Making a difference through design:
Celebrating Black Designers
Historically, black designers have been unrecognized in design education and the conversations around design. In 2017, only 3.4% of respondents to the AIGA Design Census identified as African American, a number reflected in QDC’s own survey of LGBTQ+ designers.
Communities, such as Blacks Who Design, are coming together to change this by strengthening their network of designers from underrepresented communities with the goal of pushing minority representation and equity in the design world.
What are some of the barriers to seeing more black faces in design? We’ve compiled a list of notable black designers that are doing work to propel the community forward, and their thoughts on how we can improve inclusion for black voices in design.
Amélie Lamont
Amélie Lamont is a product designer, writer and educator based in Brooklyn NY. She has led several projects centering people of color in the design industry such as “The Guide to Allyship”, “Good For POC” and “People of Craft”. Her writing seeks to explore the intersection of design and culture, and how the two relate and serve the audiences that rely on them.
In a soon to be published QDC interview with Amélie, we chatted about why black people have been traditionally left out of the design narrative. Her response spoke volumes about our understanding of the African American community, not just within design but within America as a whole.
“Many of the contributions that black people make to this country have been totally left out of the conversation, not just in design. The way that history has been set up by those in control, was to systematically exclude and diminish the contributions made by black people. Of course there is history there — in the world of black food, black dress, and yes black design. However, none of these traditions, rituals or customs are documented as societal canon. Why is that?”
Good question. In conversation, Lamont circles back to the fact that design education focuses mostly on Eurocentric influences and white heroes and that not enough has been done to include black and people of color into the narrative, in their rightful places parallel to the culture of European design.
Naturally, my next question was how larger design institutes and organizations have focused on correcting these issues and pushing black voices towards the front of the conversation. As a member of the AIGA NY Board, Amélie noted that these changes must start at the top and has encouraged board members to think more critically about their collective approach to diversity and inclusion.
“People talk about diversity like it’s something to strive for, but if you’re not self selecting, you’ll realize it exists all around you. I wanted us to focus more on inclusion. You can have those diverse ethnicities but without support they can’t feel welcome in that space.”
When it comes to the next generation of designers, Amélie thinks the ability to be your true self is crucial, as is acknowledging your culture and heritage in your work.
“I wanna be able to see young black designers coming from the Caribbean, coming from Africa, coming from America, change the design principles that are rooted in eurocentricity. Make our own design principles that are rooted in our culture, our history, our values.”
Maurice Cherry
Maurice Cherry is a designer, podcaster and writer from Atlanta, GA. He is the founder and host of the award winning podcast, Revision Path. For more than a decade, Maurice Cherry has been using his platform to bring attention to the lack of black graphic designers in the design world and to create a space to recognize and celebrate them. To date, Revision Path has interviewed over 300 designers and developers from all around the world, while other projects by Cherry such as The Black Weblog Awards, 28 Days of The Web and the anthology RECOGNIZE. The community and discussions that Revision Path has fostered were groundbreaking for the history of the internet and the documentation of black culture, so much so that episodes were acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for their permanent archives.
As part of a presentation for SXSW, Maurice Cherry’s talk ‘Where Are The Black Graphic Designers’ shows about how deeply rooted exclusivity within the design industry has left black designers out of the historical narrative. He also touches on how these systems are still presented in today’s design industry regardless of the longstanding promise of ‘diversity and inclusion’.
Maurice’s contributions to black culture and the design industry have been recognized by AIGA and earned him the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary in 2018, as well as GDUSA’s “People to Watch” in the same year. Maurice was also included on The Root’s list of the 100 most influential African-Americans ages 25 to 45, where he ranked #60.
Jerome Harris
Jerome Harris is a Connecticut born designer, writer, educator, and curator based in NYC. He earned a BA in Communications from Temple University and an MFA from Yale University in Graphic Design. His work focuses on black culture within design, most notably in its’ exclusion from the history of design education. Harris, currently the design director at Housing Works, has conducted extensive research into the early beginnings of black culture as documented through graphic design, such as “The Visual Language of Hip Hop” during the 70’s.
Channeling his research into a finished piece, Jerome created a museum exhibition titled “As, Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes” which showcased historical work created by African American graphic designers throughout the last century. The exhibition received national acclaim and after its debut at MICA, traveled to Rhode Island, Seattle and more. Harris’ work and research has been pivotal to the understanding of graphic design in black culture, and how hip hop and design culminated a unique art form — without Eurocentric design influences such as Bauhaus or Dadaism. The art was about the music, and the music was about the art.
Kristy Tillman
Kristy Tillman is a force to be reckoned with in the design community. As the current Head of Global Experience Design at Slack, she is responsible for translating the company’s culture and vision across several global teams. For years, Kristy’s work has focused on creating human experiences and making life a little easier for others. With degrees from Florida A&M in BA Business Management and a Masters in Applied Social Science, Kristy’s work helps to bridge the widening gap between humanity and technology.
As a former IDEO designer, Kristy is most interested in changing and enhancing the way we communicate and work online. Her passion for financial literacy led her to becoming the Design Director at Society of Grownups, where she led teams toward designing for a more financially literate future.
In 2016, Kristy gave a talk at 99U on the importance of inviting yourself to the table. She recounted how as a black woman, the only way she was able to achieve her goals and successes was inviting herself to the tables — metaphorically and literally — she was not expected to be seated. Together with Tiffani Bell, they created the Detroit Water Project (now known as The Human Utility), which helped people in underserved communities pay their water bills. The project went on to become an established 501(c)3 nonprofit, and to date still helps citizens of Detroit and Maryland pay their water bills.
One of the best pieces of advice one could take away from Kristy is this
“Making spaces at the table is an important function in a healthy, creative ecosystem, and you are needed at the table to expand the conversation on what is possible.”
Kim Goulbourne
Kim Goulbourne is an award winning Jamaican designer and full stack developer. Kim has made her impact at several agencies such as thoughtbot, RGA, Wondersauce and Ogilvy before launching her own design consultancy, Bourn. Under her studio, she works with both startups and veteran businesses to rethink their digital presence.
Over the last couple years, Kim has worked on several side projects including “You & Sundry’’, the first of its kind social parlor for LGBTQ+ folks. Before this, she ran the event pop-up “Scissors and Clippers” which celebrated womxn barbers and those rocking short haircuts. In a Medium post, Kim writes about her experience as a queer, black, immigrant woman trying to raise capital in a world that primarily values ideas from people who don’t look like her or for projects that focus on minority communities.
“As minorities, we are sometimes driven to solve issues within our own communities and our own reach first — which can seem small initially. While our ideas have significant impact, they don’t hold the same value to those on the outside looking in.”
While identifying the problems and reasons that might cause her idea to fail, Kim also recognizes that these same reasons would propel her to win in the first place. Even though You & Sundry didn’t meet it’s first fundraising goal, there’s still a community of people out there who believed in her and her ideas and together raised $40K to bring her that much closer to making it happen.
Jonathon Key
Jonathon Key is an art director, designer, and partner of Morcos Key, a Brooklyn based design studio. Born and raised in Alabama, Jon received his BFA in Design from RISD. A rising star in the design scene, Jon Key has worked with several notable clients and institutions within the nonprofit and performing arts spaces. Additionally, he is a the contributing art director for Tenth Magazine — a black and queer literary arts publication. His work aims to investigate the nuances of being a black and queer person, and how these narratives are expressed through design.
As part of AIGA’s Fresh Dialogue series, Jon Key gave a talk titled “Designing to Amplify”, where he discussed how design can be used to bring marginalized voices to the forefront and how the designer plays an important role in clearing space for those narratives to shine. He also gave a similar talk at the Typographics conference in 2017 where he explained his work and process of uncovering black culture in design.
Jon also works as an artist, where he infuses his identity into his work and uses it as a medium to explore his southerness, blackness, family and queerness. He is the co-founder and design director of Codify Art, a QTPOC collective of artists based in Brooklyn with the goal of reclaiming space for QTPOC artists.
Silas Munro
Silas Munro is an LA based designer and the founder of poly-mode. His studio focuses on using design to improve and impact societies and inspire people to better themselves. His self initiated projects are supported through a series of grants and residencies, and he works with collaborators such as the Baltimore Museum of Art, CUP (Center for Urban Pedagogy), Mark Bradford and other notable institutions.
Silas is also an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Otis College of Art and Design and MFA Advisor at the Vermont College of Art and Design. His writing focuses on the post-colonial relationships between design and minority communities and has been featured in “W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America”.
Community Shout Out: Blacks Who Design
Blacks Who Design highlights all of the inspiring Black designers in the industry. The goal is to inspire new designers, encourage people to diversify their feeds, and discover amazing individuals to join your team.
Blacks Who Design was founded by Tolu Olubode, Hasque, Yannick Zanfack, Nathalyn Nunoo and Wes O’Haire with support from Dropbox Design.
The idea of creating a design industry that incorporates all is not radical — but requires us to think more critically about the voices we’re giving the most volume to and creating inclusive spaces for minorities.
While this is just a short list of contributors pushing black voices to the front of design, it’s important to acknowledge that every black designer is worth lifting up. We’ve finally arrived at the place where we’ve acknowledged bias against minority communities, and it’s up to us to fix it.
