Celebrating the African-American Practitioners Absent From Way Too Many Classroom Lectures by Madeleine Morley, Eye on Design, 2018, Typography as a Radical Act in an Industry Ever-dominated by White Men by Silas Munro, Eye on Design, 2019, and Design Gets More Diverse by Alice Rawsthorn, NYTimes, 2011.
What stood out to you the most in this week’s readings?
How do we change the commercial design field to include a diversity of voices and visions?
What will the commercial design field and the study of design history look like in 20 years?
This week’s readings highlight the reality of the heavily segregated design world. In our last class, we watched the Paula Scher documentary, in which I inquired to the class why seemingly all of the design pioneers & icons were white men. I never learned about black or latino graffiti artists & designers like Phase 2, Eugene Winslow, & Reginald Gammon. While my university textbooks were idolizing icons like Jan Tschichold, Herbert Bayer, & F. T. Marinetti, I’d always wondered where were the black names in historical corporate graphic design. A key part of the reading that stood out to me was how recent the “As Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes” collection of black design was completed. I had expected this archival design piece to be published in the late 1900s, following the rise & fall of the swiss style, however, this piece was published a mere five years ago.
We can diversify the commercial design field by following the example of people like TrĂ© Seals, founder of Vocal Type, a type foundry focused on giving voice to BIPOC & female type designers. By creating professional spaces with the purpose of celebrating and amplifying BIPOC designers’ voices, BIPOC culture, in turn, becomes more prevalent in the commercial design industry.
The commercial design field will be revolutionized by the increasing number of BIPOC designers creating space for themselves within the industry.
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