the media, there is little reporting. There is, however, editorializing—words sprinkled here and there to sway opinions and kindle disgust. Both camps are guilty: the left and the right.

Now, what does this have to do with my students’ project of redesigning the dollar bills¹? Quite a bit. One of my most important goals is for my students to feel free to disagree while protecting civility. We must engage in conversations to nurture and articulate ideas that inevitably will become personal as they engage in the process of designing them. I want my students to protect each other’s space so that they can speak their views. And yes, I disagree with a good number of them sometimes. Occasionally, I have had to apologize for a word or a comment out of turn. I do not mind doing that because I am focused on a bigger goal: mutual respect, civility, and trust. More importantly, if I am willing to be vulnerable, it is very likely that my students will follow suit with their work.

When we started our project, the conversation was profound. We spoke about the nation’s politics, economy, and international practices. We discussed everything we could think regarding the United States as a nation of power. That included the good and the bad for Caucasians, Asians, African Americans, and Latinos in the class. This discussion brought many ideas and thoughts about what to highlight about the country. One design featured a plastic see-through window so everyone could see themselves in the currency when the bill was held up (see the banner picture designed by Jonathan Taylor). Others highlighted women such as Sybil Ludington, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Barbara Jordan, the first Southern African American congresswoman, and other topics important to them: marine life, national parks, the Wright brothers, and Native Americans, for instance. Their projects were so good that when I was grading them, I was filled with emotion at how much improvement they had made. This brings me back to why Comey’s book resonated with me. It is not only about people but also about how we all contribute to the larger picture: a place where diverse points of view enrich, polish, and shape each other while keeping our core values. Maybe I am idealistic. Probably so. But I hold on to it because it is worth having a class where everyone puts forth their best work based on a simple premise: it matters and makes a difference.

Alma Hoffmann is a freelance designer, design educator, author of Sketching as Design Thinking, and editor at Smashing Magazine. This is a slightly edited version of an essay originally posted on Temperamental amusing shenanigans, Alma’s Substack dedicated to design, life, and everything in between.

Banner mage courtesy author, work designed by Jonathan Taylor.

1. Project is originally found on AIGA Design Teaching Resources ↩︎

What Souza started as a grassroots effort to build an event featuring 13 Black designers on an online panel has now blossomed into a bi-annual program that serves as the only national effort to establish young Black professionals and recent college graduates in design careers.

This year’s State of Black Design Conference will be held this week (in-person and virtually, on March 15 and 16) in Nashville at Tennessee State University’s Art and Design Department. To learn more about the history of the conference, its offerings, and its impact, I had the pleasure of speaking with Souza. He opened up about the struggles he’s faced as a Black designer himself in the design industry and academia, the difficulties of putting on the SOBD Conference, as well as the extreme joy and fulfillment he feels from creating opportunities for so many Black students and designers who have otherwise been excluded. Our conversation is below.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

What has your personal experience been like as a Black designer navigating the lack of diversity in this industry? 

There’ve been a lot of difficulties in many regards. My current institution has been the most supportive of my work and my line of research, but at past institutions, there have been a series of things. I’ve had faculty members who went to school in time periods when people who looked like we weren’t allowed to study with them. So when you have a professor who’s getting published, getting a certain type of attention, and challenging the status quo, that is often met with resistance. There have also been power struggles, especially regarding some of the positives that I’ve attempted to do with the State of Black Design.

When you have a professor who’s getting published, getting a certain type of attention, and challenging the status quo, that is often met with resistance.

Being the only Black person in a particular space is difficult. I teach UX design, and we talk about ingroups and outgroups all the time. As an example, I ask my students, “Who has an iPhone?” The majority of the students raise their hands. Then I ask, “What color is it when someone who doesn’t have an iPhone text messages you?” And they all go, “Oh, my God, green!” And then I ask them, “What inconveniences them when you text back?” And no one has an answer. When you’re in a space where you’re the only Black person or the only person of a particular group, and you fall within that outgroup, no one cares about what your experiences are, what inconveniences you have, or what makes it difficult.

When you talk about those issues and bring them to the forefront, because you’re not in the ingroup, they act in greater annoyance to you for bringing up something that they don’t care about, especially if you’re asking them to change. That’s been my experience as a professor and designer. If I talk too much about race, it annoys some people. If I’m getting too much attention about my work around race, it annoys particular people. If I’m raising too much money and creating too much change, and certain groups don’t feel included—even though there’s not much work to make me or other people like me feel included in the industry—there’s pushback given as well.

How did you first get the idea for the State of Black Design Conference? How did it develop? 

In 2020, I taught at Texas State University (south of Austin in San Marcos, Texas). It was a Hispanic-serving institution (similar to the one I’m currently at) that was predominantly minority— I want to say it was 53% or 54% Other. I was one of 80 faculty members in the Art and Design College, and I happened to be the only Black one who was tenure-tracked. So when the George Floyd incident happened, many students were trying to figure out what they could do, especially in their field of practice. When they began looking at faculty members, they asked, What are we going to do? All of them looked towards me as the sole Black professor. They asked, So what are you going to do?

There were ideas around potentially getting a Black designer or two to talk about what it feels like to experience racism, and I told them I didn’t want to do that. Because who wants to relive their trauma for an audience? At the time, there were few conferences featuring people of color on their stages, and when asked, the typical response that we would get was that there weren’t enough qualified designers of color or they didn’t know of any.

So, when considering what I could do, I thought about gathering a number of Black designers from different corners of design and having them speak about what they wanted to talk about, which was very different from what other conferences were doing.

We were expecting about 100 people, and ultimately got 5,000 people registered for the first event.

I got 13 designers and broke them into four categories: entrepreneurs, professors, design activists, and people working in the industry. I asked them what they wanted to discuss, and then we made 30-minute panels for each category. We live-streamed it on YouTube; we didn’t even get real estate on the university’s website— we had to share it with our students via Eventbrite. But then our students shared it with their friends, and their friends shared it with their friends, and so on. We were expecting about 100 people and ultimately got 5,000 people registered for the first event.

How did the SOBD continue to grow from that inaugural year in 2020? 

We started getting contacted by several companies and a number of those same organizations that weren’t featuring speakers of color in the past, with interest in partnering with us and recruiting from our next conference. So we added a career fair to the following conference, and instead of 13 speakers, we had close to 50 speakers of color. IBM recruited from our event— they were our title speaker—and within a day at our event, they recruited between 12 and 19 Black designers from their partnership with us, which was more designers than they had recruited in the history of their design program. We also had companies like Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, USAA, and several other tech companies come to recruit.

The following year, we were able to repeat having 50 speakers and having the career fair, and we were also able to raise sponsorship dollars for scholarships— we gave about $50,000 worth of scholarships away. My mother was a design aspirant and dropped out of college when she got pregnant with me. So I named the scholarship after her and told the students who received it that my mother couldn’t finish it due to cost and life, so giving them the scholarship felt like I was giving my mother a second chance. Our third event was headlined by Nikki Giovanni, which was amazing considering her history.

What was the development process like for this year’s conference? 

We had a long conversation about what we wanted to do for our first in-person conference and how we wanted to be different. We found that many conferences, especially those focused on equity in partnership with companies attempting to recruit people of color, usually go to destination cities like New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Although these cities are beautiful, they’re wildly expensive to visit and stay in. Many people who need these events get priced out often before they can attend.

The goal for me was to find cities with high Black populations that resided in flyover country instead of going to these destination cities and bringing our partner companies to these locations. This would make these types of careers more tangible for people who traditionally don’t see people who look like them in these roles and never see these types of companies visit their communities.

With that, we started looking at cities like Jackson, Mississippi; Jackson, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Mobile, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee, where we landed on hosting this year’s event. Nashville is uniquely situated with three HBCUs in one city, including Tennessee State University, our host institution. We also secured a partnership with Scarritt Bennett in Nashville, who is willing to rent dorms at a much cheaper rate to students for the events, making it more accessible.

What are you most looking forward to regarding this year’s conference?

I’m really excited to see how the students of Tennessee State University respond to this. I don’t think anything like this has happened on their campus. For these students to see designers that look like them, walk like them, talk like them, and have the same cultural backgrounds as them, end up in some of these areas that they’ve never even heard of before, I feel like a lot of students will have their minds blown.

For many of our partners and allies who aren’t of color and are coming to a historically Black college, it will be a cultural exchange that will also be really interesting. I think it will be amazing for them to see some of the Black Greek organizations, some of the bands, and the cultural offerings of Nashville in general. I’m looking forward to the conversations that will be had afterward, too.

What do you hope participants of the SOBD walk away with? 

For the students of color who attend, I want them to look at the designers and careers there and feel like they belong. I want them to feel like there’s an opportunity for them and that even if they’re not confident in their skill sets yet, they leave with a better understanding of what they need to do to improve.

For designers not of color who are attending, I want them to come willing to experience something different and gain an understanding of people who belong to an outgroup. We don’t always do a great job of taking people who belong to an ingroup and placing them in a scenario where they have to learn more about outgroups. The conference not only exposes them to another world but also gives them an opportunity to understand a demographic they may be designing for and designing with in the future.

For the companies that are coming, I’ve been trying to challenge the recruiters to show up and look at it differently. Instead of saying we want your best and your brightest, I want them to look at it from the standpoint of investing in this particular audience to make them the best and the brightest. To work with and nurture versus going to destination institutions that everybody goes to to recruit. In my opinion, that keeps design extremely incestuous and locks people out, and not just people of color. There are plenty of white designers in Nashville and white designers in these flyover countries who also don’t get an opportunity to speak to these companies. So, if we shift how companies build relationships with institutions and how they recruit, I think it would benefit us all.

I can throw something together and then open a pathway for others so that when they graduate, it makes it easier for them to get into a field that was extremely difficult for me.

What aspect of the SOBD are you proudest of?

Every time I throw this conference, I tell myself I will never do it again because of how difficult it is. The day the conference ends, I go home, turn off my cell phone, and go to sleep because I am just exhausted. But then the next day, and for the next two weeks, I am flooded with “thank you” messages from people telling me they got an internship with this company that they never thought they were going to. I’ve had friends who have gotten partnerships with companies to do design work because they saw their participation in the event. Or people who get internships with companies like IBM or Amazon just because of the strength of the conference. For me, that’s what makes it worth it. I can throw something together and then open a pathway for others so that when they graduate, it makes it easier for them to get into a field that was extremely difficult for me.

Since April 2021, the Chicago-based design consultant and teacher Joseph Michael Essex has posted intriguing visual-verbal aphorisms on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, pithy sayings accompanied by the barely-visible words “Design is everything. Everything is designed.” He calls the series “Thinking Aloud.” Essex is a true design leader, having worked at PBS, Unimark International, Center for Advanced Research in Design, Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, and, with his wife and partner Nancy, EssexTwo International. In recent years, he shifted some of his focus from client projects to consulting with other designers on how they might improve their practices by attracting better assignments, becoming financially stable, and finding greater satisfaction in their work.

When Essex posted the above image earlier this year, I knew it was high time for an online sit-down to get some questions answered. Our conversation is below (edited for clarity and length).

Ellen Shapiro: Many young designers complain online that they can’t get interviews, much less a job offer. What’s going on? Is there too much competition from people working remotely? Or are our schools churning out too many graduates for the jobs available?

Jospeh Michael Essex: Most young designers don’t have an opportunity to compete for the better assignments. Large clients and agencies have gatekeepers, the people responsible for collecting proposals, but they lack the ability to evaluate the content other than to compare prices. Often, they’re accountants or purchasing agents. They don’t write the RFPs and aren’t qualified to assess the capabilities or expertise of those submitting the proposals. Young designers have almost no chance to get on the RFP list, much less to win the business—unless they make an effort to identify the gatekeepers in the organizations they want to work for and ask to be considered. They can also connect with those in the appropriate departments (advertising, marketing, corporate communications, public relations) for consideration.

Another way to get started is with small or mid-size organizations and grow with them. Younger clients are more likely to listen and embrace new ideas, new technologies, and newer methods of communication.

Actually, I don’t get the sense that the individuals baring their souls on Reddit are hoping to get RFPs from large organizations. They’re upset they can’t even get an interview at a small local ad agency or marketing firm.

JME: The Wall Street Journal once posited that it takes between ten and twelve points of contact before someone with something to sell is contacted by a person who needs the service or product. Getting new business opportunities has always been difficult and expensive in time and money. It takes persistence, tenacity, diligence, and patience—all good qualities in those looking to build a career.
Another important issue is that small local ad agencies and marketing firms don’t hire out work they think they can and should do.

Designers—young and seasoned—have a much better chance for success by going directly to clients who need the work rather than to the client’s outside agencies. Plus, if an outside agency hires you, you’re never allowed to present directly to the client.

ES: What about doing great work, posting it on Behance and Instagram, and letting clients find you? You don’t think that works?

JME: Picasso said inspiration only finds you when you’re already working. All successful communication connects linearly from awareness to concern to a dialogue that provokes a response. Clients are not trolling the Internet without a specific motivation!

More clients should be aware that design and designers could benefit them. By demonstrating how design-as-a-process will help them accomplish clearly defined objectives—like making a profit—they’ll see how design might benefit them and their organizations. They’ll begin to check out designers, and a dialogue might begin, culminating in a positive response.

ES: I attended an AIGA/NY debate in which half the people on stage — who had great jobs, even teaching jobs — said they were self-educated through YouTube videos and such. Are graphic design degrees necessary anymore? Desirable, yes, but essential?

JME: You might remember ‘Hall of Fame’ designers who didn’t have a formal design education. Some had degrees in parallel disciplines; others came to design through the back door with marketing, advertising, and illustration degrees or as paint and canvas artists. As long as clients see design as decoration rather than a discipline, formal education in graphic design is only a small plus. As long as young designers see design as a tangible physical thing to be made, with a top, bottom, back, and front, they’ll be supporting players rather than principals or critical contributors. If a designer can design one thing well, they can design anything and everything. The principles and the process are the same. If young designers view themselves and their work in the broadest possible context, they will not only have a career, but their contributions will be meaningful.

ES: Yes, Charles and Ray Eames were our design-school heroes. But aren’t designers of all ages and backgrounds more concerned with screens and apps than backs and fronts?

JME: Before doctors are permitted to specialize, they go through six to eight years of college, medical education, and internships. Each experience gives them broader exposure to human conditions and the human condition. A designer needs a similar educational path, beginning with a fundamental understanding of communication across all disciplines, media, and processes: how communication works, the spoken and unspoken, the pitching and catching, the preparation and presentation, the sympathy and empathy that connect us to one another.

When an art school plans a curriculum with the goal of students ending up with a job, they short-circuit the experience. Sure, parents who are reluctant to pay for art school are happy when a job is promised in four years, but the reality is that the more narrowly defined the job, the more likely it will not exist in a technologically driven world that evolves every seven to ten years.

ES: Many designers who previously had small offices and were doing quality work for big-name clients can’t even get those clients on the phone. It seems that either you own (or work at) a major agency or branding firm, or you have to find another source of income and satisfaction. Painting, pottery, anyone?

JME: I’m all for painting and pottery, but in my experience, there’s a continuous ebb and flow to design’s relationship with business. In the mid-70s, I worked at the Chicago office of Unimark. We did everything from event invitations to the design of next-generation gas stations, and extensive monthly invoices were sent and paid. At one point, though, Standard Oil’s management decided they were being taken advantage of and outfitted a big in-house design operation. A few years and business issues later, Unimark closed its doors.

After a while, though, new egos on Standard Oil’s executive floor decided they weren’t getting enough new ideas from the in-house design staff and started sending the big jobs with big budgets to design offices all over the country.

Things change over time.

ES: So, what do we do about the ebb and flow? One obvious answer is to rely on something other than one or two big clients for your livelihood. But other factors like recessions, stock market crashes, and events like 9/11 severely impact business opportunities. There are no protections and no insurance policies.

JME: Ellen, you and I have been doing this work for far too long not to recognize these issues are not unique to the design profession. Whether we are sole proprietors, manage a six-person office, or a division of an organization that has offices in six countries, we can’t avoid the responsibility of doing the best we can, no matter the circumstances. No one can avoid being vulnerable to what happens in our neighborhood, country, or world.

ES: Ah, we’re starting to delve into existential issues in graphic design (and illustration and photography and …). If you wrestle with big questions about life’s meaning, you are having an existential crisis. So, with the advent of A.I., which is thrilling to some but a threat to many, are the creative professions that serve clients having an existential crisis?

JME: Do you remember when ‘commercial artists’ did rough sketches, made layouts, and prepared mechanical art for printers? How about ‘speccing type’ and getting galley proofs from the type house? Or waiting for contact sheets from photographers. Not to mention location shoots involving airplanes, hotels, car rentals, and a crew of grips, gaffers, and gofers? When processing film and printing contact sheets took time, we took more time to think about each shot, ensuring we got it right and fixing it in the camera rather than later in Photoshop. Things change, some for the better, some not so.

ES: Yes, I remember it well. Now that we can instantly download photos and push a button to replace selected areas with A.I.-generated content, is that a better or worse situation?

JME: Artificial Intelligence is just that, artificial. AI will create an opportunity for thousands of choices and combinations of things no one has dreamt up before. But, like with most Big Data, we’ll still need to make choices. We must develop criteria that serve a defined purpose and accomplish an anticipated outcome. We need talented, intelligent, prepared people to make conscious, meaningful choices.

ES: Is there a different kind of consulting that clients need now that designers can provide, perhaps with some retooling?

JME: Yes. Clients desperately need a perspective that only independent minds can provide. They need today’s version of a consigliere, a Leonardo da Vinci-like voice in the ears of the Medicis, telling them what they might already know in ways they can’t ignore. They also may need a Flâneur, who strolls around, watches and listens, asks questions, and shares the thoughts of those unburdened by experience.

ES: Tell me about the Flâneur concept. Who will pay for it, and what will the benefit be?

JME: I don’t know if anyone can make a living from it, but I think it’s worth finding out. In my new discipline—helping develop leadership skills in creative people—maybe this is a good time and place to become a flaneur, someone who observes and transmits enlightening observations.

ES: Your trademark and mantra is ‘Design is everything. Everything is designed.’ Some people don’t agree with that. Once, when I complained to the person I was with—an author and musician—that the room we were in was badly designed, she rolled her eyes and said, “Why do you care? That’s not important! What’s important is what’s in your head and what you do.” How would you answer her?

JME: When I insist that ‘everything is designed,’ it doesn’t mean it was designed well. People make good and mediocre and bad choices. Responsibility exists for making those choices.

ES: Who decides what’s good or bad? I once fled from a date’s apartment with red-flocked wallpaper on the walls. Why even get started when you know it will never work out?

JME: Your experience and your instincts are well balanced. However, individuals rarely make choices without a particular outcome in mind. The host chose the wallpaper because it was pleasing to him. He assumed it would also be pleasing to his guests. In this case, the design choice was both good and bad. He got to enjoy his choice, but all alone.

When a client insists that all 200 words must appear on a single slide, his choice is about the importance and sanctity of his every word. While he gets his way, he loses his audience.

ES: What do you ultimately hope to do with these visual/verbal aphorisms? A book? A TED talk? How will you use them to communicate the value of design to non-designers?

JME: A book? That seems more self-conscious than I’m comfortable with. A TED talk? Maybe I’ll ask Ricky [Richard Saul Wurman] what he thinks. But in 20 minutes? I can’t talk that fast.

I grew up without a father. I always thought I missed out by not having someone in my life to point out the important stuff I missed while it was happening. I’m hoping that ‘Thinking Aloud’ will be that heads-up for someone.

ES: For someone or many people?

JME: I’ve had an opportunity to teach at several art schools and universities. I try to make this case to all my students: Don’t design for the thousands of people who will read the report, wear the dress, visit the site, or follow the signage. Design everything for a person, one at a time.

Years ago at EssexTwo, Nancy and I reprised a project first designed by John Massey at the Center for Advanced Research in Design. It was a memento for incoming teachers for the Chicago Public Schools. Silkscreened on 7,000 small polished stones were the words: ‘Teachers Affect Eternity.’

But what about the people behind those headlines and numbers? In my near decade-long tenure working as a Diversity & Inclusion practitioner, I have listened to the experiences of Black people in higher education, law, and advertising. Their backgrounds were unique, but the commonality was a feeling of being overlooked, underpaid, and dispensable in the workplace. While this is a significant issue in all industries, we must have more people-centered conversations regarding DEI in advertising.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

In May 2020, amidst the murder of George Floyd and the mourning of yet another Black person dying at the hands of the police, we witnessed what seemed like a racial reckoning. The workplace was changing. DEI departments were being created or expanded, Black ad talent received more promotions, and companies were tackling difficult conversations about race relations. 

However, the progress we made from 2020 to early 2022 has not only been undone, but things are arguably worse. There was already resistance to DEI advancements, but the combination of anti-Affirmative Action legislation, hundreds of companies firing their DEI teams, and billionaires like Elon Musk and Chip Wilson going to war against diversity added fuel to the flames. 

Over time, this anti-DEI rhetoric led to indifference and detachment toward the people most impacted by the current DEI shift. Black ad talent fights every day to find our way in this unwelcoming industry. We are your employees and colleagues. We make the advertising industry better through our undeniable cultural and creative influence. With that in mind, I honor the final day of Black History Month by centering Black ad talent. I want this article to serve as a reminder that DEI is more important today than ever. 

Inescapable Inequality 

Inequality is embedded into every crevice of advertising’s career pipeline–from portfolio school admission to C-suite access. Black talent deals with the remnants of America’s history of enslavement, Jim Crow, and economic oppression before we ever step foot in an agency. 

I have listened to countless advertising leaders and recruiters emphasize the importance of attending portfolio school to get ‘proper’ training and build a solid book. Organizations like The One Club have created laudable initiatives such as The One School—a free online portfolio school for Black talent–which has helped over a hundred Black creatives enter our industry. Yet, many agencies still recruit from a small number of schools, which, in and of itself, is a barrier to entry for Black talent. 

The typical White household has 9.2 times as much wealth as the typical Black household, according to research published by the Pew Research Center in 2023. This racial wealth gap often pressures Black professionals into more ‘traditional’ career paths like law, medicine, or education in search of economic security. While traditional postgraduate programs and portfolio schools are both expensive, the risk is different. In my experience, many Black families will celebrate the decision to follow a conventional career path. However, advertising is often perceived as low-paying and unpredictable. 

Some people never get to actualize their creative abilities in the workplace, but others, like Terence Raines, defy the odds. Raines is a senior creative director at a global full-service marketing agency and leads their Atlanta creative team. Raines recalls his days as a student at an elite ad school and the financial challenges he faced while under pressure to perform his best work. 

None of my peers knew that I would bring a massive sketch pad to my job so I could sneak schoolwork in while also trying to serve tables during peak rush hour.

Terence Raines, senior creative director

“None of my peers knew that I would bring a massive sketch pad to my job so I could sneak schoolwork in while also trying to serve tables during peak rush hour,” he says. “They didn’t know what it was like to leave a shift, sit through rush hour traffic, and pray you made it to class on time so you don’t get docked credit or what it was like to be negative in your bank account, but must explain to your critique panel why you couldn’t get your one-off designer spirits bottle fabricated for quarterly review.”

Graduating from ad school is an undeniable accomplishment. It is also just one out of many difficult steps toward career success for Black talent. Dèja Mays, a mid-level art director and co-founder of ‘The Come Up Brunch,’ a new networking event for Black mid-level professionals looking to upskill, has faced her own challenges within the industry. 

Mays has an impressive resume, graduated from a top ad school, worked at some of the industry’s leading agencies, and was featured in Adweek’s Profiles in Black Creativity. She almost pursued a career in psychiatry but decided to follow her passion for creativity. Years after Mays’ graduation, and with multiple awards and TikTok followers under her belt, she’s back on the job market. 

While internships provide a foot in the door, the journey to a seat at the table feels like an impossible voyage.

Dèja Mays, mid-level art director and co-founder of The Come Up Brunch

“The job search before my first role was tough, and it seems even more challenging this time around,” she says. “Many of my friends who are Black in the ad industry face similar struggles. While internships provide a foot in the door, the journey to a seat at the table feels like an impossible voyage.”

Many companies are quick to offer Black talent internships and entry-level roles, but what happens next? There is an almost impenetrable ceiling for Black talent looking to enter more senior ranks. Only 6% of managers and 4% of corporate executives are Black, according to She Runs It’s #Inclusive100 study on diversity and inclusion in marketing, media, and adtech.

“We lack the connections needed to secure a spot. Many of us talk about changing careers or taking on a second one as a backup, even though we are passionate about what we do. Our future in advertising seems so uncertain,” Mays says. 

What is advertising’s responsibility to address these shortcomings? What changes will we make within agencies and industry-wide to reflect the diverse population of America that we are marketing to? Will we, as an industry, succumb to the ‘DEI is Dead’ narrative? Or, stand firm and protect Black talent?

If you believe in the latter, evaluating your agency from top to bottom is critical. Ask yourself: Where are we recruiting Black talent? Are we investing in mentorship and sponsorship programs? Mental health and wellness workplace resources? Pipeline programs? Inclusion training for leaders, hiring managers, and recruiters?  

We are committed to the idea that this isn’t just a moral issue. We believe diverse perspectives will ultimately lead us to the best work possible.

Chris Breen, Partner & Chief Creative Officer at Chemistry

Failing to address these issues is a choice because some advertising leaders –like Chris Breen– are making the effort. Breen is a Partner & Chief Creative Officer at Chemistry, an independent creative agency. He is also a proud ally and diversity advocate. 

“We are committed to the idea that this isn’t just a moral issue,” says Breen. “We believe diverse perspectives will ultimately lead us to the best work possible. If we all used this as the lens to look at the problem, I think we would feel less angst around the fact that, to date, we have all done a poor job solving it. The industry can’t agree on the business value of fighting systemic racism. That’s the real issue we are facing right now.”

Agency leaders–if you want to support Black ad talent, understand the obstacles we face, listen to our stories, and provide growth opportunities. I hope this inspires you to research ways to invest in your Black employees and talent pipeline.

Initiatives Supporting Black Ad Talent

The One Club for Creativity

• Where Are All The Black People: The One Club’s annual diversity conference and career fair attracts over 3,000 creatives at the hybrid event. Talent can participate in portfolio reviews, panels, wellness sessions and network with recruiters. Contact adrienne@oneclub.org for more information. 
• One School: A 100% free, online portfolio school for Black creatives in the US and UK. Contact oneschool@oneclub.org. 
• Equify: A diversity training and certification program to help senior executives and staff create more inclusive and equitable practices throughout their organizations, created by James Kinney and powered by The One Club. Contact air@oneclub.org. 

And many other organizations and initiatives, such as:

• 100 Roses from Concrete: A 501(c)3 network for people of color in advertising, marketing media, and public relations industries. This platform aims to help people of color in our industry find strength and community in a space where they are encouraged and inspired by veterans and their peers. Founded by Keni Thacker.
• Black Visionaries: A nonprofit aimed at supporting Black professionals through tools, resources, and networking events. Founded by Aaron Francois. Contact aaronf@blackvisionariesinc.com for more information.
• Blvckdoor: An online platform that helps companies diversify their creative talent pools and helps creative talent of color find job opportunities, resources, and each other.
• Bold Culture: A business management firm founded by Darren Martin Jr, providing cultural insight reports and diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting. Contact darren@boldculture.co for more information. 
• Caged Bird HR: A black-owned HR support company on a mission to improve employees’ lives and work experiences worldwide. We do this by providing access to independent HR professionals and leveraging cutting-edge technology and data analytics.
• Cannes Can Diversity Collective: An organization founded by Adrianne C. Smith to increase the representation of talented people of color at advertising’s largest events, including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
• Hire Black Now: An organization aiming to get 10,000 Black women hired, trained, or promoted into corporate roles.
• In for 13: A pledge designed to stomp out systemic racism and create equity in the advertising industry by raising the percentage of Black representation in leadership positions to 13%.
• The Come Up Brunch & Dinner Series: An event series co-founded by Dèja May and Kelsey Matthews, with support from The One Club, that empowers, educates, and connects mid-level talent with mentors and job opportunities. Contact dejapocahontas@gmail.com for more information.
• Transform the Hustle: A Black-owned and led cultural consultancy, co-founded by Candice Grevious and Hilda Adeniji, specializing in Social Corporate Responsibility, DE&I Advisory, Content Creation, Experiential Marketing, and Digital + Marketing Strategy. Founded in 2021, their mission is to increase the representation of Black corporate professionals and independent creators by developing brand collaborations, employment opportunities, philanthropic initiatives, and innovative programming. Contact transformthehustle@gmail.com for more information.

Adrienne L. Lucas, JD is a cultural strategist with 10+ years of specialized experience working on community engagement and DEI initiatives in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. She is the Global Head of DEI & Strategic Partnerships at The One Club–an advertising nonprofit established in the 1960s to celebrate and support the global creative community. As part of her role, Adrienne hosts creative boot camps, lunch & learns, and cultural programming. She is also the Executive Director of advertising’s largest diversity conference and career fair–Where Are All The Black People. WAATBP was co-founded by Jimmy Smith and Jeff Goodby in 2011 with support from The One Club. 

Adrienne is a frequent guest on panels and podcasts covering DEI, culture, and Corporate America. She holds a J.D. from NYU Law, a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Diversity & Inclusion Professionals Certificate from Cornell University IRL School. She is passionate about the arts, civil rights, and social justice.

Banner images courtesy WAATBP Conference and The One Club, photographed by Derrick Larane of Pocstock.

Bereal’s work, encapsulated in The Black Yearbook, offers an intimate portrayal of the joys, challenges, and truths encountered by Black students navigating higher education. The book challenges our societal narratives with honesty and depth, and in the process, Adraint Bereal opens our eyes.

I was fortunate enough to ask Bereal about his educational and creative journey in bringing The Black Yearbook to life; below is our interview.

(Interview edited for clarity and length).

Left: The Black Yearbook cover, Right: headshot of author Adraint Bereal

Bereal’s profoundly personal project began with his alma mater, the University of Texas. Through a collection of portraits, personal statements, and interviews, he provided a window into the lives of Black students in a predominantly white environment. Inspired by his initial exhibition, 1.7, a raw and candid portrait of the experiences of Black men at UT (1.7% of the student population), Bereal expanded his vision. He embarked on a nationwide exploration from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to predominantly white institutions and trade schools.

What sets Bereal’s approach apart is his commitment to showcasing more than just the trauma often associated with Black narratives. Instead, he amplifies stories of resilience, joy, and triumph amidst adversity, challenging societal perceptions and stereotypes.

In visiting schools for The Black Yearbook, what was a pivotal moment or encounter during your travels that deeply resonated with you and shaped your understanding of the complexities within the Black student experience?

AB: Traveling far west to Alaska to conclude my travels was such a reflective moment. The four to five months of travel were filled with the constant noise of trains, planes, and cars. My best friend accompanied me to Alaska, and it was the most peaceful moment I had experienced. Because The University of Alaska-Juneau is a relatively small campus, I interviewed only two students, which left me with a lot of time to relax—something I hadn’t really been able to do. On our second day in Alaska, my best friend and I hiked to see the Mendenhall Glacier, after which we found ourselves running back to our taxi in a snowstorm. The conversations with the 116 students were kind of like this – enthralling, and before you know it, you are caught in the middle of a storm trying to seek shelter. Work like this requires courage, and I learned I have no shortage of it while running into a storm head first.

The heart of The Black Yearbook lies in its dedication to honest dialogue. Each profile is a testament to the individuality of Black college experiences. Through stunning photography and compelling narratives, Bereal captures the essence of each interviewee, allowing their voices to shine through.

What struck me most about Bereal’s work was his design approach. Every page of The Black Yearbook bursts with energy and creativity, reflecting the diversity and vibrancy of the Black college experience. It’s a refreshing departure from the monolithic portrayal of higher education, offering a multifaceted representation that celebrates the richness of Black culture and identity.

You weave together interviews, photographs, and illustrations to capture the multifaceted narratives of Black students navigating the educational landscape. How did you approach the storytelling process to ensure that these narratives were accurately represented and celebrated in their fullness, capturing moments of joy and triumph alongside the challenges and adversities?

AB: Creating a book like this requires a lot of openness, and that’s at the core of each conversation. I went into each meeting with little to no expectations, knowing that the conversation could be as short as a few minutes or as long as a few hours. Had I approached this in a measured and solely quantitative way, I may not have been able to cut through surface-level conversations to reach a more personal and lived experience. Patience is a virtue.

The Black Yearbook has been described as both radical and reverent, offering a space for Black students to see themselves reflected while challenging societal prejudices. How can creative projects like yours contribute to conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion within educational spaces, and what do you hope readers, particularly Black students, take away from your book?

AB: The Black Yearbook continues work previously done by artists and scholars such as Toni Morrison, Monroe Work, and W.E.B. Dubois. The increase in digital technologies has created a lack of physical media to preserve Black existence. We must be the architects of our narrative, and that is what I’ve done. I’ve created a lasting document of existence to preserve our stories for future generations. Understanding – that’s the takeaway.

In a society where mainstream narratives often overlook or stereotype Black experiences in higher education, The Black Yearbook serves as a powerful corrective. Bereal’s work challenges us to reframe our perceptions and embrace the complexity of Black college life. It’s a testament to the resilience, strength, and beauty of the Black community and a reminder of the importance of amplifying diverse voices in the narrative of higher education.

After launching their “An Eames of Your Own” guide last year via their online magazine Kazam!, The Eames Institute has set its sights on an exciting endeavor through its newly opened headquarters in Richmond, California. You might want to sit down in your Eames Molded Plywood Chair for this one …

The Eames Archives will be open to the public for the first time ever. Starting now, you can purchase tickets for guided tours of The Eames Archives at their newly refurbished Northern California headquarters. This Richmond location will be a permanent space for the public to experience the Eames Collection firsthand. Tours will be given personally by Llisa Demetrios, the chief curator and granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames.

It’s such a pleasure to expand the reach of the Eames Institute and further share the Collection with even more people.

Llisa Demetrios

“The Eames Archives is so special to me because it holds the things my grandparents loved and cherished—it’s an absolute joy to finally be able to share these pieces in this way,” says Demetrios.

The collection offers an expansive view of Ray and Charles Eames’ practice, including 40,000 artifacts that range from mass-produced furniture designs and unique one-of-a-kind prototypes to personal ephemera and private correspondence. The Eames Institute’s internal teams collaborated with Brooklyn-based designers Standard Issue to create a unique display that enables visitors to experience this material intimately. Much of the collection on view originates from the famed Eames Office at 901 Washington Boulevard in Venice, California.

Some particularly noteworthy items in the Archive include the Airplane Stabilizer (1943), the Plywood Sculpture (1943), the Molded Plywood Seat (1942), and the fake college diploma Saul Steinberg illustrated for Charles, who never completed his architecture degree (1950). In addition to experiencing this collection up close and in person, the space will also offer a behind-the-scenes look at the daily activities performed by the Eames Institute team in pursuit of preserving this cultural legacy.

And, of course, there’s a gift shop! At the end of each tour, guests are encouraged to explore a selection of books, vintage items, and design objects inspired by the Archives’ collection, all available for purchase. Reservations for guided tours of the Archive are available now through eamesinstitute.org. Tours will begin on February 14—the perfect Valentine’s Day date, perhaps?—and will be held on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays by appointment only. Going forward, tickets for the following month will be released on the first of each month.

Knowing this, it was no surprise that Fleur Willems and Jefferson Bueno decided to take the Online Master in Graphic and Digital Design at LABASAD, the Barcelona School of Arts & Design. Like Willems and Bueno, everyone who aspires to be a professional graphic designer has at some point asked themselves: What does it take to be a graphic designer today? What choices can I make to elevate my creative work? What tools can help me go from a novice to an expert?

LABASAD’s six-module online master allowed them to answer these questions and possess the tools and knowledge to navigate expertly through the fascinating world of graphic design. Let’s face it: variations in people’s learning styles mean that not everyone can watch online tutorials on YouTube and become a graphic designer. That system will work for some, but not all. There are some well-constructed and in-depth online learning resources and courses where students can study an aspect of graphic design, but very few give a full overview of every facet of the craft. LABASAD has crafted the Online Master in Graphic and Digital Design, a carefully engineered program to give you a comprehensive overview of graphic design, from the Principles of Graphic Design to Brand Identity, Editorial Design, Digital Design, Motion Design, and Packaging Design.

What’s Involved

During the program, students are required to address assignments resembling real-world professional tasks, applying the knowledge acquired in each module. In contrast, the concluding project is more flexible, enabling students to concentrate on a specific area of interest and develop a portfolio item designed to captivate the interest of potential employers.

How is LABASAD’s Online Master in Graphic and Digital Design structured, and what does it involve? In short, the master’s program is organized around six modules:

• Module 1. Principles of Graphic Design (including History and Basics)
• Module 2. Editorial Design
• Module 3. Packaging Design
• Module 4. Website Design
• Module 5. Motion Design
• Module 6. Brand Identity Design

Students receive guidance from distinguished industry experts boasting decades of professional expertise. The instructors on this year’s master program are:

• Stuart Tolley – Co-Director of the Master, Art Director and Graphic Designer
• Olivier Segers – Co-Director of the Master and Design Director at Zypsy
• Franziska Böttcher – Freelance packaging and brand designer
• Henk Willems – Founder and brand designer at Studio WillemsPeeters
• Sarah Boris – Artist & designer
• Timothy Milne – Founder, ARTOMATIC
• Vicent De Boeck – Motion Brand Designer

Why LABASAD?

LABASAD has revolutionized the landscape of design education, establishing a global reputation as one of the most exclusive online design schools that provides 100% live learning experiences. Students become part of a forward-thinking community, connecting with peers from around the world. Whether from Spain, the UK, Germany, Mexico, Belgium, and beyond, the school brings together over 800 talented individuals annually through smart devices and an internet connection. The success of the alumni speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the system and methodology, with 87% of graduates securing jobs or promotions upon completing their master’s. Some have even landed positions at world-renowned companies, including IKEA, Red Bull, Ogilvy, and Roche, to name just a few.

The school has a long history in the world of online education for creatives, with more than 20 online master programs in Spanish, and is also committed to international training with six programs in English. There are five specialized disciplines: Graphic Design, Illustration, UI/UX, Motion Graphics, and Interior Design. In addition, for those professionals with more experience and who want more advanced knowledge of the design sector, LABASAD also offers an Online Master in Graphic Design and Applied Typography. This program is crafted to provide the tools and creative processes that senior designers need to move to the next level.

Apply Now

In short, whether you wish to work in graphic design at a professional studio, inside an advertising agency, at an in-house company department, as a freelancer, or even as a business owner, then the Online Master in Graphic and Digital Design at LABASAD Barcelona School of Arts and Design is the perfect program to hone and perfect your skills.

The upcoming course starts in March 2024 and will be conducted exclusively in English. It’s important to highlight that, unlike a master’s program in the UK, possessing a degree is not a mandatory requirement for application. LABASAD places significant importance on your professional experience, considering it is on par with your academic background. This approach broadens the opportunities for individuals with diverse profiles to access high-quality training.

If you want more information about the program, you can apply here or send an email to
info@labasad.com.

As someone who graduated from a design school in the pre-AI era and now works at the School of Visual Arts, I’ve witnessed firsthand the thoughtful questions students ask about what to include in their portfolios and how to present digitally crafted imagery. Reflecting on these interactions, I’ve been pondering the impact of the AI boom on aspiring art and design students, especially as they navigate the nuances of preparing portfolio submissions.

So, what does this AI revolution mean for students? As AI technologies advance, they bring opportunities and challenges for students aspiring to apply to art and design programs. The implications of AI on students’ portfolios are wide-ranging. While AI tempts with fresh ideas and innovative visuals, it also raises concerns about the authenticity and originality of artists’ work. Let’s delve into the implications of AI on creativity, portfolios, and the essence of artistic truth.

Implications for Students’ Portfolios

Having completed my design education before the AI storm, I remember portfolio submission day’s anxiety-filled and anticipatory excitement. Sweaty-palmed with my heart racing, I gave my oversized portfolio case to the admissions team, vulnerably handing over hours of curation, love, and creative labor, hopeful yet nervous. Traditionally, portfolios have served as an important evaluation tool for design programs, allowing for a comprehensive assessment of an applicant’s creativity, technical skill, and capacity for innovative thinking. Portfolios enable applicants to display their artistic prowess and distinctive perspectives simultaneously. However, the introduction of AI-generated content has injected a dose of complexity into the concept of originality. 

Integrating AI into portfolios presents a rollercoaster of challenges and opportunities for students aspiring to secure a spot in prestigious art and design programs. Once a straightforward representation of an artist’s abilities, portfolios are now a dynamic battleground. Admission committees face the intricate task of discerning applicants’ genuine creative skills in a landscape where it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish between work crafted entirely by the applicants and that which has been aided or wholly generated by AI tools—especially as AI’s capabilities quickly evolve before their eyes. Admissions officers yearn to nurture authentic creativity, but the question looms: how can they differentiate between the contributions of human hands and those amplified by AI technology?

Portfolio Tips for Aspiring Design Students Navigating the AI Landscape

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have all the answers for how to evaluate originality within this environment. Instead, I offer some insights to aspiring students with the hopes of helping you navigate these complexities when crafting your portfolio for admissions.

AI is Your Sidekick, Not the Hero
The first step for students is to recognize that AI should be a tool in their creative process rather than a replacement for their unique artistic vision. Your creative flair should always take center stage, with AI enhancing your work rather than overshadowing it. Use AI to elevate your creations, but ensure your artistic fingerprint is unmistakably present.

Tell Your Unique Story
Admission committees seek artistic prowess and the depth of a creative mind; they are often more interested in an applicant’s thought process and conceptualization abilities than in polished technical skills alone. Focus on developing a strong design narrative throughout your portfolio with thoughtfully executed projects reflecting your personal experiences, perspectives, and creative journeys. Pour your soul into your projects, and let the designs tell your story.

Use AI to Help You Experiment, Explore and Play
AI tools serve as catalysts for experimentation and innovation. You can explore the unconventional integration of AI-generated elements into your work, demonstrating your capacity to push artistic boundaries and incorporate technology in inventive ways. AI becomes the rocket fuel propelling your creations to uncharted territories, allowing you to fearlessly twist, bend, and blend AI’s capabilities at the edge of creativity.

Narrate Your Creative Process
When presenting AI-infused art in your portfolio, share the story of its creation. Explain why you chose the AI route, how you collaborated with the technology, and what your masterpiece communicates. Explain how you used AI, why you made specific decisions and your artistic intent. Art isn’t just about the final product; it’s also about the journey.

Showcase Your Versatility and Unique Skills
Your portfolio shouldn’t be a one-trick pony. Portfolios should demonstrate a balance, and you can achieve this by including both AI-assisted work and entirely self-initiated and crafted pieces. Portfolio diversity serves as a testament to your multifaceted skills and artistic versatility. This mix allows the admission committee to witness the breadth of your abilities and creative range, from traditional craftsmanship to the incorporation of cutting-edge technology.

Let’s Get Ethical — Treat AI Like Any Other Artistic Collaboration
Collaborating with AI should be regarded as an artistic partnership; however, ethical concerns arise when AI’s role isn’t explicitly acknowledged. Always prioritize transparency regarding the extent of AI involvement in your creative work. In this collaborative dance with AI, ethical considerations take center stage. It’s imperative to credit AI appropriately when it contributes to the artistic process, making it clear that it was a tag-team effort. Your thinking and creative approach will still shine through!

Artistic Truth in the AI Storm

The proliferation of AI-generated content in the art and design world challenges conventional notions of authenticity. As AI evolves, the definition of what it means to be an “artist” may shift. However, the uniqueness of human creativity remains irreplaceable. Students must recognize that while AI can assist in the creative process, it cannot replicate the depth of human emotion, lived experiences, and conceptual intricacies that underpin exceptional works of art.

AI-generated art is flashy and mysterious, like the new kid on the block. But remember, you’re the seasoned artist with stories, emotions, and life packed into your strokes. AI can mimic, but it can’t feel. Your authentic artistic spirit is the secret sauce that makes your work unapologetically yours. By embracing innovation, maintaining transparency, and narrating their creative journeys, students can navigate the friction between technology and human ingenuity while preserving the authenticity that makes their portfolios remarkable.

If you are on the frontlines of this digital revolution, it’s vital not to let AI overshadow your spotlight. Your portfolio offers a glimpse of your artistic journey, with AI-enhanced moments as one part of the larger canvas. Your imagination is the true star!

So, dive into the whirlwind of tech-infused art, assert your creativity, and reinforce the idea that while AI may add sparkle, the human spark sets the canvas ablaze. In this evolving technological age, the artist’s role remains pivotal, reminding us that creativity is a profoundly human endeavor.

Images created by Amelia Nash.

If you are an educator, your students will dearly appreciate the conversations that result from exposure to a greater diversity of design voices. For practicing corporate designers, these books will help you to consider a broader history of design storytelling.

These five new books are a lens through which we can interact with a brand-new world of design commentary. Let’s broaden the 21st landscape of design in our thinking, academic pedagogy, and professional practice. Buy. Read. Assign. Require these books. Every Fall. Repeat.

Centered: People and Ideas Diversifying Design by Kaleena Sales

Described by the publisher as “a rich, inclusive, contemporary, and global look at design diversity, past and present,” Centered is curated by Kaleena Sales, an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Department of Art & Design at Tennessee State University.

Centered is a luscious bouquet of stories from accomplished and underrepresented graphic designers worldwide. The anthology features brilliant work by visual storytellers such as Adolphus Washington, a mixed media artist who creates incredible Romare Bearden-like collages (find him at @negrophonic). Washington, originally from New York, works for the State Department in London. He creates his collages after work each day, inspired by Bearden and the sights and sounds of a “Negro” America. Washington co-designed the striking book cover and its typography with Sales. The anthology showcases typefaces from diverse foundries, such as Tre Seals’ award-winning MARTIN. With the bounty of astute scholarship found in Centered, it begs to be part of our classrooms. Read and discuss one of the essays or interviews in Centered, then assign a project: create a brand for a nonprofit, a logo, a poster, or an app!

A noted scholar and voice for diversity in the design community, Sales is the coauthor of Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guide for Graphic Designers and cohosts a podcast about design and culture with Design Observer.

As the design industry reexamines its emphasis on Eurocentric ideologies and wrestles with its conventional practices, Centered advocates for highlighting and giving a voice to the people, places, methods, ideas, and beliefs that have been eclipsed or excluded by dominant design movements.

Princeton Architectural Press

Racism Untaught: Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design by Lisa E. Mercer and Terresa Moses (foreword by Cheryl D. Miller)

We tend to regard racism as a construct that we’ve not been taught. But racism’s human-made DNA is integrated into society’s fiber, even found covertly in the practice of design. If we learn racism in our hearts, we can unlearn its tenets in our minds. In Racism Untaught, Lisa E. Mercer and Terresa Moses, two veteran anti-racist educators, provide a step-by-step guide to anti-racist interventions in academic, business, and community settings. The book, an adaptation of their successful workshop series, has concrete examples and case studies designed to help us analyze and reimagine design, unlearn racialized design practices, and “move more generatively toward collective liberation.”

Racism Untaught is a dynamic piece of scholarship disrupting our status quo. Embodying the design research process, Racism Untaught focuses on developing anti-racist designs in collaborative design environments. Mercer and Moses explore design-led interventions and why these approaches are foundational to disrupting normative design practice. Topics such as racism and oppression can be difficult to process and discuss, especially in classrooms, work environments, and community spaces that are not typically focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Chock-full of dynamic illustrations, case studies, data visualizations, and brilliant photography, Racism Untaught challenges us to be better than our histories. Moses’ cover design and illustrations are beautifully rendered. An accompanying workshop kit serves as a complimentary tool for studios, classrooms, or conference seminars. Try unpacking one of the case studies as a team, group project, or conference breakout, then ask the group to document their discoveries and write their reflections. Racism Untaught challenges everything we have been taught about racism in our lives.

Lisa E. Mercer is a designer, educator, and researcher. She is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Design for Responsible Innovation in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Terresa Moses is a creative director at Blackbird Revolt, a social justice-based design studio. She is also an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and the Director of Design Justice at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design.

A powerful and proven guidebook that shows organizations how to recognize racism in designed artifacts, systems, and experiences—and how to replace them with anti-racist design solutions.

MIT Press

An Anthology of Blackness: The State of Black Design, edited by Terresa Moses and Omari Souza (foreword by Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall)

Curated by Terresa Moses (see above) and Omari Souza, an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at the University of North Texas, the organizer of the State of Black Design Conference, and a design researcher at Capital One, An Anthology of Blackness is a collection of essays, opinion pieces, case studies, and visual narratives. It examines the intersection of Black identity and practice, probing why the design field has failed to attract Black professionals, how Eurocentric hegemony impacts Black professionals, and how Black designers can create an anti-racist design industry.

Unapologetic is the only way to describe this anthology; it’s a scholarly “state of the union,” with design practitioners, researchers, scholars, and educators documenting their groundbreaking perspectives, research, and advocacy. An Anthology of Blackness offers bold treatises of where Black designers have been, where we are, and where we are heading, bridging the gap between the past and today’s advancement of the Black designer in the global design conversation. Once again, Moses proves herself more than a design professor and scholar but a brilliant graphic designer. Moses designed the book cover, section iconography, and typography, centering the Black design aesthetic. Souza’s passion for telling our stories is evident. He joins Teressa in editing new voices who tell it like it, “–T-I-S!” I especially enjoyed Jillian M. Harris’ essay, “African Design: Origins and Migration,” with research focused on the Ancient African contributions to design. I joyfully concur, most definitely, “Graphic Design history begins in Africa!” I plan to assign this reading and offer a writing prompt that challenges my students to reconsider the Eurocentric modernist lens of the beginning of graphic communication.

Through autoethnography, lived experience, scholarship, and applied research, these contributors share proven methods for creating an anti-racist and inclusive design practice.

MIT Press

Design at an HBCU: The Morgan & AIGA Era by Perry Sweeper (foreword by Cheryl D. Miller)

I love well-kept secrets. This story is quite a surprise to me, having had no idea Morgan State University, a famed HBCU in Baltimore, has an award-winning graphic design department! Design at an HBCU, written by Perry Sweeper, a design technologist, researcher, and Professor of Practice at Morehouse College, documents the founding of the Graphic Arts Program at Morgan State University, the first HBCU to have an AIGA chapter. The story begins with a once fledgling university fine arts department in a moment of transition from analog design technology to the digital era. Sweeper honors his mentor, Professor Joseph Ford, whose genius lies behind the strategies to turn the Morgan Fine Arts Department toward its prosperous future. Partnering the new design department strategic plan with an AIGA student chapter affiliation proved to be a winning combination, garnering awards for the Graphic Arts program over its 20+-year association. Morgan students and alumni all attribute their successes to the legacy of Professor Ford. Sweeper sheds light on some of the “best-kept secret” institutions for studying design—an urgent conversation, with the Supreme Court effectively ending the use of affirmative action policies and enforcement in colleges. Morgan University’s design story and relationship with AIGA’s Baltimore student chapter offer a path to greater outcomes for design education. Design at an HBCU is full of Professor Ford’s curriculum and syllabus examples, and educators will appreciate its project prompts for creating a new curriculum (and new pedagogical space) for any underrepresented community that desires to receive a quality design education.

Extending beyond Morgan, the author hopes that this book further highlights the importance of HBCUs and the pivotal role Black designers will continue to play in the future of graphic design.

Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity, and Challenge the Status Quo by Lesley-Ann Noel

Who are you? What motivates you? What forces are preventing you (and others) from thriving?

Design Social Change, written by designer and design educator Lesley-Ann Noel, Assistant Professor of Art and Design Studies at North Carolina State University, asks these questions to help you design strategies for making a lasting impact. Noel’s current work, situated at the intersection of equity, co-creation, and futures thinking, is evident as she offers tools to tailor your design approach, considering your history, personality, ethics, and goals for the future.

The book captures artful editorial design and page layouts featuring colorful illustrations by Trinidadian artist Che Lovelace. Noel explores different methods and approaches of design experimentation for accomplishing fair and equitable change and creating new futures through the metaphor of creating recipes for a cookbook. Three distinct conversations narrate Design Social Change: 1) What’s wrong? 2) What does it feel like? and 3) What world do you want to change? Noel engages us to dream the change we want to see in our lives, community, and world. Warm and inviting, Noel’s scholarship helps us grow past oppression and injustice to a more inclusive present and future. Past any present darkness, we see a better tomorrow by the vision we imagine today.

Design Social Change is part of a collection published by Stanford University d.school, in which two additional books are launching (November): Experiments in Reflection by Leticia Britos Cavagnaro and Make Possibilities Happen by Grace Hawthorne.

Discover design strategies for using your own unique social identities and experiences as inspiration to challenge the status quo and create the kind of lasting change that leads to greater equity and social justice.

Stanford University d.school

The sensibility to publish the Black design perspective has never been greater during my 50-year design career. Historically, this has not been the case. Simply put, we weren’t included in the trade publishing narrative of the design industry. We’re seeing trade publishing’s response to the political, cultural, and political paradigm shifts of the era. Since 2020, dynamic Black, brown, and BIPOC indigenous scholars have published monographs, anthologies, articles, and memoirs in numbers. One example is The Black Experience in Design: Identity Expression and Reflection. I treasure this “orange bible” for its curated scholarship of the Black experience. We must keep writing and producing quality scholarship that will garner the attention of the major trade design publishers.

We are designers and writers of extraordinary astute scholarship, but it’s not only a matter of getting published. Our future to remain in the dialog of trade publishing depends on our texts being used, adopted, and absorbed into graphic design history and lexicon (and included in publications like Fast Company). Our scholarship must be purchased and USED for a transformative future in design that we all can experience.

I started trade writing for the design industry decades ago. It humbles me that I now find my own words of scholarship permanently recorded in quotes, references, endnotes, footnotes, indexes, biographies, forewords, introductions, and essays. Trade publishers are listening; may we continue writing that our voices to resound boldly the call for expressive rights in the design industry.

Please buy, read, assign, and require these five books.

Dr. Cheryl D. Miller is recognized for her outsized influence within the graphic design profession to end the marginalization of BIPOC designers through her civil rights activism, industry exposé trade writing, research rigor, and archival vision. Miller is a national leader of minority rights, gender, race diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion advocacy in graphic design. She is founder of the former Cheryl D. Miller Design, Inc., NYC, a social impact design firm. She is a designer, author, educator, theologian, and a decolonizing design historian.

Banner photo: chapter graphics from “Centered: People and Ideas Diversifying Design” by Kaleena Sales.

Co-authored by Monotype and Canva, the educational series includes lecture topics, in-class discussions, and activities for students to explore and expand their relationship to design. The five modules are Type 101, Type All Over the World, The Psychology of Typography, Type and Branding, and Design Thinking.

Typography helps shape the meaning of language. It accentuates, clarifies, modifies, persuades, and entertains. These courses will reveal the power of type to a whole new generation of designers around the world.

Charles Nix, Monotype Executive Creative Director and coauthor of the series

This announcement builds on the relationship established in March 2023 to make more than 1,100 Monotype-curated fonts available on the Canva platform.

Canva launched Canva for Education in 2019 to extend access to its free online design and collaboration tool into classrooms everywhere. Teachers and students now make up nearly a third of its user community. The educational platform has also announced collaborations with NASA and the New York Times.

Read Monotype’s full announcement.

Welcome to LATTC’s famed Sign Graphics program, which has been taught at the college since 1924. It’s said that LATTC itself was founded around this course, and then expanded its class offerings from there. 

I am a proud Sign Graphics student myself, currently in the third semester of a four-semester, two-year program. I enrolled in the fall of 2022, after becoming completely enamored by hand-painted signs when I moved to LA in 2016. I learned about the LATTC Sign Graphics program from sign painters I reached out to on Instagram, asking them how in the hell I could somehow do what they do. Each of their responses was the same:

If you want to be a sign painter, you have to take Sign Graphics at Trade Tech. That’s all there is to it. 

It feels impossible to even attempt to express my Sign Graphics experience so far in a way that would do it justice, but I’ll give it a whirl. The rich legacy of the program emanates from the very many signs and letter charts adorning the walls of the classroom that have been painted by former students and instructors from years past. My instructors, Carlos Aguilar and Emmanuel Sevilla, are each Sign Graphics alums themselves, as Carlos took the course from 1995 to 1997 and Emmanuel did so from 2008 to 2010. Carlos first began teaching at Trade Tech in 2013 with the beloved instructor and bonafide sign painting legend Doc Guthrie. When Doc retired in 2021 after 30 years of heading the program, Carlos took over as lead teacher and Emmanuel joined him in 2022. 

Most would consider taking an intensive class in which you dedicate 20 hours a week for two years to learning an old-world hand craft pretty ridiculous. But luckily, there is a steady wave of people just like me who are ridiculous enough to do it. The course attracts an eclectic group of people of different ages, ethnicities, races, socioeconomic statuses, and backgrounds, who share at least one thing in common: we’re obsessed with sign painting. Because you have to be obsessed to take this course— it’s not something you can do casually given the level of commitment required. 

Many of the students I’ve met in my class have art backgrounds in other fields, and are looking to sign painting as an extension of what they already do. I spoke to three of them about their experience in Sign Graphics so far, how sign painting supplements their other art practices, and why the craft speaks to them so deeply. Nick Caruso, Heather Bleser, and Gabriel Rivera represent a microcosm of the diverse Sign Graphics student body, which is one of the things that makes the program so enriching.

Nick Caruso, Graphic Designer

Nick Caruso moved to LA from Pittsburgh when his wife’s career as a writer for television and film pulled them to Tinseltown. They uprooted their by-the-book lives in Pittsburgh for the thrill of LA uncertainty, selling their home and moving across the country with their two young daughters, diving headfirst into the unknown.

Nick has an extensive background working as a professional graphic designer for the last 20 years, designing across platforms including books, branding, exhibition design, posters, and apparel. He studied visual communications at Kent State University and bopped around New York City after that, ultimately landing at the publishing company Artisan followed by Henry Holt and Company where he designed books and book covers. When he moved from New York to his hometown of Pittsburgh, he began working for himself as a one-man design studio, where he collaborated often with sign painters for certain branding projects.

“I got to know all of the sign painters in Pittsburgh, and they were like, ‘Hey, we have this Pittsburgh Lettering Club, you should come by. We just hang out and drink beer and eat snacks,'” Nick told me. This was Nick’s first foray into the magical world of sign painting, with meetings hosted every other week at the studio of sign painter Andrew Paul, who helms Run Rabbit Gilding. 

It was from this club that Nick learned of the LATTC Sign Graphics program. When Nick mentioned their move to LA, Andrew said, “So you know the first and last remaining program that teaches sign painting is in LA?” “It was a bug in my ear, and I started looking it up and figuring it out,” said Nick. He officially enrolled in the Sign Graphics program soon after moving to the city, and a year later, he’s all in. 

“I totally want to go on to work as a sign painter or actually have a sign shop or make my own products,” he said. “It’s low risk though, because if I leave this program and I’m not a sign painter, I still learned a ton about lettering, and lettering already goes hand in hand with the branding work I do. Even if I were to go back into books and book covers, I will be pulling from everything I’ve learned here.”

When I asked Nick what it is about sign painting that he loves so much, he said it’s the tactical process of an art form that’s done by hand. “I just really like building that skill set, and the repetitive nature of trying to get good at something. There’s no other way around it: you just have to put in the hours.” Nick acknowledges that while he has a degree in graphic design and decades of professional design experience under his belt, he’s by no means a sign expert just yet. “Swiss-influenced design was taught at the college that I went to, and I still hold on to all of that, but I have to kind of put it aside and check it at the door here, and not think that I know more, because I don’t! All of the rules and intuition and everything that I have has to be set aside and I have to listen.”

I just really like building that skill set, and the repetitive nature of trying to get good at something. There’s no other way around it: you just have to put in the hours.

Nick Caruso

As a non-native Angeleno like me, Nick has immense respect for the window into the real LA that Trade Tech and Sign Graphics offers. “It’s sort of awesome to be immersed in the culture of LA just by being in this room,” he said, and I couldn’t agree with him more. Many of our classmates and both of our instructors were born and raised right here in LA. There’s an authenticity and sense of being embedded in the city that comes with attending Trade Tech that is unique among other learning experiences. 

Heather Bleser, Ceramicist and Leather Artist

Heather Bleser is an LA native and working artist who creates custom leather goods and pottery. She hand carves names and portraits into leather items within her brand Waste of Talent, and retouches hand-written recipes and love letters that she then glazes onto ceramics for the other arm of her artistic offerings, Soul Kitchen Keepsakes.  

“All the things I do—the leather work and the pottery—are very hand done, and it’s all custom. I like the element of having something that’s one of a kind,” she said. “Whether it’s pottery or leather or signs, it’s all something that isn’t supposed to really be duplicated. Even if they’re the same, if they’re done by hand then each one is a little bit different.”

I like the element of having something that’s one of a kind.

Heather Bleser

Heather took a sign painting course in high school, but hadn’t pursued the craft any further until now, over 30 years later. “I just always wanted to do it; I wanted to just go up to a wall and be able to letter; not a lot of people can do that. I love seeing the way that old signs age, too. There’s a quality to it that you don’t get with other stuff. You can see there’s a personality and a human behind it.”

Heather is an insatiable learner who has taken art classes at colleges throughout LA for years, including at Otis College of Art and Design, ArtCenter College of Design, Pierce College, Cal State Northridge, and now LATTC. “I’ve taken a lot of classes here and there, and I still want to take more. Even with sign painting, there are those two-day workshops, and even though we’re going through this program, I’d love to see somebody else’s take on it.” This mentality reverberates throughout the sign graphics program, composed of creatives who are hungry to learn as much as possible. “I’ve taken classes at really good schools, but I don’t feel like Oh, I know it all!, and I’m 51 years old,” she went on. “You can get something out of any class you take if you’re interested. And it keeps you motivated! It’s cool being around other people, like our classmates, who get excited to go to school.”

Like me, Heather finds the diversity of Sign Graphics to be limitlessly inspiring and the fabric of what makes the course so meaningful. “Think about me, you, Gabriel, Nick, Val, Carlos, Jose— it’s a group of people at such totally different stages in their lives and from such different walks of life,” she said. “It’s interesting that everyone’s here for the same reason: because they all have a respect for handmade stuff.”

Gabriel Rivera, Tattoo Artist

There are strong ties between the worlds of tattooing and sign painting. Many tattoo parlors are adorned in hand-painted details, whether in the form of small internal signage or extravagant gold-gilded windows. At their core, tattooing and sign painting are similar handcrafts, each requiring meticulousness, attention to detail, and a steady hand, with many tattoo artists having dabbled in sign painting to hone their lettering skills. My classmate Gabriel Rivera represents this sect of the sign painting community, as a prolific tattoo artist at Greyscale Tattoo Studio in Anaheim. 

The LATTC Sign Graphics course had been on Gabriel’s radar for years, after learning about it from many of the artists he admires. “I used to look up to pinstripers, and it turned out a lot of them had a sign painting background; it’s all tied into the family,” he said. “I found out that some of the tattooers and lettering guys that I looked up to took this course when they were very young. There was a crazy history, and these guys are super successful now; Mister Cartoon, OG Abel, Big Sleeps. I knew very early that this was the spot.”

Type-driven designs are central to Gabriel’s tattoo practice, so enhancing his lettering skills was one of the major motivators for his taking the course. Halfway through the program, he says the skills he’s learned so far have translated into his tattoo work. “I definitely pay a lot more attention to thick and thins, design layouts. Layout is one of the biggest things that helps. In the past I would cram things too much and I wasn’t thinking about spacing and margins.”

Gabriel also said that the lettering styles of tattooers with sign painting backgrounds are a cut above. “In tattooing, everybody seems to do script and old English, those are the go-to letters. Yes, that’s fun, and I do a lot of that and I love doing it, but it’s not enough. The way sign painters design is on another level, and I want to take that into the tattoo world. It’s something you don’t see as much, at least on the West Coast. You see it in Europe; in Europe they’re crushing letters in a different way where it’s more sign-painter-like. I would like to bring that style here. I want to learn as much as I can and maximize my skills in order to get better.”

Aside from using sign painting skills to better his tattooing, Gabriel is keen on learning another craft that he can add to his creative arsenal to supplement his tattoo practice. “I basically want to have other things in the wheelhouse so I don’t have to be tattooing six days,” he said. “I really love seeing things from beginning to end. It’s always a puzzle and it’s satisfying. Sign painting reminds me a little bit of tattooing or any lettering that I’ve done in the past; you’re on a mission and it’s so satisfying to see the whole thing.”

Sign painting reminds me a little bit of tattooing or any lettering that I’ve done in the past; you’re on a mission and it’s so satisfying to see the whole thing.

Gabriel Rivera

Each of us who completes the Sign Graphics program will come away with far more than sign painting prowess. Sure, we’ll have the fundamental rules of emphasis and margin spacing seared into our brains, and we’ll be able to instinctively pull a crisp enamel line on glass, but it’s the intangibles of the course that really make it tick, which are emblematic of the trade as a whole. What’s most meaningful to me is the types of people attracted to an esoteric craft that most others would dub obsolete. People who are not only willing to dedicate so much of themselves to this skill, but consider doing so a privilege.

Carlos often repeats an old Doc adage in class: “It’s only a fucking sign.” This might be true, but Sign Graphics is much more than just a fucking class.

Learn more about LATTC’s Sign Graphics program.

A town or city’s local art supply and stationery shop have long-served as important hubs for creativity and art to flourish in a community, and the start of the school year is the perfect time to show them some love.

1. Shorthand — Los Angeles, CA

We’ve already mentioned our love for Shorthand, a color-blocked dreamland of stationery goods laid out with an infectious love and care in LA’s groovy Highland Park. Since 2016, Shorthand has been sourcing products from places like Germany, Tokyo, Belgium as well as designing and producing on-site in their letterpress studio that operates from the back of the store.

2. Ziegler Art and Frame — Tulsa, OK

For 50 years and counting, Ziegler Art and Frame has offered all manner of art supplies, custom framing services, and even art classes in Tulsa’s historic Kendall-Whittier neighborhood. Whether you’re looking for high-quality tools or quirky, old-fashioned gifts, it’s easy to get lost in this lovingly preserved, deceptively massive space.

3. Hull’s Art Supply + Framing — New Haven, CT

Located in the heart of Yale’s campus, Hull’s has been slinging art supplies and providing custom framing since 1947. Hull’s is a critical institution within the small, yet lively New England city, serving the Ivy League elite and local New Haven creatives alike.

4. Dromgoole’s Fine Writing Instruments — Houston, TX

Family owned and operated since 1961, Dromgoole’s is a stationery store that specializes in luxurious writing implements and tools, from collectible fountain pens to everyone’s favorite pencil brand, Blackwings.

5. Ladyfingers Letterpress — Colorado Springs, CO

While this queer and trans-owned-and-operated shop was originally founded in Pawtucket, RI, Ladyfingers Letterpress relocated to Colorado Springs in 2016, where they’ve been printing their own line of greeting cards ever since. Central to the brand’s mission is promoting the rights of women, the LGBTQ+ community, BIPOC, and immigrants through their products and press.

6. The Waste Shed — Chicago, IL

The Wasteshed is a nonprofit in Illinois that collects reusable art and school supplies and then redistributes them into the community. With a 25% discount for educators and a “Free To Teachers” section, The Wasteshed is committed to supporting those inspiring the next generation of artists and ensuring creative resources are accessible to all.

7. Baum-kuchen — Altadena, CA

Founded by a husband and wife duo from Germany and Japan respectively, Baum-kuchen is a studio, shop, and lifestyle brand committed to creating thoughtful stationery accessories. The shop and products are infused with an old-world charm that celebrates analog living, and they specialize in designing and hand-crafting leather pouches and notebook covers.

8. Binders Art Supplies and Frames — Atlanta, GA

Art supply and custom frame shop Binders has been a mainstay in the Atlanta art scene for decades that offers in-person workshops and online classes. Local artists can also rent out space at Binders’ Limelight Gallery for group and solo shows as part of the shop’s primary goal of supporting the city’s vibrant artist community.

9. Kremer Pigments — New York, NY

New York City’s Kremer Pigments is a uniquely important shop for their dedication to keeping the traditional craft of paint manufacturing alive by selling products for preservation and restoration. Vermilion, Smalt, Lapis Lazuli, Bone Black, and Madder Lake are just a few of the many pigments Kremer has revived and offers in their shop, which has a location in Germany as well.

10. collage — Portland, OR

You’ll find unique, quality art supplies for artists of all ages in collage‘s three locations. This colorful, charismatic shop honors Portland’s indie spirit with unintimidating tools and projects likely to appeal to punks, witches, and the bustling queer community. collage is also committed to giving back to the city with a fund that supports a different local organization each month.

Art of the Title is an online publication dedicated to celebrating and unpacking all manner of title sequence design. It’s the best sort of rabbit hole to fall into, providing a curated collection of credit reels, title designers, and informative articles about the medium for all to enjoy. As an avid explorer of Art of the Title myself, I felt compelled to speak to the site’s sole operator and curator, the brilliant Lola Landekic. Below, Landekic reflects on building Art of the Title for the last 12 years, her commitment to highlighting women title designers, and why the hell she loves title design so damn much.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

When and how did you first fall in love with title sequences and their design?

It was a slow process for me. I grew up as a sponge for media as a child, and I’m an immigrant to Canada, so I spent a lot of time watching television and watching movies— which is one of the ways that I learned English. It’s how I learned more about North American society when I was very little, so I had that mindset of actively watching. It was so different and alien to me from where I had been, and that made me a lot more aware of what I was seeing, and made me absorb things in a different way. 

I got really interested in graphic design as a teenager and had the privilege of being accepted into sort of a specialized high school program for kids that were interested in art and design. I was exposed to a lot of design and art history at an earlier age than some kids might be, so in my teen years, I looked up to people like Milton Glaser as if they were rock stars. To me, that was the coolest thing you could be: the person who developed iconic images.

What I really admired about Milton Glaser was that he had the capability of translating his skills into lots of different media. He was an illustrator and a designer, so he wasn’t boxed in; that was always very fascinating and interesting because I have a similar sensibility. And title design is this perfect amalgamation of so many different art forms; being a fan of title design doesn’t mean just one thing. It means an appreciation for many different art forms, and a title sequence is a channel that can encompass so many of those different forms.

Is there a particular title sequence or title designer who initially pulled you into this art form?

I’ve worked on Art of the Title now for 12 years, so I’ve talked to hundreds of people about their favorite title sequences and what woke them up to the art form. And often it’s not just that the title sequence itself is an interesting work of moving image— it’s also that the film means something to them, or the larger project means something to them. The best title sequences are inseparable from the larger work because their purpose is designed to serve that larger work. So in that sense, one of my personal favorites is from the late ’50s film Auntie Mame. 

Gems are being moved in stop motion, and there’s this kaleidoscope effect, colors moving— it’s just stunning. And the typography is both formed out of these sequins, and then also hand painted on glass. It’s an incredible artifact of excess and ideas of beauty, and it completely reflects the central character of Mame in the story who’s this beautiful, exuberant character. It also highlights the craft that goes into the art form— the various ways that you can approach it from the live-action clip at the beginning, to the stop motion, to the kaleidoscope effect, to the hand painting. 

The designer of that sequence, Wayne Fitzgerald, had a 50-year career; he designed over 200 title sequences, and this is one of his earlier works when he was at Pacific Title, a title studio. Later in his life, in the ’90s, he created a title sequence for Total Recall, which is basically the complete opposite of the Auntie Mame sequence. To me, the comparison of these two sequences— both created by the same designer, but encompassing such different tones, such different media— is the epitome of what I love about the art form. One person can encompass such extremes, can articulate such different viewpoints and tones. That was a big awakening to me. 

What’s the backstory of Art of the Title? How did the site come about?  

Art of the Title began as a small Blogspot blog in 2007 by Ian Albinson, who is a designer in Bristol, Vermont. Then in around 2010 or so, Ian reached out to a couple of his online acquaintances at the time— I was one— and he was like, I’m thinking of making this a little bit bigger and I’d love to have some help. Is anyone interested in writing about title sequences with me? And I was like, I am!

At that point, I’d been working as a graphic designer for a while already, and I will always love graphic design, but it’s not the only interest that I have. I’ve also always loved writing, so it seemed like the easy way to combine these interests, and to allow myself to explore and stretch in a different way than I had been at the time. 

For a while it was three of us: myself, writer Will Perkins, and Ian. In 2012, we redesigned the website, and that’s when it really took off. In fact, it still looks the same as it did in 2012, which I think is a testament to how well we set it up at the time. For the last five years or so, it’s been a one-person project. One of the things that confuses a lot of people, even longtime fans, is that the website looks so polished that everyone assumes there’s a large team behind it. That’s really not the case— it’s just me. 

This year, I’ve been hiring illustrators though, because I started a new series for the site called “Top Five.” In the realm of titles, the most fun you can have is just talking about titles. Whenever someone finds out that I make this website, they want to talk about their favorites, and it’s so fun, with everyone coming at it from a different angle. So I’ve been talking to people about their favorites for this series, and it’s been so lovely. So for each article, I hire an illustrator to create a portrait of the subject. Every once in a while, I hire a writer, or someone pitches me a great piece about a title sequence, and I commission them to write that article. So there’s a number of contributing writers on the website— I can’t write everything.

As a veritable title design scholar, how have you seen title sequences change over time, especially in the digital age? 

Over the ‘90s, everything shifted and became a lot more digitized. I often think of the 2000s era as the democratization of title design, where the tools became so accessible to such a large variety of people to create things in a much more efficient way. Which meant that title design emerged from where it had previously lived within larger studios and made it so that smaller teams like duos or people just working on their own could enter the field. So that’s a beautiful part of technology changing. 

I’ve been studying this art form for so long now, and like any art form, there are waves and renaissances and trends. Right now, there feels like there’s been an explosion in the art form, where it’s become so popular, and one of the reasons for that is because there’s such a market saturation, because of the streaming services. All of these streaming services are competing for viewers, and one of the most important parts of that process is establishing a foothold in the memory of your audience, and the title sequence is such a vital part of that connection process. There’s such a plethora of beautiful title sequences now, but I think that’s just a symptom of the market and how urgently everything needs to be marketed. 

I know you’ve started working in the title design space yourself. What has that experience been like so far? 

I’ve always loved working with typography and lettering, so this is a perfect channel for that work. I’ve also had the privilege and the pleasure of working primarily with female directors and female creators. It’s such a joy to help elevate female filmmakers because they just don’t get as many chances and as much support as other people in the industry. So it’s been such a joy to contribute to these projects.

Speaking of your commitment to uplifting women in the industry, can you talk about your ongoing “10 Women of Title Design” series on Art of the Title? 

As consumers of culture, if we’re sensitive, we often have moments of awakening. For me, around 2014-2015, I had this realization— which I’m sure seems very obvious— that everything I was consuming was created by men. I started to think about even the design that I had been taught and the film history I had been taught. I asked myself, Is there such a thing as a women’s title design history? It was a very difficult question because I didn’t know of any.

I’m sure most people who have any interest in title design are aware of Saul Bass. But very few people, even people who love title design, know about Elaine Bass, who was Saul Bass’s close collaborator for 40 years until his death in 1996. So beginning in 1960, with her work on the title sequence for Spartacus, she contributed to almost every title sequence that Saul Bass made, but people still constantly refer to him as this lone genius. I think that’s very detrimental, not just to history, but to the ways that we allow ourselves to experience the world and the art in it. Learning more about Elaine’s contributions, getting to speak to their daughter, Jennifer, and reading the monograph about Saul Bass’s work— which extensively talks about Elaine— really lit a fire under me to the point where I wrote the Wikipedia article for Elaine.

She was part of the first “10 Women of Title Design” article I wrote, and at the time, I thought I’d do it once. Maybe I could do it twice. But simultaneously, I made a conscious point to watch films directed by women and— surprise, surprise— female filmmakers tend to work with more female craftspeople overall. It seemed like every second or third film I watched that was directed by a woman had a female title designer, which to me was astounding; I was discovering so many more! Once I started digging, they were everywhere, but nobody knew about them. It inspired me to keep going, and now I’ve done seven of them; that means 70 women. 70 women that have contributed to this art form in one way or another over the years, or are currently working.

For many of them who are currently working, this has led to them getting speaking engagements, new retrospectives of their work, new press about their work, more respect in their current studios. Many of them have made the leap to creative director, I think as a result of increased press and coverage. So it’s been extremely satisfying.

Not just for the women, but all the designers that I highlight, I often hear that the coverage that I do on the website has, for example, made it possible for them to apply for visas because a publication has recognized their work as worthy of mention. It has allowed them to apply for work in new ways. It has opened new audiences to them. Let’s say, previously, they were only able to get work in Europe, and now they can get work for American studios and American productions. That’s incredible, and one of the reasons I keep making this website. Any time I feel overwhelmed, I try to remind myself of that. I also remind myself that those are just the ones that I’ve heard of. I’m trying to consistently remind myself that good intentions and good work have far more reach than we know about.  

What’s your favorite part of curating Art of the Title? 

When someone shows me something I’ve never seen before. Luckily, that happens all the time, because film is this bottomless, beautiful well. When someone shows something that is just so fascinating, or something that I watch and I think, Okay, how did they do that? There’s this fabulous intro for The Science of Sleep, the Michel Gondry film, where it’s this spinning paint effect. I remember watching that and thinking, How did they shoot that without getting paint all over the camera? Once I looked into it, I learned there’s literally a whole mechanism that they had to develop in order to shoot it. It’s fascinating.

Many title sequences feature these complicated Rube-Goldberg machines. My favorite most recent example is for Bad Sisters. It used this complex machine of all these various parts, and they had to physically build that in a room for the title sequence, which is always such a beautiful thing to me. Or claymation, which I never see anymore, but if I see a claymation title sequence, I just drop dead because I’m so happy about it. Things like that are just so delightful to me that it spurs me on and makes me keep going and digging and finding new treasures.

The African American community commemorates the end of slavery with the celebration of “Juneteenth.” Juneteenth as a federal holiday is relatively new, but for generations, the Black community has regarded it as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. Most definitely a day of jubilee, Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery, at the close of the Civil War 1895.  

The holiday began in Galveston, Texas, where those enslaved people hadn’t been informed that the Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved people in 1863. They didn’t realize they were free. They didn’t know that slavery had ended.  The Emancipation Proclamation 1863 wasn’t implemented in many areas until after the Civil War in 1865 and until June 19, 1865.

Originally Juneteenth was celebrated during community events, church picnics and neighborhood gatherings, across generations of the Black community. It became a federal holiday in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. Juneteenth was established as a federal holiday because of the tireless labor of Lula Briggs Galloway, Opal Lee, and a cadre of insistent activists, assertively advocating for the commemorative holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday established since 1983, when the Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in honor of the slain civil rights leader.

The circumstances that gave rise to Juneteenth somewhat remind me of the Black designers’ place in the canonical story of design. Just because we were not in the Euro Anglo Modernist record keeping of a canonical design history doesn’t mean my BIPOC community of Black designers didn’t exist or have its own history. We have always existed, and this truth maybe unknown to many, but our Black graphic design history began in enslavement. We have always participated in the story and technology of communication design in North America.

The Slave Artisan from West Africa is the first Black designer in North America making HIS appearance in the Colonial printshops during and after slavery. As emancipated labor, my research points to HIS (there were no women initially recorded; the first appeared at Spelman College and Claflin University) labor was a threat to the printing and typographic trades organizing after slavery concluded. This is the beginning of erasure, discrimination and extreme prejudice as well the use of white supremacy tactics against the Slave Artisan as one of our country’s first graphic designers, typographers and printers. Though much of Black design history has been obscured, one sociologist has written extensively of our journey and reveals the hidden truth that has always been there.

W.E.B. Dubois, an African American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist and father of data visualization and information graphics, offers the Black designer’s documentation of our origins and our rich history of our participation in the design industry. He wrote countless essays on the Slave Artisan. Recently, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum invited me to participate in a panel discussion entitled “Illuminating DuBois: Examining the Legacy of a Sociologist and Historian Through Research and Design” about Du Bois’ legacy and its impact on my work. I discussed my research findings which offer great insight into the Black graphic designers’ origins and history in North America, origins that can be traced to Africa. In a vintage series of essays edited by James E. Newton and Ronald L. Lewis, “The Other Slaves: Mechanics, Artisans and Craftsmen,” I discovered Du Bois’ entry, “The African Artisan.” In it, DuBois tells us that the first cargo of “Negro” slaves were Negro American artisans who first landed and were sold to the settlers in the Virginia colony. His essay “The Ante Bellum Negro Artisan,” speaks volumes of truth in its opening line, “The Negro slave was the artisan of the South before the war…” The book of compiled essays speaks of woodcutters, printers, engravers, typesetters as Southern artisans having their origins in West African and landing in Colonial America. Uncovering such a rich Black design history in the history of enslavement has been incredibly validating.

Du Bois’ work that has captured the design community is the story of his data visualization charts. More than geometric drafted charts in the popular book, W.E.B Du Bois’ Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America, there is a rich, hidden history of Black graphic designers. Focusing on the revitalized discovery of the vintage graphic charts, we discover exactly where our presence is located within the graphic design, typographic and printing industries during and after slavery.

Two charts in particular show us the presence of the Black designer up from slavery: Chart No. 61—U.S. Negro Newspapers and Periodicals and Chart No. 57—U.S. Negro Businessmen who are Publishers and Editors. In these charts exhibiting Negro newspapers, periodicals, publishers and editors we can logically deduce that there must be graphic designers, typographers and pressmen! Eugene F. Provenzo Jr.’s “W.E.B DuBois’s Exhibit of American Negroes: African Americans at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century” and The Library of Congress’s “A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress, share the complete photographic account of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle where we first discover Du Bois’ data visualization charts, but there’s more. Provenzo, tells us the exhibit was planned and executed by “Negroes,” curated by Thomas J. Calloway and W.E.B Du Bois as well as Daniel A.P. Murray.

Du Bois, as sociologist, was dedicated to researching and publishing data about the African American community after Emancipation and up from slavery. When we search the complete photographic story of the 1900 Paris Exposition, we discover a more dynamic conversation than geometry which may have influenced the Modernist contemporary art movement and origins of Bauhaus DNA.

Recording their progress was of great importance to DuBois especially coordinating Atlanta Conferences at Atlanta University where he was a teacher and researcher. At Atlanta University, he further developed his commitment to Urban Sociology in United States. His sociological studies of the African American condition and progress present every walk of life the “Negro” faced after Emancipation. I have discovered significant data and research conversations about the “Negro Artisan” as he moves in the labor force in America after slavery. Du Bois’ Atlanta essays are also dynamic resource files for even the Women in Design history of Black designing women in America!

I was a freshman at Rhode Island School of Design when Fannie Lou Hamer gave her speech  “Until I Am Free, You Are Not Free Either,” delivered at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, January 1971.  At that time, I never knew there was such a cadre of 1970 Black Designers— Dorothy E. Hayes, Mahler Ryder, Reynold Ruffins, Emory Douglas and their colleagues making design contributions after emancipation and through the civil rights era. I never knew there were Black students on RISD’s 1969 campus demanding diversity in its student body.  An integrated design history had never been written during the Civil Rights Era, during my coming-of-age design narrative.

As a product of the era’s prejudicial thinking, I never truly understood why my high school teacher told me I would never be an artist. Why would she tell me as a teenager, that I would have no future as a visual artist? Racism and the bigotry of low expectations are the primary barriers for young Black designers and artists. This Juneteenth 2023, I stand with Fannie Lou Hamer and her immortal words!  Just because the design historical canon didn’t teach me of the Black designer’s contributions doesn’t mean I haven’t learned about that invaluable history. And now, uncovering and sharing that history is a cornerstone of my life’s work.

We have a collective history that is true to our design community. Today, our design academics and practitioners are serving a far more diverse community than those who were trailblazers through the closed doors of our industry. I even teach a decolonized design canonical history because there are so many new design stories and histories that must be included in our Academy’s pedagogy. Centuries after emancipation, I am dedicated to decolonizing the design canon for a more fair, just and equitable history we all can freely embrace. We all can and should celebrate Juneteenth! We are free to tell the story as we see fit, no matter what subject positions we inhabit.

Happy Juneteenth!

Dr. Cheryl D. Miller is recognized for her outsized influence within the graphic design profession to end the marginalization of BIPOC designers through her civil rights activism, industry exposé trade writing, research rigor, and archival vision. Miller is a national leader of minority rights, gender, race diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion advocacy in graphic design. She is founder of the former Cheryl D. Miller Design, Inc., NYC, a social impact design firm. She is a designer, author, educator, theologian, and a decolonizing design historian.

Artist, designer, writer, and curator Silas Munro was confronted by this reality while in college. “I’ve taken two pretty amazing design history learnings,” he told me of his time at RISD and CalArts. “Both were really amazing and thoughtful, but seeing Black folks like me, seeing queer folks in design history, were the outliers.”

Munro wasn’t the only one identifying these glaring gaps in their design schooling, as he found a kindred spirit in his CalArts classmate Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton, and then again within a student he advised at the Vermont College of Fine Arts a few years later, Pierre Bowins. The three teamed up as they researched BIPOC designers, amassing their findings with the goal of publishing a book. In time though, the trio came to realize that their work required a format beyond the confines of a book, and they began to conceptualize an online course to disseminate to the masses.

On January 1, 2021, their “Black Design in America” course was released and thus BIPOC Design History was born, facilitated by Munro’s graphic design studio Polymode. “We were not prepared for the reaction,” said Munro. “There was an outpouring of support and interest in the classes.” With the success of this first class fueling their fire, Munro and the rest of the BIPOC Design History team have continued to produce and curate online design history courses that fill the egregious voids left in most design curricula. Since the inaugural Black Design in America course, BIPOC Design History has also released “Incomplete Latinx Stories of Diseño Gráfico Borderlands/ La Frontera*,” which centers the work and histories of art and design in Latin America. Now, they are unveiling their latest offering in the series, “Design Histories in Southwest Asia & North Africa: Voices from the SWANA Diaspora,” which will begin this Saturday, May 13th, with its first recording that students can tune into live for a real-time, community-based learning experience. 

While each of the BIPOC Design History courses can be accessed at any time, participating in the classes live enhances the learning experience exponentially, allowing for real-time interaction with fellow students, the speakers, and the facilitators. “The recorded classes are great, licensing the classes is great, but there’s something special about it being live,” explained Polymode Studio Manager, Audrey Davies. “There’s a strong sense of community in the live classes, where people can talk to the person who just gave a lecture and ask a question directly, or talk to Silas, or talk to each other. It’s just like a real class that’s a very mixed group of people that would not necessarily be together otherwise.” 

Polymode Senior Designer and curator of the new SWANA course, Randa Hadi, shared a similar sentiment in regards to the live Black Design in America classes. “The most inspiring thing about the talks was the Zoom chat,” she said. “People were really vulnerable, and Silas did a really good job of asking tough questions and creating a safe space. So people were dropping in so many links, videos, podcasts, and articles, I think it speaks to this collective knowledge and collective sharing.” 

The BIPOC Design History courses attract all manner of participants ranging in ages 18 to 80, from active students to major current players in the design space and tenured professors, like Tré Seals of Vocal Type and Cheryl D. Miller, who penned the seminal 1987 PRINT article “Black Designers: Missing in Action.” This multigenerational, multi-experience, multi-geographical participant body creates a rich learning environment that’s rife with a diversity of perspectives, points of view, and lived experiences that only enhances the material being learned. 

“It was multiple levels of learning, it went both ways,” elaborated Munro on the magic of those Black Design in America course live classes. “The younger design students and their questions and their perspective were really refreshing as they interacted with these expert-level design historians and professional designers. It made this really healthy dialogue where we were all exploring and testing the limits of how we welcome Black, people of color, and Indigenous histories into design history, and what it means to shift the discourse.”

Central to supporting this diversity of participants is making sure BIPOC Design History courses are easily accessible to all. Too often, resources, tools, and educational materials are prohibitively expensive, especially to those who need them the most. The Polymode team has prioritized keeping BIPOC Design History affordable to all. “Marginalized voices are always pushed to the margins, thus the whole title, but also they don’t have the money. They don’t have the accolades. They don’t have the ability to to be in these spaces,” said Polymode co-founder and partner, Brian Johnson. “So we wanted to make sure, from a capitalistic cost perspective, that a student could afford to be there when this is the most important thing for that student.” 

This latest BIPOC Design History course, SWANA, has specifically been developed to highlight, uplift, and amplify the voices of women in that region who are often unheard. As a native to Kuwait, Hadi has deeply personal ties to the subject matter she’s curated and will facilitate in the classes. “I grew up in a household where it was very much about sharing oral stories around the dinner table and around the living room,” she said. “I wanted to take that experience of sharing narratives and histories about the SWANA region and give people access to that. I’ve been in the U.S. for 12 years now, and I haven’t had access to this kind of information. For me, it was about creating a course that people who are living in this one region can learn from, but also the diaspora, because that’s another reality for people who are from that area.”  

Considering SWANA’s feminist subject matter, it stands to reason that 80% of the speakers in the course are women. “That was also really important to me,” Hadi said with pride. “I grew up with strong female figures in my family, and I wanted to make sure that their voices are being highlighted. Within this one region, their voices are often oppressed. The overarching narrative is wanting people to feel like they’re seen in design history.”

SWANA is far from the end of the road for BIPOC Design History. The team is already in the process of developing their next course, with Johnson leading. Beyond additional courses, they’re intent on inspiring others to teach these topics so that diverse design education becomes standard. “Our dream is that all educational systems already teach this,” said Johnson. “Maybe that’s too far out there, but this stuff should be taught in elementary, middle school, and high school, and in higher education university systems already. They’re really behind. If we’re the bridge or the facilitator to get there by saying, ‘You’re not alone, we’re out in the wilderness, we have a lantern, here is the light, come towards us,’ that’s the dream.”

Until then, be sure to tune in for the first live class of the SWANA course this Saturday, May 13.

The expansiveness of graphic design is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the vastness of the graphic design world is indicative of the rich and beautiful works that have been created in media across the globe for centuries. But on the other, how in the hell do we preserve, document, and share it all?

This was the central question graphic designer and design educator Louise Sandhaus began asking eight years ago, propelling her to start plotting what would one day become the People’s Graphic Design Archive. Working with co-directors Briar Levit, Brockett Horne, Morgan Searcy, and support from Stephen Coles and Kate Long from The Letterform Archive, Sandhaus was able to turn what she calls a “crazy idea” into a critical, first-of-its-kind tool for preserving graphic design history.

The result is a crowd-sourced virtual archive of inclusive graphic design history, and a community-driven open access collection of anything that can be considered graphic design. The platform can be searched through key words and tags, with results organizable by “Contribution Date,” “Item Date,” “Most Discussed,” or “Most Viewed.” Anyone can create a PGDA account to submit works to the archive— in fact, Sandhaus implores you to do so.

To celebrate the PGDA’s official launch earlier this month, I spoke to Sandhaus about her journey with the project, the future of the platform, and how the public can continue to support its mission.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

How did you come up with the concept for the People’s Graphic Design Archive? 

The original concept came out of my books, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design and A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer. I saw what was being preserved in archives, and realized there was so much incredible material that I came across in my research but there was no place for this material to go. I was frustrated. I could see inklings of other things that should be researched, but there’s not enough time, and not enough researchers. And even if you cover all this material, most of the time, there’s no place where it’s going to be preserved where people are going to know about it.

I remember sitting in a meeting at LACMA in 2014 (they had this community of curators and design historians I was a part of), and I realized, Oh my god, there’s so much more they could collect! But how would they even know about it? What am I going to do? That’s when the idea dawned on me for a crowd-sourced virtual collection.

What was the development process like for the project?

I spent years trying to conceptualize it, prototyping it with students, seeing how we might digitize an archive, seeing if there was public interest. We did this graphic design roadshow in 2017, where we invited the public to bring in examples of graphic design that they thought were part of canonized graphic design history, and should be preserved and shared— kind of like Antiques Roadshow.

I also got together with a former student of mine, and the founder of BIPOC Design History, Silas Munro. We both had these big ideas for design history, but we needed support; we needed people to talk to. So we formed something called “Design History Fridays,” and invited people that we knew were also working in this realm of design history who might want to have a conversation and support each other. It was through that group that Brian and Brockett came forward.

Taking on a project of this magnitude can be incredibly daunting. How were you able to plow ahead for eight long years to bring your vision for the PGDA to life? 

There’s this tenaciousness that takes over you. You keep the blinders on, you see the possibility but you can’t get paralyzed by what it’s going to take. It’s also about not being afraid to fail. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work!

When I saw the platform Fonts in Use I realized, Oh, it can be done! It’s a crowd-sourced, virtual collection. That’s when we approached them about whether they could build a custom platform for us, and that’s when it became possible.

I know down the line, we’re going to hit all kinds of craziness in terms of the extent of endless space for all of the data. We’re realizing the practicalities, but none of them are out of reach. The thing that we have to do is get the word out so that people know, Oh, this exists, and I can decide what should be part of graphic design history. Graphic design history is not this complete story. There are endless stories.

What are some of the main features of the PGDA people should know about? 

On the site right now, under “Resources,” there are various tutorials and how-to guides so that we can facilitate people who are interested in adding to the archive, or uncovering the history in their community, or documenting someone that they know, and they think there should be a record of their work. We have “how to do an oral history fast and easy,” “how to document work fast and easy,” and more. 

One of the things that I panicked about originally was the idea of preserving the work of someone like Gere Kavanaugh; she’s now in her late 90’s. I have recordings from her, but those need to be shared! How are those accessed by other people? How is her story about her career and work preserved? I realized that there were tons of other people who have made incredible things, and we need to encourage people to actually document that work and the story. But if it seems daunting, if somebody is looking at 10 boxes of work, and they’re like, “Oh my god, I don’t even know where to begin; I don’t have enough time,” we can provide resources that say, this is easy. Here’s what you need to do; 1-2-3, that’s it!

One of the main things that we’re doing to show people that it’s easy, and that they can dip their toe in anywhere, are more of these roadshows. People bring a treasure, or a few treasures that they think should be shared. We’re not interested in it being worth something in terms of monetary value— we’re interested in what it’s worth to the history of graphic design. 

We have people at the roadshows from the community that might know about this material, so they can help fill in the information. Then we show people how to add it to the archive, so in this festive way, they learn that the archive even exists! They can bring in material, and add to that history, and hopefully they continue to add more and share it with others. We just had one at the Torn Apart exhibition at the Pacific Design Center in LA. People brought incredible stuff!  

We’ve also had so much outreach from different communities who want representation on the PGDA, so we have what we call Add-A-Thons. We ask ourselves what’s missing, and notice gaps like Latinx design, for example, so now we’re working with Ramon Tejadas to figure out how to do a Latinx Add-A-Thon. Maybe someone who is working on Southeast Asian graphic design history will want to do an Add-A-Thon, or maybe they want to do a roadshow! So we’re coming up with these different kinds of instruments to encourage people to make it festive, and to concentrate on areas of design that a community wants to see more representation of in the archive.

Do you have a review process in place to check submissions to the archive? 

We have somebody in a moderation role, but as long as a submission is graphic design, we just push the button to upload it. Let’s say somebody submitted a picture of a chair, and we’re not seeing it as graphic design— we still want to make sure we’re not overlooking something, so we would write to that person and say, “Can you help us understand how you see this as graphic design?” 

If there’s something that we want to have a record of, but we know that some people may find it offensive, we try to do two things. First, we window shade it to identify it, and then we also suggest that the photo used is low resolution, so that there’s a record of the work, but it can’t be used to celebrate it. 

We also ask people to use their real names. If someone uses an alias, it feels less like they’re participating together with us in this community. But we do understand occasionally somebody does need to use an alias— let’s say if they’re in a certain country, like North Korea or Iran, they might need to add anonymously. We understand that there might be those situations.

What are your goals for the PGDA? 

This is supposed to be a community archive— it’s “The People’s”— so hopefully, we will one day have the structure in place for the people to also be moderating it. Right now, we don’t mean to seem like we own the archive, but I know it appears that way. We welcome anybody who wants to jump in here and work with us, and eventually figure out how the community is actually able to run this.

What are the best ways for people to support the PGDA? 

Sign up for our newsletter! Create an account! Or throw a few dollars our way, or even more than a few dollars; we welcome that! The other thing that we have that we’re hoping people contribute to is our blog. Anybody can write for our blog! 

For those submitting work to the archive, one thing that is vital— and the only way that this becomes a rich resource— is through tagging. How the work may be seen as meaningful depends on the tag, as well as how the work comes up in a search. It takes a lot of imagination. The richer the tagging, the more useful the archive becomes. Our hearts fall when people submit things— which we’re so happy about— but then they didn’t tag it. We’ll have to figure out how to encourage people to do it as we go along.

Why is a platform like the PGDA so vital? 

People want to see themselves in design. They want their own stories and their own lineage that shaped design in their minds to be part of this. There are people like Corita Kent and Emory Douglas whose work was overlooked for so long, but was meaningful to so many, and yet so many people didn’t know about their contribution. So how many more people who have created work of significance aren’t recognized, or aren’t known about?

We hope that people use it as a resource to tell stories. To curate items in a way that creates new ways of thinking about the relevancy of this history. It becomes the ingredients that generate other creative work.

Young and emerging creatives have always played a vital role in the creative ecosystem. But the current cohort is notable for their widespread active engagement with world issues and the conviction that through their engagement, they can help bring about change.

This is not just anecdotal; the 2020 US election saw a record turnout of young voters with almost 50% voting, according to stats from Tufts University. Meanwhile, research from Pew Research Center last year revealed that Millennials and Gen Z stand out for their high levels of engagement with the issue of climate change, in comparison with older generations. And engagement for this generation means more than talking about it on social media— it involves actively doing things to create positive change.

For those entering the creative industries now, career choices are already being shaped by their values and informed by their proactive approach to engagement. We’ve seen this at D&AD’s annual New Blood awards, which give emerging creatives the chance to work on industry-set briefs to launch their careers in the creative industries as they emerge from study. Holly Killen and Sam Pilkington-Miksa created a great example in the form of Clout, a fast-fashion solution that won them two honors at D&AD’s 2022 New Blood Awards: the coveted Black Pencil, and a White Pencil, which is reserved for designers using creativity for good.

“I think our own belief systems will definitely factor into where we want to work, and the types of work we want to create,” Killen said. “If you have a strong aversion to something, it’s unlikely that you’ll be hell-bent to create work for it, so the same goes for things you don’t believe in or support.” She also sees challenges associated with being at the beginning of her creative career; “as we’re just starting out, I’m not sure we are quite afforded that luxury yet, but when we are more established and can be a bit pickier with what we do, we will weed options out based on how they align, or don’t align, with our values.”

At a time that is fraught with social, cultural, and environmental turmoil, we need the values-led approach of Gen Z more than ever to help create a more just and sustainable world. At the same time, we need the creative industries to embrace and support these young creatives, and the change they will bring.

From my positions as both Dean at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and as President of D&AD, a non-profit education organization and awards program for advertising and design that bridges the gap between education and industry, I see this as an opportunity the creative industries cannot afford to miss.

As Gen Z creatives in their early 20s enter the workplace, their attitudes can have a transformative, bottom-up impact on not just the type of work creative industries do, but the kind of organizations that assist them, from grass-roots and start-ups to the most experienced creatives and agencies. But in order to create this environment for change, creative industries have to actively engage in it.

There’s evidence to suggest this culture shift is already starting to take place. For example, global branding consultancy Interbrand has introduced specific programs that ensure Gen Z viewpoints are integrated into the fabric of the agency, influencing its overall culture, and the kind of briefs it works on.

“It’s long been a danger for agencies and brands that you create a culture that emerging creatives don’t want to join— or you don’t support a future that they want to see come to fruition,” said Andy Payne, Interbrand’s Global Chief Creative Officer.

In order to address this, Interbrand has introduced a “Horizon Board”: a multi-disciplinary group including rising talent from each of the offices around the world, and mirrors the executive leadership team. “We know that Gen Z wants responsibility for writing their own futures, so we’ve given them the chance to integrate these behaviors into the global business from the start.”

“The last task we gave them was to set the ambition and purpose of the business, and they collectively agreed on boldly creating the next generation of icons,” the Interbrand team continued. “This is about disseminating our creative and intellectual power to level the playing fields around the world in terms of how people can benefit and grow their own lifestyles, and ways of living to enrich themselves the way they want to.”

It’s promising to see agencies giving Gen Z creatives a platform to voice their perspectives and create direct impact, but there is still more to be done. McCann New York Art Director Alysa Browne said that while creative agencies are ready to listen to what Gen Z creatives have to say, more work is needed to communicate this to them.

“As a creative, success doesn’t just depend on having the right skills,” Browne said. “What really sets you apart is knowing what you want to say. Gen Z creatives are at a huge
advantage in that respect. However, in my experience, they don’t always know that. So the creative industries have more work to do when it comes to opening that door of communication, and reminding new entrants to the industry that we want to hear those unique perspectives.”

At D&AD, we understand this more than most. For 60 years, we have been committed to nurturing the next generation by bridging the gap between education and employment, improving routes of access to the industry, and most importantly, providing opportunities through which young creatives can make their mark on the world. 

The New Blood Awards is a key example that encourages entrants to apply their perspectives and values to industry briefs. This year, D&AD awarded 186 prestigious Pencil Awards to exceptional graduates, whose winning works addressed a mix of important issues that included fast fashion, women’s safety, cultural equity, and social inclusion in the metaverse.

Creativity thrives on diverse minds and wide-ranging perspectives, qualities that typify Gen Z. But it can be all too easy to try and mold young creatives in our own images through the lens of what we know, while forgetting what they can teach us, and giving them space to lead. As an industry and creative community, we have a responsibility to not only mentor, but to listen and learn from— and with— them. All our futures depend on it.

By Rebecca Wright, D&AD President and Dean of Academic Programs at Central Saint Martins.

The D&AD New Blood Award Winners were announced on July 14th, 2022. See the winning entries at D&AD.

Have you started a business in the last year? Are you considering starting one now? In this season of Call Paul, Paul Jarvis talks to business beginners and business veterans to discover the how-tos of starting a new endeavor, sustaining it for the long haul, and doing it with integrity. 

Host: Paul Jarvis is a writer and designer who’s run his own small business for the last 21 years. His latest book, Company of One, explores why bigger isn’t always better in business and he’s currently the co-founder of Fathom Analytics, a privacy-focused and simple website analytics platform. Paul lives on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, where he’s cultivated a dedicated following helping entrepreneurs and e-commerce business owners grow their marketing, with an emphasis on his business philosophy, “find your rat people.”

Episode: Sharing is Caring with Austin Kleon

“I’ve got a Venn diagram, basically in my head … I’m always trying to figure out where the audience and I can meet and where that overlap is, what I’m genuinely curious about and what other people are struggling with or want.”

Episode Description:

Longtime blogger, author, and illustrator, Austin Kleon shares his best advice for someone starting a new business or project, the kind of advice that serves as guiding principles in the form of integrity, showing up, showing your work, making a system that works for you and, most of all, being true to yourself.

Looking for even more inspiration? Uncover original films and podcasts about the entrepreneurial spirit on mailchimp.com/presents.

Unlike bulk marketing emails, transactional emails are one-to-one communications, making them a powerful channel for engagement.

Transactional emails are typically related to subscriber account changes or transactions, and are often triggered by a request or action from the contact. Examples include order confirmations, password reminders, product notifications, or account balance updates.

“Some people don’t recognize the opportunities in transactional emails, but marketers are becoming savvy about making sure all the ‘real estate’ that touches the customer is optimized,” says Chris Beauregard, Director of Product Management at Mailchimp.

Learn how to use transactional emails and what rules apply to these important communications.

Check out photos for their process and finalized designs below.

EN

In 2022, we had the great pleasure to realize a course with Domestika around typographic identity and graphic systems. In this course, we created from scratch the visual identity of Contigo, a company that reconditions and fits out maritime containers to transform them into living spaces: bars, restaurants, reception areas, offices or even hotel rooms. We combine typographic design and advanced graphic design to offer an industrial client a rich and demanding visual system. This course, available in 6 languages, will take you through the history of Brand Brothers, our methodology, our inspirations, our way of working, all punctuated by many anecdotes.

Explore our case study, and visit our online course to find out more! https://www.domestika.org/fr/courses/3244-branding-innovant-creez-une-identite-visuelle-complete/brand_brothers

FR

En 2022, nous avons eu l’immense plaisir de réaliser un cours avec Domestika autour de l’identité visuelle typographique et des systèmes graphiques. Dans ce cours, nous avons créé de toutes pièces l’identité visuelle de Contigo, une entreprise qui reconditionne et aménage des conteneurs maritimes pour les transformer en des espaces de vie : bars, restaurants, lieux d’accueil, bureaux ou même chambres d’hôtels. Nous combinons ainsi design typographique et graphisme pointu pour offrir à un client industriel un système visuel riche et exigeant. Ce cours, disponible en 6 langues, vous plonge dans l’histoire de Brand Brothers, notre méthodologie, nos inspirations, notre manière de travailler, le tout ponctué de nombreuses anecdotes.

Explorez notre cas d’étude, et rendez-vous sur notre cours en ligne pour découvrir la suite !
https://www.domestika.org/fr/courses/3244-branding-innovant-creez-une-identite-visuelle-complete/brand_brothers

Design studios Zak Group, Pentagram and Some Days have come together to commit their financial support for the 2022 FUTURE FWD scholarship. 

Created in partnership with the globally renowned art and design institution Central Saint Martins, the £30,000 scholarship will provide material costs and living expenses for a student from a community currently underrepresented in the industry, who has been accepted on the BA Graphic Communication Design course. In addition, the scholarship includes access to mentorship throughout the course and a paid internship opportunity with one of the studios.

Zak Group, Pentagram and Some Days have joined forces for this initiative as they firmly believe that making a more inclusive and diverse design industry begins with making design education more accessible. 

For the 2020/2021 academic year, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reported that 110,025 white students were enrolled in design and creative and performing arts-related undergraduate degrees as compared to 6,395, 6,235 and 9,610 from Black, Asian and mixed or other backgrounds respectively.

“As an industry we’re only as good as the next generation of graphic design talent. By joining forces with two of the field’s leading studios we hope to demonstrate our mutual commitment to making design more inclusive” says Zak Kyes, Creative Director of Zak Group.

Pentagram partners Naresh Ramchandani and Luke Powell share, “We know that our industry can be homogenous and opportunities for people to progress their careers and work in a commercial setting are limited, especially for people who are from racialised backgrounds. By being part of FUTURE FWD we want to help make the industry more diverse and accessible through the scholarship and industry experience and exposure.”

Steve Reinmuth, Creative Director of Some Days emphasises, “Too many creative voices aren’t being heard due to the barriers of education including cost and access. We are passionate about supporting the brilliant diverse minds that will lead our industry into the future.” 

“The Central Saint Martins Graphic Communication Design Programme is proud to be partnering with three industry stalwarts who share our commitment to a more inclusive future for graphic design – Zak Group, Pentagram and Some Days –  for this year’s FUTURE FWD scholarship. The scholarship is an important tool for making a needed step-change in expanding access and diversity in our field,” says Rebecca Ross, Programme Director of Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins.

Applications for the scholarship will be accepted until 23 May 2022 and the recipient will be chosen in July 2022. Information on how to apply is available on the FUTURE FWD Scholarship website. 

The FUTURE FWD Scholarship was established and first awarded in 2021. The scholarship is an ongoing initiative with the aim to support the next generation of design students. The ambition is to fund multiple students each academic year and to extend beyond London to more universities. To this end, FUTURE FWD would like to partner with other design studios to enable these opportunities. 

We’ve officially shifted to that ‘new normal’ we once fawned over when the pandemic forced a rapid shift to remote work. Digital fatigue is real. Today’s marketer hears these comments on a near-daily basis, and it signifies a larger dilemma for how agencies operate.

“The flexibility is nice at times, but there’s no substitute for a proper studio setting,” said Fay Latimer, a lead designer for a New York City-based agency working remotely in New Jersey on returning to the office. “Our work is tangible and literal. We give clients something to feel and experience firsthand. That’s just not easily replicated over Zoom.”

This is a paradigm shift for the modern creative agency, especially for those who built their business models on collaboration. Even the agencies that are back in their offices are likely working with clients that are still based remotely. 

With staff and clients scattered about, how can agencies spark new life in their creative processes? 

These tips and tricks should help your team navigate some of the digitally induced obstacles and highlight the importance of having the right tools and technology to deploy them effectively.

1. Elevate the digital meeting room

Video conferencing is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Zoom. Teams. Google Meet. They’re all prerequisites for a marketer’s toolkit. Have an agenda with a clear purpose and intended outcome for each meeting to not only maintain focus from all participants, but to motivate everyone to even attend the meeting in the first place. Integrate a virtual whiteboard into the meeting too; this mirrors an in-person environment, fosters collaboration, and adds a colorful touch. Don’t be afraid to spice up an otherwise drab video conferencing screen with a fun, branded background. It’s always a potential icebreaker and is another way to showcase how else you can add value to your clients’ business

2. Remember the difference the right technology makes

Your clients who are working from home likely review pitch decks and design mockups on tiny phone screens or monitors that are not properly calibrated. Key components of color and format lose their luster when viewed with inadequate technology, and this diminishes the impact of how your work is received. “Without high-resolution monitors, clients miss the details we spend so much time perfecting in layout,” explains Latimer. Agencies who help clients adjust their monitor settings give design materials the most optimal environment for being reviewed digitally. 

Having designers back in the office also presents the opportunity to tap print technology that they don’t have access to at home. With a professional-grade printer at arms-length, you can now send printed layouts to clients ahead of review calls so they can see and feel the vibrance in a color palette, the exactitude of vector layout, and the important nuances of your design work. “No matter how precise my team renders in 3D, nothing replaces the tactile experience of a physical printed piece in your hand,” remarked Alysha Burch, a New York City ad agency owner. “When we get actual samples in clients’ hands, selling the overall concept becomes that much easier. That’s the difference our in-office setup makes. We have two Ricoh color production printers, which we use to create comps and proofs for sign-off.”

3. Know what’s next

No matter where clients are working from, they’ll always rely on their agencies for new ideas that capitalize on emerging concepts. With many consumers being burnt out from constant digital stimuli, print trends such as short-run direct mail and cataloging have made a huge comeback for their ability to deliver personalized, targeted messaging. This presents the opportunity for agencies to help clients close the gap between their digital and offline programming. “We’re now designing branded magalogs for our clients that they are versioning on press,” continued Burch of her agency’s print work. Collaborating with your clients on campaigns like these is much smoother when all the mockups and materials are shown at once. This is another reason why having print capabilities in-house is clutch. Designers can test substrates, build comps and see actual colors without incurring the time and expense of outsourcing to a print vendor. 

Integrate these tactics to better engage clients with more efficient design processes. 

Having access to a professional-grade printer that’s affordable, easy to maintain, and delivers amazing color can inspire your designers, excite your customers, and meaningfully contribute to your agency’s bottom line.

Wondering what media trends and technologies are in vogue for 2022?

Click here for our white papers. We’ve included funky Zoom backgrounds to add some color to your web conferences too! You can also request a free print sample pack. 

RICOH Graphic Communications is committed to supporting the vitality of the graphic arts community. Your brilliance continues to drive us and the products we create. This ongoing series explores the role, resurgence, and retro appeal of paper for creatives in today’s digital age.

Why is it worth thinking about your business as a brand? Isn’t branding just for big, global companies who have the money to spend on it? What does the word “brand” really mean, anyway? This article will answer these questions, help demystify the branding process, and show you that a brand is much more than a logo.

What does “brand” mean?

A brand is how a business is perceived in the mind of someone who has experienced it in some way. Someone can form this perception by hearing a friend make a comment about the business, spotting a logo on a delivery van, reading a review online, listening to an interview with the founder, or through a personal experience as a customer.

Think of all the ways your business could leave an impression on someone— a customer, supplier, employee, journalist, or anyone else who may come into contact with it. These are your brand touchpoints, and the special place it occupies in someone’s mind is called brand positioning.

Your business can consider and control some of these brand touchpoints, such as the design and wording on your website or email newsletter. Many other brand touchpoints will be outside of your control, such as an online customer review. The goal of branding is to create a clear, positive impression of your business across as many touchpoints as you can control. These are described as brand associations, and you can vastly improve your business by influencing them.

How can it help my business?

Let’s start with the clear benefits a brand can bring to your business. A brand is valuable because it helps you connect more easily with your customers, stand out from your competitors, and increase the value of your offer. Articulating what your business is about can also help you define your own identity and give you more confidence in promoting it personally.

1. Connecting with your audience

The moment when a potential customer connects with your business at a brand touchpoint is crucial. The goal is to draw customers to your business because it feels like the right fit for them.

2. Communicating difference

Branding is a way of highlighting what makes your business different from your competitors. Customers have both rational and emotional reasons for choosing products and services, and branding can help connect with an audience on an emotional level.

3. Creating additional value

Because branding influences perception, customers may be willing to pay more for a product or service that is well-branded. The perception of the brand must match up to the actual experience or there will be no repeat business. This is often described as keeping the brand promise.

Where do I start? Your brand idea

Think of all the experiences you have had to date with your business and why customers have chosen you in the past. This is where you will find the clues which will help you form the basis of your brand. Many people don’t believe there is anything particularly distinctive about what they do, but there is something unique about each business. It helps to go back to the beginning of the business and identify the original motivation.

If you’re a new business without previous experience to draw on, imagine what you would like your future customers to say about you. For example, a plumber may like to be known for being particularly considerate and tidy in people’s homes. A furniture maker may have a focus on using sustainable materials. A restaurant might want to be known for a warm and homey atmosphere. All these factors have the potential to be the basis of a brand.

COVID-19 hit the creative community particularly hard, and it remains one of the sectors most at risk from the crisis. A year into the pandemic, a report from Otis College of Art and Design reported a loss of 175,000 jobs in California alone while in New York employment in the creative fields fell by 66%.

On the surface, such bleak prospects do not bode well for students and emerging creatives, who have also experienced unparalleled upheaval in their schooling. But on a more positive note, these circumstances have provided new opportunities to nurture emerging design talent, which may well reap positive, long-term changes.

I’ve been seeing this firsthand in my role as a Dean at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and as President of D&AD, a non-profit education organization and awards program for advertising and design that bridges the gap between education and industry.

For example, last year D&AD partnered with Google to expand D&AD Shift, a free industry-led night school for new creatives facing barriers to accessing higher education and employment. Originally founded in London, D&AD Shift with Google moved onto New York and is now expanding to three additional cities, including Sydney. More than 67% of graduates have gone on to work for leading creative companies such as Droga5, The Mill, McCann, and Design Bridge. These promising results made it possible to establish a digital campus and enhance the reach and accessibility of the program.

While the accessibility and quality of online education has been one of the pandemic’s biggest challenges, it has the potential to be one of its most positive legacies. Through their remarkable adaptation to online learning, students at Central Saint Martins have developed a unique set of transferable skills that we believe will have real value in commercial settings. In digital spaces, they are learning new ways to connect, elevate, and amplify their ideas.

The wider creative community is also seeing opportunities to do things differently in the wake of the pandemic. This includes leading agencies and brands, who are adapting their approaches to support and nurture young design talent.

Alasdair Lennox is Group Executive Creative Director of Experience, Americas, at Landor and Fitch, one of the agencies that leads workshops at D&AD Shift. For him, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of supporting creatives without formal design education.

“Greater diversity equals more creativity, but we need to actually create those opportunities for people,” said Lennox. He also acknowledged that the pandemic has provided an unexpected benefit in the form of more diverse design talent.

“San Francisco, where I am based, is an amazing creative hub, but it is too expensive for many people to live in,” he continued. “Three years ago, we would have hired people in a commutable distance. But now we can hire talented people from much further away. It has become a real leveler.”

Remote working has also encouraged creative agencies to enhance their support systems for interns, as well as graduates and dropouts transitioning into real jobs.

“The experience of work for interns can feel very transactional at the moment,” said Jess Marie, Creative Director at Design Bridge, New York. “They’re briefed, sent away, and then have to present that work back on digital platforms like Teams, which can feel very formal. We are making much more of an effort to teach them step-by-step processes, and have introduced an internal mentoring program, which we will keep in place for in-person settings as well.”

D&AD Shift recognizes the importance of Marie’s point, and we recognize that not all opportunities will arise immediately following the 4-month night school. To address this, we have recently created Shift Select, an additional month of on-the-job learning. In this program, Shifters can specialize in a pathway of advertising, design, or production and learn with our agency partners. We’ve also introduced Shift Studio, an industry-led learning experience that will enable the Shift alumni to continue to develop their portfolio. This program will include guided brief responses, tackling business, and societal challenges, working directly with in-house teams at brands including Google, Disney, giffgaff, and Here Design.

It is crucial for brands to support emerging creatives, especially when it comes to improving access and diversity. Ratna Desai, Director of Product Design at Netflix for Personalization Experience believes that technology companies can play a big role in preparing the next generation of designers. She believes “the people designing our service need to be reflective of our global members. It’s essential to building inclusive products.”

To this end, Netflix has launched its own program called the Netflix Pathways Bootcamp, which develops students’ technology skills by applying them to real-world business problems. They aim to increase representation in the tech industry, particularly among Black and Latinx communities.

As a result of initiatives like D&AD Shift, both Marie and Desai have observed more individuals offering their time and resources to support junior talent. 

“There are individual driving programs set up to help creatives who want a career in the industry, but haven’t had the opportunity to come through college,” Marie noted. “John Glasgow, the Co-founder of creative agency Vault 49, spearheads an initiative giving students from low-income backgrounds the opportunity to work on projects and broaden their networks, for example.”

Desai has also noticed a rise in exciting, hands-on opportunities. “I recently attended a fantastic event called Made in the Future, founded and led by Kristy Tillman, Director of Product Design at Netflix for Creative Production & Promotion,” she said. “The program provides the opportunity for design leaders and senior practitioners to come together and share ideas, find camaraderie, and to support the professional development of Fellows (emerging underrepresented design talent) through a series of immersive events.”

There’s no denying that the pandemic hit the creative community hard, but it has also provided a wide range of benefits. It accelerated the acquisition of new skills, encouraged us to consider new approaches to design education, and reiterated the importance of collaborating as a community to ensure new creatives can fulfill their potential. It’s also proof that, even as established creatives, we never stop learning or evolving. I’m proud of D&AD for its support of emerging talent, and I encourage creatives far and wide to get involved however they can.

The 2022 Awards deadline has now passed, but if you would still like to enter, get in touch with the Awards Team at awards@dandad.org.

For many designers, this rings true. Molly Combs, an Oklahoma City-based creative, first fell in love with the touch of paper in a course on designing for print. 

“It’s very different from designing for the web,” she says. Combs revels in the dimension print adds to her work. “It’s really the tangible aspect of it. I like to design and then be able to touch it. It’s fun. And it adds a whole other exciting layer to the creative process.”

Chris Siarkiewicz, a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, agrees. “There’s a level of craft I take pride in, knowing that a printed piece has gone from design and will go into production and end up in somebody’s hands who will find it useful or enjoyable. I like to sit with it, experience it, interact with it,” he says.

Aside from the visceral connection, there are the practicalities of directly evaluating paper types. Picking the right weight, for instance, is “more important than many people think,” according to Siarkiewicz. Aside from the design, it may even be the single most critical aspect that influences the impression the final product will make. Heavier stock can feel more formal and valuable, while lighter weights are often more appropriate for temporary use or delicate pieces. A poorly chosen weight can lead to an imperfect ink coverage that gives the print a muddy look. Dimensions make a difference as well. An oversized brochure or distinctive foldout can really tell an engaging story. Texture matters too—is it glossy and slick, or matte and velvety? How will it affect a shopper’s reaction to, say, packaging for a cosmetic product?

“Paper is the vehicle for the design,” says Siarkiewicz.

COVID, however, has complicated the relationship between graphic artists and print. Taking workers away from the physicality of their shared offices removed the physical interaction with their work that speaks to many creatives. Typically, home offices simply don’t have the production equipment capable of printing on specialty stock, like heavyweight paper, or on anything larger than a traditional letter-sized sheet.

At home, screens abound. During the shutdown, many of us found ourselves in front of screens for work, leisure, and even awkward, laggy get-togethers with friends and family. Mounting evidence points to an adverse effect of all these screens on creativity. A 2013 article from Scientific American called “Why the Brain Prefers Paper” states that two decades’ worth of studies have found screens, in general, to be “more cognitively and physically taxing than paper.”

What’s come to be termed “digital fatigue” is widespread. The condition “can lead to lack of energy, mental clarity, burnout, and can cause negative psychological and physical effects to our overall well-being—let alone work output,” writes Tiffany Pham, CEO of recruitment company Mogul, in Entrepreneur. The causes of digital fatigue are varied. They include pragmatic ones, like the strain to eyesight caused by screens as well as the much-documented and lamented blurring of boundaries between work and home. And, for people who went into a creative field hoping to labor at least somewhat with their hands, work-from-home lacks a certain substance.

“My friends will ask me, ‘can’t you just do that from home?’ And I remind them, ‘not really,’ because in the studio we have a production-level printer. I can see exactly how the work will print, and I don’t have to try to decipher it over Zoom,” says Siarkiewicz.

Though many creatives, having grown disillusioned with digital everything, miss the hands-on opportunities that production equipment offers, few employees seem eager for a return to the office. The Economist cites a recent survey of office workers conducted by Slack, the messaging platform, in which 75% of executives stated that they wanted to return to the office three days a week or more, while “only 34% of non-executives felt the same way.”

The conveniences of skipping the commute and wearing sweatpants have captivated much of the workforce, prompting company leaders to look for ways to attract them back to the office.

Could print be the answer?

If the numbers from consumer surveys are any indication, print presents a unique cure for digital fatigue. A survey called “COVID Mail Attitudes” by the USPS reports that most respondents look forward to receiving mail, agreeing that it “lifts their spirits” and “helps them feel more connected.” Study after study confirms that consumers connect more deeply with messages in print. According to a study by Go Inspire Group, print marketing campaigns are five times more effective than email-only campaigns. Those that combine the two media are six times more effective (these numbers also represent a hopeful outlook for agencies looking to rev up client orders after a pandemic lull).

While these numbers speak more to the efficacy of marketing campaigns than to bringing agency teams back to shared workspaces, the feelings of excitement and connection generated by paper media seem to be a shared human response.

Siarkiewicz has chosen to return to the office five days a week. Was the easy-to-use Ricoh Color Digital Press, a compact yet professional-grade production printer, a draw?

“Definitely,” he says.

RICOH Graphic Communications is committed to supporting the vitality of the graphic arts community. Your brilliance continues to drive us and the products we create. This ongoing series explores the role, resurgence, and retro appeal of paper for creatives in today’s digital age.

Want to get your hands on some inspiring print pieces? Request samples here.

The cover text in Weingart's hand reads: "With many thanks to all my students, whose imagination, enthusiasm and hard work have made teaching exciting for me…" He was the classic disruptor.

From 2005:

This summer, Wolfgang Weingart will teach a summer program on typography in Basel, Switzerland. Even for this veteran teacher, the prospect of fresh pedagogy and new students is exciting. Here he discusses his educational roots, the current state of the art and the promise of his new program.

Heller: You are a pioneer of the “new” typography of the pre-digital age. What were your motives in developing an anti-Swiss style manner of typography at a time when Helvetica ruled the corporate world?

Weingart: In 1959, I got nuts (in a good way) about Swiss Typography, what you call the “International Style.” In spring 1963, I visited Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder in Basel, and Hofmann asked me to teach at his school. A year later, I started a new design life at the Basel School as a “guest listener.” I soon found, however, that this International Style had limits, so I started to get rebellious and began my own personal work. I also organized rebellious speakers to give lectures against the school, including G.G. Lange from the Berthold type foundry, Anton Stankowski, Hap Grieshaber and others. Ruder almost threw me out of the school. But I am not a pioneer.

How do you feel your typographic experiments (and practice) relates to the earlier New Typography, as codified by Tschichold and the Avant Gardists in the ’20s?

Forty-five years ago I was very uncivilized. I did not know about the Bauhaus or Tschichold. I lived in my own world, working seven days a week. History began to interest me in the ’70s, when I gradually found out about many historical wonderful typographical works. These days, frankly, I prefer to instruct students who know nothing about typography.

You are dedicated to the painstaking craft of type and typography. You produced much of your most important work using hot metal types. What did you think when digital typography was introduced and so many typographers used the medium to create anarchic typography?

That my work was mostly done with hot metal types comes from the fact that I have been around for a long time! We were the first Swiss design school that, in November 1984, had Macintoshes in my type shop; it was a gift from Steve Jobs and Clement Mok. This reality could be proof that I am open for almost everything. In fact, in the Basel type shop we had hot metal, lithographic film and the electronics all together. My first principle to every student was: “Use every technique to solve the problem.” Josef Albers said, in 1933, at Black Mountain College, “Open the students’ eyes.” That’s an important part of my mission in our “First Summer Program Basel 2005.”

What has been significantly gained or lost with digital-based typography?

You can compose micro-typography much better than in hot metal types. But you still have to know the existing rules exactly, even the ones from a hundred years ago.

Twenty years ago in Design Quarterly, your principals of typography were published. This was, for many, the first introduction to how abstract and practical principles were combined in a virtual manifesto of type. Have these principles changed for you in any way since that first publication?

That Design Quarterly in 1985 was one of the statements I’ve made about my activities in typography. Since the late ’60s, you will find I radically changed many things, yet the principles are the same. [Leonard] Bernstein or [Herbert von] Karajan conducted the Beethoven Symphonies in different ways, but the music by Beethoven is still the same: great and amazing, just like his compositions were over 200 years ago.

Your classes at the Basel School of Design are legendary. Indeed, like a magnet, you attracted many young designers from all over the globe, especially from the United States. Many of these, such as April Greiman and Dan Friedman, brought a so-called new (neo-Modern) typography to the United States. Since last October you have been “retired” from the Basel School. In all your years, what would you say has been your proudest, as well as your most significant, accomplishment?

I had, and I have still, a very serious mission: to give the highest-quality education to everyone who passes through my classes. And I am sure this is true for all my Basel colleagues too. I have never had time to look back at what opportunities I made possible for young students, but my biggest wish for students is: “When you leave our school, you must find your own path and dream.” And I did not attract students from all over the globe. The alliance of great teachers that made up the Basel School of Design attracted these students.

Though you are currently “retired,” you are certainly not removed from teaching. This summer you are starting your “First Summer Program Basel 2005.” What will you teach? And what do you hope to impart to students who have been bombarded with all manner of typography, from the classical to the chaotic?

I will be a typography instructor for one week at the “First Summer Program Basel 2005” during July 3 to July 23. The pillar for us is “basics.” We’ll rediscover the needs of basics as the first step in the beginning of each design education. No other school of design offers a deeper or more serious basic program.

Was there a reason for leaving the Basel School of Design to found your own summer program? Were your teaching principles no longer compatible?

I did not leave the Basel School of Design. I left the University of Art and Design Basel, which split away from the Basel School of Design in 2000. They split away to open a new type of university design level, controlled mostly by the Swiss government. (In Switzerland, there are nine institutions with the same scheme. 30% of that would be enough!) So, I went back to the original school from where I came to work on different projects. One of these projects is the “First Summer Program Basel 2005.”

How have your methods and style changed during the over 35 years since you began teaching? Have there been any significant revelations in that time?

The structure of the images changed, but the concept is consistent still today. From 1968 on, my work was the opposite of “Swiss Typography”; I was the rebel of the Basel School. In the mid-1970s, many designers copied the Basel approach to create the so-called “New Wave.” Yet I never wanted to create a fixed style, so I radically changed the way I worked from that point on. My range of operating with typography is still wide, and it makes the young generation today nuts! Often I hear students say, “I paid over $100,000 for my design education. What I saw and learned in these three days at your workshop was more than during my four years at university!” One of the secrets is that my instructions have nothing to do with fashion or the “Zeitgeist.” We are timeless.

Do you still teach typography the same way you did when designers had to cut and paste letters together? Or have you accepted new technologies?

We use electronics only when we really need the new technologies. A lot of work is done quicker by hand.

As a teacher, you are a strict formalist. But given the capacity of the computer to enhance the expressive aspects of typography, do you allow students an opportunity to experiment with form?

Everything is allowed in my classes when it makes sense!

Having been a leading figure in typography, do you foresee (or do you see now) shifts in practice that are unprecedented, or are we returning to a kind of stasis in terms of classical and traditional work?

Not for me. Design is like fashion: The skirts are once mini, and then as long as possible. But I believe we always have to move our backside into the future with a great respect to the past. This political viewpoint makes enemies, and a lot of wonderful, good friends.

Her new, must read book is among the first of a spate of inspiring texts and online conferences that have emerged during the pandemic year and the Black Lives Matter groundswell. Here, Walters takes us on a narrative tour of this very enlightening collection of conversations with more new voices and new eyes on our increasingly diverse design professions.

At what point did you conceive of Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators?

In some ways, Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators is an accumulation of other projects I’ve been doing over the last 10 years. I have always been interested in conversations, dialogues and connecting with other people of color. This book project developed out of a panel I chaired at the College Art Association conference in February 2020 called Black, Brown and Latinx Graphic Design Educators. For this panel, I organized a group of graphic design educators who were teaching at a variety of institutions across the United States. Within this group of educators, I was briefly acquainted with a few, and others I had never met before. As preparation for the panel, I interviewed the panelists as a way to learn more about their experiences in design and academia. Based on my discussions, I wanted to make a small pamphlet or design artifact that could feature excerpts from the interviews as a takeaway at the conference. However, as I began to develop the “pamphlet,” the scope of the publication grew in size and I realized it needed to become a full-fledged book. At this point, I reached out to a former student of mine, Iyana Martin Diaz, who eventually became my co-designer for the book.

The book includes interviews from the design educators who participated in the CAA conference panel as well as a few others that occurred just after the conference. It was important to include all of these interviews because they reflect a range of perspectives from my peers who are teaching in different geographic and demographic contexts. I think the collection of the interviews together begins to highlight the complexities of how race, class and education impact our design trajectories. Being a student and educator at liberal arts universities and art schools yields different conversations on how design is taught, how it is seen and what resources are available. I think the art school conversation can be very specific and the non-art school conversation can also be very specific, with areas of overlap. I wanted this book to reflect that range.

You address the challenges of teaching design at “minority-serving,” “predominantly white” and “historically black” institutions. What are the challenges as you've experienced them, and how can they be better served?

There are several challenges, as noted throughout the book, and they are all layered and complicated. I can personally speak to the experiences I have had at PWIs and within art school contexts. Across all, I think the challenges include not having enough funding or resources to support BIPOC students and educators. One of the most important pieces for institutions to understand, and the design industry at large, is that “BIPOC” includes a lot of different racial and ethnic groups, and not all have the same challenges or concerns.

What, if anything, surprised you in their answers? Was there an aha moment(s) for you?

For this project, I wanted to engage in dialogue with design educators not specifically in New York City, where design discourse often gets centered, but into other regions of the United States. I think the regional differences are important to underscore because of their impact on social identities. When I talked with the other Black women interviewed in the book, for instance, it was clear the ways in which we were similar but also in how our identities had different inflections due to growing up in New England, the Midwest or in the South. This was an exciting aspect for me because holding space for these reflections is part of deepening my own understanding of Blackness and added to the infinite ways we all coexist.

Education is ground zero for design in the future. What is the overarching or underlying issue that you wanted to draw out of your interviewees?

I guess it’s not so much of an issue as it is a celebration. I was excited to learn from each interviewee, how they saw the world, both as designers and as people of color. I think the design field has primarily been seen through a white lens, has focused on very particular narratives, types of design work and design pathways. I was seeking more diversity of experiences, types of schools attended and how navigating the design industry and academia has been influenced by our racial and ethnic backgrounds.

There has long been a paucity of Black, Brown and Latinx design educators, which accounts for a low percentage of students, and ultimately professionals, in graphic design. What triggered your desire to change the balance?

I guess what I would say to this question is that my interest in these concerns did not start with this book alone, but has been part of a longer ongoing body of work in my design practice. Questions around race and representation in design have always been something I’ve reflected on since I entered the field as a designer. Our stories reflect a series of different pathways and perspectives that are similar to our students and other emerging designers in the field right now. I think it’s important that we have visible and documented representations so that we can continue to ask, “how?” When I look back at a younger version of myself, I would always ask, “How did you get there?” And, “How can I get there as a Black woman?” I think these are important questions to ask because everyone’s circumstances are different, from a racial standpoint, an educational standpoint, an economic standpoint
and a familial standpoint.

Is one of your goals to increase the amount of positive role models?

Definitely, but also to open the conversation up more to be more multifaceted and nuanced. In the book I highlight the fact that we are only a small sampling of the infinite experiences one might have as being Black, Brown or Latinx, and that the terms “Black,” “Brown” or “Latinx” hold several meanings. Having visible representations is essential.

Do you believe that there has been systemic under-representation in the design fields? Has there been an overt or covert reason behind this?

Yes, I think there has been systemic under-representation due to the following: implicit/explicit bias in recruitment and school admissions, lack of mentorship, microaggressions, toxic and hostile workplace environments, not feeling your identity is affirmed, more emotional labor to explain diversity and inclusion to unaware colleagues, lack of financial support, accruing debt in order to attend/work in a particular design environment/school, inability to participate in expensive design conferences/events/competitions, insular networking, gatekeeping, having certain design credentials/degrees/certificates in order to be visible or recognized in the field, the field only valuing certain kinds of design work that is also hyper-visible, isolation, imposter syndrome, being passed over for opportunities, pay inequities between women and men (and more specifically Black women getting paid significantly less than their white male counterparts for the same design job), and the list goes on. All of these aspects affect competitive advantages that influence representation in the design field.

It seems to me that years ago there was a lot of fragmentation with those who went to art and design school. I saw lots of people of color going into fashion on one side, and cartooning and comics on the other (and, of course, photography and painting). If you agree, why do you feel graphic design (and much of advertising) was so much more “restrictive”?

This is a good question. I like to think in contemporary art there’s an ability to express oneself in any kind of way—from pushing the boundaries in form, language or performance. There are numerous notable Black artists like Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Adrian Piper or Kara Walker, who directly address and confront topics of race, identity and representation in their art-making. Within their work I feel as though they are not restricted from expressing work on these concerns. When it comes to design, and with specific regard for some design programs, topics of race and identity have quite literally been censored, and students are told that “this is not design” because it’s touching a topic that may be uncomfortable or unfamiliar to their design peers or educators. Design was structured to be “restrictive” to begin with—from our use of grid systems, typography selection and creating outcomes that can sometimes be very neutral. There are design dimensions and mediums that are structured for us to conform, and when design outcomes do not mesh with those systems they are restricted from being displayed, discussed or understood because it is “not the norm.”

To the second part of your question, I don’t think it’s a matter of people of color only going into fashion or comics. I can’t speak for all groups but only on behalf of myself and my experiences. Many people, not just people of color, think design can be restrictive and choose to pursue disciplines that allow them to be more expressive or create new collectives where they can be who they want to be. I’m of the generation of Black designers that exists in a slightly different playing field from those that have come before me. We need to acknowledge the history of racism experienced by Black designers who came before, who tried to break into industry 20, 30 or 40 years ago but were prevented from doing so. Black people have experienced restriction and racism in every discipline. They were told in a variety of ways that they could not/should not be there. I think graphic design and advertising is so much more restrictive because historically it has always been restrictive of Black people, of Black thought, of Black presence and of Black agency.

The idea of inherent “restriction” is fascinating. It is the opposite of “colonization” (or maybe even a corollary). Do you believe that there is a perception that people of color have a different aesthetic or mindset that goes counter to the neutrality of, say, “modern” design?

I guess I would like to flip this question and ask—how has modern design been inspired, influenced and derived from the aesthetics of people of color? There is so much history and un-learning that I continue to do as a designer with regard to my understanding on this. I guess I would also like to consider how the aesthetics of people of color were colonized to become modernism by white designers? What formal elements or motifs are actually of African origin?

I love the quote by James Baldwin, “The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.” It seems to underscore our system. What does it say to you?

This quote was contributed by David Jon Walker for the book, and was part of a talk that James Baldwin gave in 1963 called a “A Talk to Teachers.” When I think about this quote today, I reflect on my own journey, transitioning from student to educator. The more that I have learned about the ways white supremacy, power, hierarchy and institutional racism functions, the more I continue to look introspectively at my experiences and pivotal moments that have shaped my journey as a designer and Black woman. This consciousness and awareness is necessary for educators to possess, so that we can look critically at how we replicate and repel these systems in our classroom spaces and create space for our students to be conscious, as well.

Would you say that design education, at least until recently, has been too style-driven to the exclusion of teaching the meaning and essence of diversion?

I do think at times certain styles and popular trends get more visibility in design education because of how they function in commercial spaces. I imagine part of this is a result of helping to prepare students to make work that gets them jobs upon graduation, and there’s a method of teaching towards the industry from an aesthetic standpoint. At the same time, I think we need to be supporting the growth of emerging designers who will think more holistically about design so that they have the cultural competencies to ask questions, challenge design concepts that are harmful and think about the audiences where their work will be disseminated.

It is interesting to me that design and advert
ising was once a field that brought children of immigrants out of the grip of mundane white and blue collar labor. But maybe that had something to do with the influx of European immigrants, mostly Italian, Jewish, Russian, who had studied the art of design during the 1930s–'40s. Why isn't current education a similar stepping stone? Is it financial, aspirational, inspirational? Is it possible?

Again, I think it’s important here to highlight that within the United States there were several government and corporate policies, practices, procedures that prevented Black people from pursuing higher education. I think what we don’t often talk about is that while many European immigrants arrived in the 1930s–'40s, over time they could assimilate as white in a way that Black people could not. Being locked out of academic institutions has had lasting impact on every occupation, including design. I do believe education can be a stepping stone but we also have to reconcile the fact that Blacks and other folks of color were denied admission to begin with. The Civil Rights Acts passed in the 1960s were just the beginning of trying to eliminate discrimination and desegregation. When we look at higher education today, the residual of all those generations of exclusion has systematically impacted people of color.

I've always been befuddled, if that's the right term, by the best practices to teach cultural difference in a design program. It is one thing to teach a history class and another to integrate diverse cultures into studio work. How do you and your interviewees view the canon—what to transform, what to preserve and how to do it?

I think this is difficult to answer because we all view the canon differently. If you talk to any of the design educators in the book, they will all have a particular take. In my view, integration means thinking about who is in your classroom space, recognizing that range of identities (including your own), thinking about who is or is not reflected in that space and bringing in those voices. Whether that be through invitation of folks who have a knowledge base in an area you don’t, looking in archives and collections that reflect the folks who have been historically missing and finding artifacts for a new canon, thinking beyond looking for the words “graphic design” in your search because that was not always the term used in the past. In my view, the material exists in so many archives and humanities books, but we need more designers to help create visibility and contextualization.

I see your book as appealing to a disparate racial and ethnic readership, but certainly to educators of all backgrounds. Do you think your book would have been published, let's say, 10 years ago? Or do you feel it took recent social upheavals to draw attention to the need for your interviewees' points of view?

I think I would have made and got this book published 10 years ago had I had the experience and knowledge I know now. I am grateful for its visibility during this time and will continue to advance the work of Black, Brown and Latinx design educators in the field. I think the social upheaval has certainly propelled it in a way but I think if it was not published commercially, I certainly would have published this book independently.

I have not gone through (but am deeply involved in) design education. How important is the theoretical versus the technical side of design education today?

I think both are equally important. I feel having a certain level of rigor in the theory or concept in your work sets you apart from other designers. How you are thinking and the way you are thinking are added assets for any designer. Alongside that, I also think it’s critical for people to know how to execute design technically, as well. Sometimes we have strengths in some areas better than others, but I do think these two pieces are of equal importance.

What do you hope will result from this book? How do you hope design education will change?

In the Acknowledgements of my book, I reflect on this, saying, “I hope this book and our stories contribute to a wider understanding of the diversity of paths taken, perspectives held and outlooks conceived by designers of color. In order to highlight the uniqueness of different ethnic groups, to understand the layered histories, cultural beliefs and shared languages that shape our understanding of art, design and race, it is extremely important to push against the flattening of what it means to be a "POC." While academia and the design industry have tried to become more accepting in recent years, there is much work to be done to make these spaces more inclusive. Representation matters. Having design educators who look like you matters. Being able to bring your whole self to the studio and classroom matters. Calling out the fact that design has the capacity to be an exclusive space that does not always value, respect or celebrate our identities is critical to name. My hope is that the interviews shared in this book create visibility and validation—that they demonstrate what is possible, that design is an exciting field and that there are a multitude of pathways and approaches to design practice.”

In 1927, typographer Paul Renner (1878–1956) designed one of the most commonly used and emblematic typefaces of the 20th century. Futura was hyped as the "typeface of the future," and became the spiritual artifact of the 1920s "New Typography," enjoying a long existence as a relevant type long after the pre–World War II modern movement collapsed under the weight of Nazi oppression (although even they maintained a bastardized version). Futura survives as an embodiment of the avant-garde. "Accordingly, it determined the 'modern' appearance of many print media, also shaping the look of large brand names," write Isabel Naegele and Petra Eisele in a letter from Mainz, where three years ago they mounted an exhibition and eponymous book, Futura. The Typeface. This letter included a "small documentary" of the Futura fest.

Those lucky enough to have been at the 2016/2017 exhibition at the Institut des FB Gestaltung Faachhacahschule Mainz, where Naegele and Eisele teach at Designlabor Gutenberg, hold that memory. For the rest of us, there's the website Futura. The Typeface, where you'll find five symposium translations and excerpts from the catalog. Then visit Type-trap, an interactive experience, "the largest search for [the] Futura typeface" on everything around the world (click "start" on the right), and a forum to discuss the findings.

Edited by Steven Heller

All art and design schools and university programs in the United States during the age of COVID-19 have had to develop alternative methods of teaching students. Although there has not been a one-size-fits-all solution, various forms of complete or partial remote learning have been in effect for almost a year. When the pandemic ends—and it will—educators will have to decide how to integrate at least some of the new approaches with the old. We asked a medley of teachers and chairpersons from a variety of schools to answer two questions about the imminent future. Yesterday they weighed in on which of the pandemic-inspired changes in procedure and methodology they will retain. Today, we ask a brief postscript:

Of the measures your schools have instituted to protect students’ health and well-being during the pandemic, which will you be happy to see disappear with the virus?

Sean Adams

Chair, Undergraduate and Graduate Design, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena

50,000 emails about every tiny issue. Looking forward to meeting with faculty and students to quickly address issues, see enthusiasm in the classroom in person, and be inspired.

Angela Riechers

Program Director, Graphic Design, University of the Arts, Philadelphia

What will I be happy to see go away? Staring at a screen of little black squares, most of the students with their cameras turned off. It’s way harder to teach without being able to read the room (body language and facial expressions), and I can see how hard it is for some students to maintain direction and focus. Design studios are better live.

Lita Talarico

Co-chair, MFA Design, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I will gladly bid goodbye to Zoom meetings; they are formal and structured and it’s more difficult to be spontaneous. Also, working from home can be a challenge.

Natalia Ilyin

Director, Design Program, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle

What will I be happy to see go away? The phrase, “I think you’re muted.” Oh my lord, I hear it or say it 15 times a day and never want to hear it again.

Jennifer Rittner

Faculty, MFA Products of Design and MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I will be more than happy to see Zoom classes disappear, though I think some accommodations should be made for students who did thrive in the virtual environment.

Gail Anderson

Chair, BFA Design and Advertising, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I can’t wait to see students’ faces again in real life (even in masks), though I’ve enjoyed watching various attention-seeking cats cross their screens regularly. Our students have been warriors this academic year, creating good work, waking up early, and staying up late (they’re scattered across the globe). I’ll be happy to cut back on my Zoom time and to stop using words like pivot.

Anne H. Berry

Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, Cleveland State University

I will be happy to see complete reliance on technology—for conducting classes and communicating and interacting with students—go away. There are many ways in which technology has been a blessing over the course of the last year. I am so appreciative of the way CSU has helped ensure that students have access to the resources they need in order to keep up with their coursework and stay connected. And I am still able to see evidence, on a regular basis, that creativity, learning and development are continuing to happen. I continue to be grateful for that. At the same time, I think students are missing out on making the kinds of connections that naturally develop when they are directly in contact with one another. It’s harder to demonstrate that you are fully present for and engaged with what your classmates are doing when you are separated by screens and adjusting to time lags. I also think there’s a level of confidence that students gain with their work and their ability to communicate when they are physically surrounded by a supportive community of teachers and peers.

Stefan Sagmeister

Instructor, MFA Design, School of Visual Arts, NYC

The need to be extra animated on Zoom.

Gjoko Muratovski

Director, Myron E. Ullman Jr. School of Design, University of Cincinnati

I would be happy to see the masks go away.

Edited by Steven Heller

All art and design schools and university programs in the United States during the age of COVID-19 have had to develop alternative methods of teaching students. Although there has not been a one-size-fits-all solution, various forms of complete or partial remote learning have been in effect for almost a year. When the pandemic ends—and it will—educators will have to decide how to integrate at least some of the new approaches with the old. We asked a medley of teachers and chairpersons from a variety of schools to answer two questions about the imminent future. The first appears today, and a postscript follows tomorrow.

Of the protocols currently in place as health and safety precautions during the pandemic (e.g., remote learning, hybrid learning, asynchronous learning*), which will be instituted as a permanent methodology?

*For the uninitiated, education that involves, say, on-demand sessions that students can engage with on their own schedules.

Angela Riechers

Program Director, Graphic Design, University of the Arts, Philadelphia

All of the programs in the School of Design decided to approach the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink how we deliver content. Some of the things we’ll definitely keep [include] Zoom meetings to bring in guest lecturers and critics from all over the world, and all time zones. Our in-person studio classes were six hours long. We shortened them to four-and-a-half hours for remote learning, which is still within degree granting requirements irements, and have not seen any ill effects for the students. Going forward we are considering different options when back in-person such as making the last hour-and-a-half optional to stay in the classroom, as a work period with a TA instead of the instructor, or to use the time for asynchronous assignments and activities or we may permanently keep the length of the course at 4.5 hours.

We started using apps such as Slack for communication and Miro for presentations, and these have been very effective for both students and teachers. I can see using Miro as a way for students to post interim work between classes for peer or teacher feedback, and it’s great to keep a Slack channel going for each separate class. Many students seem to have the same questions, and the Slack thread becomes a giant FAQ file. I also use Slack to post “hey, look at this design thing I found” links, and students respond better to the text chain–like format than they do to emails.

In the remote learning situation, we generally have a quick look for prelim crit, maybe a lecture/demo, and then ask the students to work in small groups in Zoom breakout rooms, where the instructor pops in and out for more individual attention. We're looking at how what used to be covered exclusively in the classroom can now be taught asynchronously in the future. I’m thinking of doing something similar to the breakout rooms in real life—creating study groups for maybe four students in the classroom and having them meet (could be live, could be online at their discretion) to review each other’s work prior to the next week’s class for peer feedback. It will be consistent, and a way to be accountable to each other.

Sean Adams

Chair, Undergraduate and Graduate Design, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA

Remote learning will stay in place for faculty outside of the region, and partially for individual meetings as needed with students. We will also continue the visiting artist program for some speakers remotely. Asynchronous learning was part of the curriculum previous to the lockdown, and will continue for technical learning such as Adobe InDesign, coding, etc.

Douglas Davis

Professor and Chair, Communication Design Department, New York City College of Technology

As I look forward, I’m reminded that the principles in user-centered design will be useful to apply to our systems. I’ll be thinking about our program in the same way as I would a UX/UI problem. We will need to be responsive so that we can be flexible. We don’t know how our students or staff will feel comfortable engaging with the program (or what platforms they will use to do so). Therefore, I’m pushing for a digital and in-person end-to-end experience. If you can book an appointment for the vaccine, check into a flight and make a deposit with a device, then you should be able to attend or teach a class that way when this is over. Not having that choice is a barrier that will become a strategic disadvantage.

To go one further, I think the pandemic, insurrection and difficulty in vaccine roll-out taught us all just how many systems have to be aligned, stable and trusted to have anything resembling a normal routine. My focus will be on redefining quality in the remote space and investing in what would enable us to meet those measures in person and online. Lastly on this point, the biggest danger to creativity will be the lack of equity in access to vaccines. I’m calling it here and I’m telling you now. If you’re reading this and have influence in opening doors, please think about how you will widen the path at the less-fortunate end of your student body. The talent pool is deep and diverse but it will be even more invisible because of the new barriers the pandemic has placed on a household. My answer to this is partnering with companies, industry organizations and other institutions, because relationships will enable impact beyond our resources.

Lita Talarico

Co-chair, MFA Design, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I want to keep that real/virtual sense of each student sitting in the front row of class. Zoom makes it possible for everyone to see and be seen, hear and be heard. I realize studio classes are better in person, but Zoom has greatly increased the potential for conversation and debate rather than a conventional lecture. It has also reduced or eliminated, so to speak, the back-row students, who are often less attentive or contributory in live classes, which is better for them and me. Having now worked both ways has given me a greater ability to make the in-person experience more dynamic, too.

Natalia Ilyin

Director, Design Program, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle

I’ll retain bits of all three (remote, hybrid and asynchronous). I will post asynchronous lectures and videos that can be watched any time; I’ll provide remote access for people who don’t want to come to class during a snowstorm or, here in the West, during fire-and-smoke season, or who are sick but don’t want to miss class—I guess that really makes my planned use hybrid. It’s nice to have the option of dipping in and out—into and out of modes—depending on who needs what, when. I’d like to run little one-credit, five-week online history courses about things that don’t fit into a normal-length semester. I’d li
ke to place these little courses around the larger courses, not unlike cushions in a reading chair.

Jennifer Rittner

Faculty, MFA Products of Design and MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I plan to continue pre-recording lectures/slide presentations so that students can watch asynchronously and with captions. I don’t enjoy the recording process but I think the students find it useful to be able to watch on their own time, and it means I can leave much more time for active discussion or workshopping during live class time. I’ve been thinking more about timing and access. Asynchronous slide presentations give students the ability to process information at their own pace (more or less). In-class workshopping with other students allows for messy kinds of discoveries to happen, and for particular skills to develop. And more 1:1 with faculty allows them to get more direct feedback and guidance. I’d like to figure out how to keep the way I’m using time and access via Zoom in my teaching practice post-COVID.

I’d also like to keep using Miro boards for group brainstorming. I love watching the hive mind at work as students add their ideas. I think they are sometimes freer with their thoughts because it’s (somewhat) anonymous. In my graphic design history classes, my students are using Miro to create a collective design history resource, where they add visual artifacts they discover in a variety of archives. They get to see themselves building their own historical timeline. And in my graduate classes, we’ve used the boards to workshop challenging issues like politics and power. Students share their thoughts on the board and then we have more tools to work with when we’re ready for discussion. I think that even when students are reticent to speak, they find value in being able to put their thoughts somewhere.

Gail Anderson

Chair, BFA Design and Advertising, School of Visual Arts, NYC

My departments … account for 750+ students at the School of Visual Arts. We were able to pivot to asynchronous learning this past fall, after a sudden spring 2020 emergency transition to remote learning. Much handwringing was involved, but our all-adjunct faculty stepped up in ways I could never have imagined, and invested hours in online training and reimagining their syllabi. Now that we’re all well-versed in the Canvas platform (we showed minimal interest only a year ago), we’re better-prepared and savvier as a group. We’re more organized, with our modules and second cameras and assignment sheets.

As we prepare to reenter the physical world in the coming months (knock on wood), I’m certain many of us will maintain our tidy Canvas modules and the weekly structure we’ve created for ourselves and for our students. This has been a lemonade-from-lemons [past] year, for sure, but I’ll feel comfortable continuing to provide asynchronous (a word I could barely spell six months ago) content for my classes moving forward. I like creating bonus goodies and resources; it feels like an enjoyable means to continue learning at your own pace outside the classroom.

Anne H. Berry

Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, Cleveland State University

At Cleveland State University, design faculty have been teaching remotely with synchronous class meetings since March 2020. I’m always open to adjusting my teaching practice and trying new approaches and have genuinely tried to think about the remote/virtual teaching experience as an opportunity rather than a limitation. (It sounds cheesy, I know.) And there are still many challenges and frustrations. However, I find that I am pushing myself a bit harder to try and engage students on a wider variety of levels, including looking for ways to encourage their interactions with one another outside of class meetings. So, I will likely continue integrating applications like Slack and Miro and/or other activities that provide students with options to interact remotely/virtually.

There’s a lot I’ve taken for granted when it comes to the rhythms of an in-person classroom setting and how I comfortably navigate that environment. So, I’ve also dedicated more time during remote/synchronous class meetings to having informal conversations about how students are feeling, how they are managing in the midst of a pandemic, or discussing general interests. Those types of conversations tended to happen spontaneously during in-person classes. However, given what the country has experienced in the last four years, let alone the last 12 months, I like the idea of intentionally providing space for students to talk and reflect and share on a regular basis.

I’m continually impressed at how active students are when using the Zoom chat. In some ways, they are more forthcoming and less reserved when responding to questions or weighing in on class activities.

Stefan Sagmeister

Instructor, MFA Design, School of Visual Arts, NYC

I started to offer four individual slots of 15 minutes each to students every week, putting this hour aside from the overall three-and-a-half hour class for more individual questions. This worked out very well and I feel many students felt their needs better met this way.

Gjoko Muratovski

Director, Myron E. Ullman Jr. School of Design, University of CincinnatiThe general assumption is that by fall 2021, most people will get vaccinated and we will be able to resume with face-to-face activities. If not, we can extend our remote teaching until it is safe to return to “normal” conditions. However, there are certain practices that we introduced during the pandemic that I would like to keep. For example, it has become evident to everyone that design education does not need to be exclusively face-to-face, as it was very much believed until the pandemic. Moving forward, I see a great benefit in maintaining some kind of hybrid and asynchronous modes of teaching. Despite the lack of hands-on exposure, the student evaluations of remote teaching during the pandemic registered higher satisfaction scores than under normal circumstances. Clearly, this generation of digital natives appreciates having more flexible teaching and learning models, even when they are missing out on in-person engagement. Studio courses that focus heavily on the process of making and require access to specialized facilities should resume back to in-person learning, but overall, students should be given the opportunity to create their own educational experience. Now, at the same time while I am saying this, I do know that there will be many faculty who would simply opt to return to the typical “prescribed” educational model. However, I think that going back to a default mode of working would be a missed opportunity for us to start anew.

Briar Levit

Associate Professor, Portland State University, Portland, ORI have found teaching graphic design history online much better than teaching it in a lecture hall. The chat function may be the single-greatest benefit. Students
feel more comfortable asking for clarification and chiming in with opinions along the way. Seeing these comments often fuels my own excitement as I lecture. Additionally, I find I can get a dialog started from the chat, and watch it develop organically into a verbal discussion—something that was very challenging in a large lecture hall. Other benefits—images can be understood better when we are all looking at a screen one or two feet away, instead of a washed-out projection in the dark (which we all know encourages drowsiness—or worse, naps!). I’ve also taken up the use of live captions, which students have said is very helpful. They can’t rely on these for proper nouns, but it can be a helpful reference at times.

The jury is still out on my ability to share actual artifacts. I’ve just purchased a document camera, which, frankly, I already wanted when I was in the classroom in the Before Times. So far, I feel like this is a nice way to break up the still image monotony. When in-person learning starts up again, I have requested to teach this particular class online again. While I enjoy walking into class and greeting folks, for a lecture class, the benefits of online teaching have outweighed those of teaching in person.

You may also listen to this piece in audio form, read by the author:

Unbridled Capitalism (for most) is an abstraction. From the inside it’s hard to see edges—places where it does not exist. In this time when everything being for sale is normal—including the delivery of your purchases to your front door, car or screen—there is healthy competition to serve our best and worst impulses, and we would do well to know the difference.

Design has its own values. See any designer who has discovered this; Horst Rittel, Charles Eames, Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Terry Irwin, Sister Corita Kent and Lucienne Roberts have all authored books and various provocations on this theme. I’ve also authored my own introduction to this concern—all for the purpose of drawing out the premise that Capitalism has less (appeal) than we thought. Less values, often less concerns, leaning towards unsustainability, and certainly fewer boundaries. This episode of Processing (.,.,.,.,.,.) aims to talk about (one of) the intersections of Capitalism and culture.

When I use the word culture, I modify or contextualize it with a “time” and a “place”; for example, 1930s London or 1960s Los Angeles—everything finding its own level, certainly if the audience is familiar with the geography and the times. After all, it’s exactly how we remember, how we memorialize places, events and people. With the tales of conquest, and triumph. Unfortunately, our national conscience is bathed in conflict, with its citizens and many monuments, objects and images normalizing aggression towards Americans of color, immigrants, women and the original inhabitants of this continent.

In this geography—the continent—White (European) people have played the major role in the production of images and dominant narratives for the identities of people of the First Nation, Asian people, Black and Brown people. This has included the creation of stereotypes, the theft of products of indigenous wisdom, ritual garments transformed into fashion, sacred practices as recreation, and the massive theft of labor and creativity. And while the genocide of our First Nation and slavery is over, there has been an ocean of commerce—dollars in the trillions, made and spent to continue and extend the same systems of oppression, including cultural appropriation and cultural programming using the work of designers, artists and cultural workers. I believe we can begin to negotiate for the creation of policies which make these practices less probable/profitable by disrupting the future market for the products of a racist past—and a racist present. To reorient our culture from abuse to equanimity. And if it’s going to happen at scale, we are going to have to put demands on our regional governments to help. Because even if we demolish every statue of every racist, there will still be thousands of artifacts that are indexed in our regional institutions under “anthropological curiosity” instead of being called what they are: indigenous technologies.

The graphic design field presents (and promotes the ownership of) images of people in lots of ways (ways that, again, have determined for centuries what people think of women, Black and Brown bodies), while producing symbols of oppression, heroism, hate and beauty. Some of them I call toxic assets, and those assets have meta objects associated with them. As a letterpress printer, I can tell you that our most toxic meta object is the printing plate, the means by which more of these toxic objects can be made. I’m very interested in this aspect of our culture. So interested that I think we might start looking at a way of deaccessioning these materials in principle, and the process with which we should approach all toxic assets in our various study centers, museums, collections, books, web citations, etc.

For example, this plate represents the utility and ambition of the Vigilantes Indianapolis. The membership card itself—perhaps numbered and signed by an important person in Indiana politics—would give us more information, but this plate tells us plenty. When we (printers) embrace the making of printing plates, we are often engaging in an action that suggests relative permanence in contrast to the setting of hot, cold, or wood type, which is more immediate, focused on utility, speed and on serving a trending or ephemeral need.

As cultural toxic assets, the presence of such things that have been used to harm people on this continent will affect the overall value of a whole if packaged with healthy or desirable investments (to borrow the parlance of financial markets). The whole being American invention, intuition, creativity and diversity.

So here are some policy-related provocations:

Memorializing, Archiving, and Digital Archiving

It’s time to consider a framework for municipal responsibility for the monuments and artifacts in publicly accessible, publicly funded study centers, museums and collections. Much in the same way we are seeing a (healthy) trend towards bilingual signage for public spaces, there should be a trend towards dual expressions (from BIPOC scholars) for monuments that stand on the wrong side of history, and objects that have offended. We can also consider this (dual expression) as an attribute which cannot be separated from the (digital) image of the object, using a technology such as a blockchain. An audit and funding for this concern can be organized as a policy through regional (multi-jurisdictional) cultural funding mechanisms, many of which already exist.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

It’s time to ask who benefits from these collections in any way: Who are the scholars, curators and custodians of these toxic assets? How much public and private money is associated with their care and conservation and, of course—how many of them do we need? Who should possess them and what can we do to mitigate the harm that they can do to our young people who study them? The keepers of these assets should hire/employ/consult with BIPOC scholars in history, art history, design and anthropology, and they could coordinate the quantity of objects in circulation, with special attention to digital packaging and meta objects like printing plates and blueprints.

The Perfect Tense

We (designers and artists) have made enough of this stuff, so I argue that the meta materials to make more of it should be considered hostile to our intention and instead should be transformed by reparative mechanisms into sustainable, future-oriented, networked (shareable) stuff. If hate speech is illegal, then the means of production of toxic assets should be embargoed, transformed and put into new systems of reparations-focused action.

Reparations Thinking

Moving forward, there should be a municipal responsibility to behave in a reparative manner. I’m working on a sketch of how that might work, but the best I can do is call this a type of destabilizing force on the system that harms people in the present with tools and instruments of the past. A reparative approach brings us into a more sustainable future in cultural representations and stories told by art and art-like objects in our public right-of-way and in the various study centers whose work it is to educate. The goal I have in mind is to define the framework of a Social/Cultural Treaty with our cultural institutions and leaders.

In the future, our culture is going to be full of things that we are (going to be) in agreement with—in value, in deed, in the histories we present. We need policy where there is unanimous agreement (consent) so there will be language and voice given to the people who are harmed in the narrative. We need to lean into more scholars of color who can do this work. We need to create more public art opportunities for people of color to respond to the histories of public monuments, objects, namings and places of honor for perpetrators of systems that have done harm. Because it cannot be our highest value to celebrate the most violent and hateful instincts amongst us.

And finally, if we manage our toxic cultural assets better, maybe we will have a better sense of what culture we want to continue to create and express.

Good design—even in a Capitalist system, even in our cultural atmospheres—should have no victims.

Rick Griffith produces a limited-edition print to accompany every issue of Processing (,.,.,.,.,.,.,). Get the latest here, produced in a run of 15.

Accompanying Reading List (with books available here):

• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
• The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
• Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class by Eric Lott

Inspiring Research:

• Harvard Profits From Photos of Slaves, Lawsuit Claims
• Transforming Hate
• Kevin Beasley at the Whitney: A View of a Landscape

In February of last year, independent curator and arts educator Asmaa Walton founded the Black Art Library when she started collecting literary pieces on Black artists from various donors and online sales. The mobile, pop-up library and interactive installation features a variety of books and related ephemera dedicated to Black artists. The purpose was to create a “living archive of global Black creativity,” a place where the community could come together and view these works.

And why? For starters, there are gaps in art history education programs across numerous institutions that all but ignores the impact of Black visual artists. By re-envisioning a more inclusive view of art history that celebrates Black voices, we can begin to tell the story of many of these creatives and their contributions to the art world.

 

 

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Now, you can view the library at Detroit’s MOCAD from now until April 18th, 2021. In addition to the collection curated by Walton, there will also be a virtual book club and featured readings from the library, online or socially-distanced in a live setting. In the collection, guests will find monographs, children’s books, exhibition catalogs, memoirs, art history books, and all of the other archives and memorabilia one would expect.

While the collection will only live at MOCAD for a few months, Walton is also raising funds for a permanent space in Detroit that will house the growing non-lending library.

We caught up with Walton to discuss what inspired the pop-up library and some of the pieces you’ll find on display.

What made you start the Black Art Library?

I was trying to think of a way to combine my love for Black art, my work in arts education, and my interest in serving the Black community. I decided that creating an educational resource could be a great way to spread knowledge in a fun and interesting way. I also love art books, so the Black Art Library is a reflection of all of my favorite things.

The collection centers on Black art and visual culture—what do you see as the institutional gaps in art history education, and how can we seek to eradicate these deficits?

For me, these gaps didn’t even become apparent until after finishing undergrad because I realized there was so much I didn’t know. My university didn’t offer any African American Art history courses or any art history classes that covered the African diaspora. Even in my contemporary art course, I only learned about one or two Black artists. Looking back, I think universities that offer art history as a major need to make sure to include a wider variety of courses to produce well-rounded art historians.

As far as other institutions, such as museums, I think they are a little further along in the work because they’ve started to acknowledge the value of Black art, and it is making it into their collections. But they still have a long way to go in properly supporting these artists.

What kind of materials would one find in the collection?

The collection has a wide range of almost 400 books, including exhibition catalogues in artists, art historical texts, biographies, and children’s books (written/and or illustrated by Black artists). In addition to books, the collection also includes ephemera such as exhibition brochures, flyers, and even a t-shirt. I’ve begun to collect other forms of media such as DVDs, CDs, 35mm slides of works by Black artists, and more recently, vinyl from an artist’s exhibition.

What are some of your favorite pieces in the library?

It’s hard to choose, but my current favorite items in the collection are the 35mm slides I recently purchased on eBay. I have about 120 35mm slides that I collected from many places (libraries and universities mostly) that show works by Black artists. I have ones by so many greats, including Jacob Lawrence, Lorna Simpson, Charles Alston, Kerry James Marshall, John Outterbridge, James Van Der Zee, David Hammons, Aaron Douglas, Chris Ofili, and more!

While the library first existed as a pop-up and now as a MOCAD exhibition, you’re currently fundraising to acquire more books and a permanent location for the collection? How close are you to obtaining a brick-and-mortar space, and what do you envision as the library’s future?

I think I still may be about two years away from securing a space because the project still has a lot of foundational work to do. I’m not in a huge rush to be in a permanent space because I think there’s value in keeping the project mobile for the next few years. It can be seen in a few different spaces and allow for many people to see and engage with the project. I really want to make sure the community is familiar with the Black Art Library before I pop up with a permanent location, and I think being active throughout Detroit in different capacities will be the key to that.

The latest episode (No. 32): “Making Design Problems Real in the Classroom.”

Here’s more from the Design is Everywhere team:

In this episode, Sam is joined by Principal Design Strategist and Health Suite Labs Engagement Lead at Philips, Matt Templeton, to learn how design students can interact with real problems in the classroom. Matt has incorporated his own lessons as a professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Later on in the show, Sam and Matt interview the president of ArtCenter College of Design, Lorne Buchman. Together, they discuss how to bring industry in for sponsored projects, how students confront social dilemmas in their work, and the value of interpersonal connections in design education.

The recently published Herbert Bayer: Inspiration and Process in Design by Ellen Lupton joins the Moleskine/Princeton Architectural Press series of vest pocket books to provide unique views of design creativity. The volumes, like the artists and designers they cover, are filled with much underexposed work, supplemented by brief texts and interviews. Lupton's contribution combines Bayer's iconic and less-known work in a concise history/timeline that is perfect for the modern design student. I asked her about the role that Bayer's work plays in history and today's practice.

The mantle of "influential graphic designer" is associated with many practitioners. What makes Bayer worthy of the role?

Herbert Bayer played a key role in the Bauhaus, itself one of the most influential institutions in modern design. He arrived there as a student Weimar in 1921, where he studied in Wassily Kandinsky’s mural-painting workshop. There was no graphic design program in the early years of the Bauhaus, yet Bayer became interested in visual communication. Director Walter Gropius encouraged Bayer to explore graphic design on his own.

As a young student, Bayer created some of the school’s most iconic graphics, such as the catalog cover for the 1923 exhibition Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923 (State Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923). Also as a student, he created hand-rendered proposals for environmental graphics, including advertising kiosks and a multisensory cinema.

After taking a year off from the Bauhaus, Bayer returned to the school’s new facility in Dessau, where he took on the mantle of “young master,” responsible for setting up and running a full-fledged commercial print shop. Bayer belonged to the inner circle at the Bauhaus, together with Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, and others who stood out as leaders of the school.

The Bauhaus became even more influential after it closed, and Bayer tied his own success to the school’s increasing fame. Bayer moved to the U.S. in the late '30s and played a prominent role in the Modernist scene in America. By organizing exhibitions, publishing books and speaking about the Bauhaus, Bayer, Gropius and others pumped up the Bauhaus myth across the breadth of their careers.

Your book, Herbert Bayer: Inspiration and Process (Moleskine/PAP) is part of an ongoing series (full disclosure—I've written text for three of the volumes) that look into the designers' rare or rarely addressed work. What are the unique rarities in your volume?

Our book includes rare maquettes (hand-painted designs) created when Bayer was a student. These tremendous works were collected by Merrill C. Berman, and some are now in the collection of MoMA. Our book also features advertisements designed in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, from the collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. These later works are not as well known as the Bauhaus classics, and they reveal Bayer’s remarkable range and creativity. For example, his advertising montages mixed photography, painting and drawing to create seamless full-color realities that contrast with stark photomontages of the Bauhaus period.

What did you learn about Bayer that solidifies his position in the design pantheon?

Bayer was a pioneer in the field of exhibition design, an area that was just coming into prominence in the late 1920s. I was excited to see that Bayer’s interest arose in his early years as a student, when he created, for example, a mural design at Weimar based on Kandinsky’s theory of the yellow triangle, the red square and the blue circle. Exhibition design continued to be an essential part of Bayer’s career. He designed exhibitions about the Bauhaus (which spread Bauhaus ideas to new audiences) as well as commercial displays and propaganda exhibitions. Exhibitions were an environmental extension of advertising, with the power to direct public thought in a highly focused way.

What does Bayer have to teach designers today?

Our book includes a facsimile reprint of a series of essays Bayer published in PM magazine in New York in 1939. These texts about advertising, typography and exhibition design show Bayer’s strength as a design theorist. One of the reasons the Bauhaus was influential is that designers and artists at the school shared their ideas through writing and print. This continues to be a powerful way for designers to contribute to the bigger discourse of our field.

There has been controversy that the Bauhaus is the center of the Eurocentric school and, in turn, Modernists that have followed its teachings have received too much attention. How do you respond to that as author, historian and curator?

Every generation can seek to discover—and destroy—the Bauhaus for themselves. The school was embattled in its own time, always fighting against critics who thought it was too radical or too socialist or too bohemian—or not radical enough. When Moholy-Nagy left the school in 1928, he complained that the program had become too commercial. Many people taught and studied at the Bauhaus who are less well-known. Elizabeth Otto’s recent book Haunted Bauhaus explores the roles of women, occult philosophies, and queer identities at the Bauhaus. New scholarship helps us see diversity and conflict at the Bauhaus rather than a monolithic theory. When studying and teaching the Bauhaus, we can look at the role that elemental geometry plays in many cultures. The Bauhaus fought against symmetry, capital letters, and historical ornament in search of something universal. Those universals can be found everywhere, produced in different cultural circumstances.

What appeals to me is that Bayer was so varied in his approaches. Some of his collage work is quite surprising (and does not conform to our images of the Bauhaus). How do you view this wide range of styles and methods?

Bayer was a practical guy. He was not a theoretical thinker at the same level as Moholy-Nagy. He allowed his work to change with the times. Moholy-Nagy was a more visionary thinker. Bayer appears to have learned a lot from Moholy, who was five years older and came to the school as faculty. Moholy-Nagy led the way in developing the “new typography” and mixing photography with type. In the 1930s, Bayer’s advertising work showed the influence of surrealism, an art movement whose techniques nourished the narrative impulse of commercial art. In the '60s, simplified corporate identities crept into Bayer’s portfolio. He was a man of his time, a man of the 20th century.

Editor’s Note: In 1987, Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller wrote the seminal “Black Designers: Missing in Action” for PRINT. In 2016, we commissioned her to write a follow-up, “Black Designers: Still Missing in Action?” Now, she completes her trilogy in a four-part final volume exploring the subject from its many angles as she passes the baton to the next generation of designers.

Dedicated to Dorothy E. Hayes

Part III: Miseducation

“If you’re lucky enough to earn a living from your art, you’re probably white.”

How’s that for a striking headline?

As the 2014 Washington Post article by Roberto A. Ferdman detailed:

Nearly four out of every five people who make a living in the arts in this country are white. … The lack of diversity is … even more pronounced for those with art school degrees—more than 80 percent of people with undergraduate art school degrees are white, according to the analysis. And it’s most severe among art school graduates who go on to make it (or, at the very least, a living) in the art world—more than 83 percent of working artists with an art school degree are white. …

Moreover:

11 out of the 15 most expensive universities in the country are art schools, according to The Wall Street Journal. Art schools, as it happens, are also anything but a bridge to gainful employment in the art world: Only one out of every 10 art school graduates goes on to earn his or her living as an artist. So spending, say, $120,000 on an art education is often more of an extended luxury than an investment in an adolescent’s future. It’s of little coincidence that most other top liberal arts institutions have much larger minority presences (at Ivy League schools, for instance, the percentage of the study body that is white ranges from about 41 to 58%).

In spite of all that, Black creatives continue to venture down this road. I surely did.

“Well, if that’s what you want to do, just be the best,” Poppa encouraged me, in the face of the odds.

It’s so uncanny how 50 years of advocacy has taken me full circle around a cycle of history, from an iconic era of protest to this current season. The new national climate has brought assertive young voices to the forefront of the discussion; these design students are protesting and demanding their academic institutions take aggressive anti-racist steps to counter white supremacy in design education as well as practice. Mounting on social media and elsewhere are countless Black, Brown and non-Black ally student unions insisting—demanding—institutional overhauls by any means necessary. (What is a good historical cycle of protest without a student uprising?) “Decolonize!” is the powerful rallying cry.

Students at the Rhode Island School of Design are among the most organized and insistent with their demands. Instagram posts tell the tale: “Institutionally Racist Hiring Practices at RISD”; “Demands of Institutional Change.” The posts link to a RISD Anti-Racism Coalition (risdARC) site containing entries of signed protest statements and a list of demands for the school’s administration.

As the collective explained in their first Instagram post:

The Rhode Island School of Design perpetuates systemic racism and anti-Blackness through the willful omission, inaction, and the violent erasure of Black, Indigenous, and POC within our community. While this call for institutional change centers [on] the eradication of anti-Blackness, these demands must be understood in relation to global systems of oppression marginalizing other ethnic and racial groups and [their] intersection with and in relation to gender and sexuality and disability.

On June 16, the coalition held a summit titled “RISD & Race Forum 2020.” Led by Jada Akoto and Sarah Alvarez, the forum confronted racism experienced in the RISD community, and the lack of support the school provides BIPOC students. Voice after voice bravely spoke their truths.

While researching for this article series, I discovered The Room of Silence—a 2016 documentary co-produced by Olivia Stephens, Utē Petit and Chantal Feitosa, directed by Eloise Sherrid and organizing efforts by the student group Black Artists and Designers—about the challenges faced by students of color at art schools. I started touring colleges the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and actually entered RISD in September 1970—right after, I learned in my research, a March 1970 student protest letter. I was one of the first students of the RISD minority recruitment initiative, and our arrival was a response to the student body’s list of demands—of exactly the same nature as 2020’s. I completely resonated with what I was seeing online from today’s students; I was one of them, and we are one in our experiences.

In my previous PRINT articles (1987 and 2016), I presented RISD data updates. Now I was forced to ultimately conclude that while statistics had improved, nothing had really changed since I stepped onto campus.

To try to get in touch with my feelings, I called my 1970 classmate Betty Gillis-Robinson. Her words reminded me of what we experienced during our time at the school: “I felt unwelcome and disconnected from the mainstream of campus life and the ongoing activities enjoyed by white students,” she recounted. “I was unable to receive the mentoring and foundation that I saw other students receive from faculty during the years I attended RISD.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. Around the conference table we go again.

In 1987, Dorothy Ford w
as the coordinator of RISD’s Minority Affairs Department. As she reported at the time, “There are 49 minority students out of a total of 1,800 studying at RISD. That constitutes 2% of the entire student population. Many Blacks don’t complete the graphic design course of study because of a feeling of isolation. These students may feel that they’re not truly accepted into the program, and not getting the support of faculty members or the head of the department can contribute to a feeling of rejection.”

I circled back to RISD once more. Ford had retired and I found Matthew Shenoda, the first-ever vice president of Social Equity and Inclusion, at the helm. He reported that out of 2,500 students in 2019, 94 were Black. The total BIPOC community of LatinX, mixed-race, Black, Native American and unspecified backgrounds represents 494 students, which doesn’t include the Asian population of 397 students. According to RISD data, the total BIPOC community at the school in 2019 encompasses 19% of the student population, of which 3.8% is Black.

“In order to address the fundamental educational and experiential issues that so many of our students have expressed, particularly our BIPOC students, clear focus needs to be placed on the curriculum and pedagogies,” Shenoda detailed. “That shift happens at the faculty level. So in the case of RISD and the work we are doing through the Center for Social Equity & Inclusion, we are interested not only in bringing on new faculty with particular expertise on issues of race, de-coloniality, and non-European practices, but we are also trying to build a space through various workshops and initiatives where the relational work of anti-racism can become an active part of faculty, student and staff life. What is at stake is not the attempt to ‘fix a problem’ but rather to change a culture, and while much of that work is both institutional and systemic, it also requires deep personal commitments on behalf of the campus community in an effort to examine each [of] our respective positions as they relate to the larger power structures we wish to transform.”

Jada Akoto of RISD & Race echoed my classmate Gillis-Robinson, 50 years hence.

“I have never felt supported by RISD as an institution when speaking of race and social inequity,” she said. “BIPOC student demands for change often are swept under rug, invalidating our experience.

“risdARC has presented a long list of demands to RISD administration, but it can all be summed up as such: We demand that RISD reckons with its role as a beneficiary of white supremacy. As a wealthy cultural institution within the United States, RISD cannot exist without exploiting the labor and lives of Black and Brown people in this country and around the world. We want reparations and an intense restructuring of its intra-institution and inter-institution racial dynamics.”

The words of Frederick Douglass come to mind: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Soon enough, RISD President Rosanne Somerson responded:

Dear RISD Community,

Over recent weeks BIPOC students, faculty, staff and alumni have voiced outrage about RISD’s multiple racist issues centered around deeply embedded practices and structures as well as how white voices and Western perspectives dominate our curricula. Unfortunately, these issues are not new; they have pervaded systems and structures at RISD for decades, largely unchanged.

Artists and designers are vital contributors to local and global communities, and as such it is our responsibility to be fully committed to building more democratic and equitable practices. Those practices must first be amended in our own institution. As the leader of RISD, I take responsibility for having allowed a culture to continue to exist that does not fully live up to our values.

This plan [Editor’s Note: which you can read here] is a commitment to action, and its initiatives are in response to the student-led RISD Anti-Racism Coalition (risdARC) and the group of BIPOC faculty that has been working passionately to instigate much-needed change at RISD. Together, their demands have deeply informed our planning.

Today we are committing to a new set of actions to inspire a better RISD—a RISD where students, faculty and staff of all races, ethnicities and cultures are supported, nourished and honored without the impediments of systemic racism. RISD must reflect the complexity of the world and demonstrate the critical role of artists and designers in advancing change.

Somerson then hands the reins to Shenoda: “I am fully empowering Senior Advisor to the President and Associate Provost Matthew Shenoda with additional, meaningful authority to oversee this transformation.”

As The Boston Globe subsequently detailed, “Responding to activism, RISD is hiring faculty, boosting diversity, returning looted artifacts. … It’s one of the most comprehensive attempts by a U.S. college to address racial diversity and equity.”

Action and activism work.

And finally: Don’t ever hesitate to look beyond the usual schools. Pierre Bowins is an assistant professor in studio arts at University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, who holds a master’s in graphic design from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art. He said Historically Black Colleges and Universities, of which there are more than 100 in the U.S., are often not encouraged and are sometimes suggested to be second-rate—and that’s anything but the case.

“While there are advantages and disadvantages to any institution of higher learning, the under-represented historically Black colleges and universities are an exceptional option for pursuing a career in graphic design.”

Stay tuned to PRINT for the final volume of “Black Designers: Forward in Action” next Thursday. If you missed the earlier installments, catch up on Part I (“Where Are the Black Designers, They Asked?”) and Part II (“Being Part of the Club”).

Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller holds a master of science in communications design from the Pratt Institute, and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, with foundational studies held at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her former business, Cheryl D. Miller Design Inc., serviced corporate communications to a Fortune 500 clientele. She has won countless awards from institutions and organizations including AIGA, The Art Directors Club, Desi Awards, Peabody Awards, Crystal Awards, the CEBA Award and more.

She further holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary, and attributes her design systematic liberation theology to being exposed to the liberation theories of Cornel West, James H. Cone, James Washington, Delores S. Williams and Katie Cannon.

For a guided tour of her portfolio, click here.

Holmes-Miller says she didn’t start working with PRINT 35 years ago when her first article was published—she started five decades ago as PRINT published Dorothy Jackson’s piece “The Black Experience in Graphic Design” featuring Dorothy E. Hayes in 1968. For a look at how PRINT became the first industry magazine to approach design and critical real-world issues in its editorial coverage, read Steven Heller’s piece “The Politics of PRINT,” published on the occasion of the magazine’s 75th anniversary.