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The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection
The Black Experience in Design spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.
Excluded from traditional design history and educational canons that heavily favor European modernist influences, the work and experiences of Black designers have been systematically overlooked in the profession for decades. However, given the national focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, educators, practitioners, and students now have the opportunity—as well as the social and political momentum—to make long-term, systemic changes in design education, research, and practice, reclaiming the contributions of Black designers in the process.
The Black Experience in Design , an anthology centering a range of perspectives, spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens. Through the voices represented, this text exemplifies the inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of design, providing access to ideas and topics for a variety of audiences, meeting people as they are and wherever they are in their knowledge about design. Ultimately, The Black Experience in Design serves as both inspiration and a catalyst for the next generation of creative minds tasked with imagining, shaping, and designing our future.
Excluded from traditional design history and educational canons that heavily favor European modernist influences, the work and experiences of Black designers have been systematically overlooked in the profession for decades. However, given the national focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, educators, practitioners, and students now have the opportunity—as well as the social and political momentum—to make long-term, systemic changes in design education, research, and practice, reclaiming the contributions of Black designers in the process.
The Black Experience in Design , an anthology centering a range of perspectives, spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens. Through the voices represented, this text exemplifies the inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of design, providing access to ideas and topics for a variety of audiences, meeting people as they are and wherever they are in their knowledge about design. Ultimately, The Black Experience in Design serves as both inspiration and a catalyst for the next generation of creative minds tasked with imagining, shaping, and designing our future.
780 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 1, 2022
120 people are currently reading
1217 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 25, 2023
TL;DR: A necessary read. The un-textbook I wish I’d had as a Black undergraduate student studying (Swiss) design. Relatable as much as it challenges and questions.
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I will start with the only notable downside I could find: the images were black/white and poorly scanned. Not sure if it was a budget issue, but the book is so beautifully designed that this shortcoming is pretty glaring. In some cases, the text even referenced a work’s color, so it was very frustrating not to see those, most especially, rendered in full color.
Colorlessness aside, The Black Experience in Design must be readily available in art/design schools and libraries. Though thick, the book is a well-edited, well-organized and well-curated collection of bite-sized essays, representing a wide range of thought and approach from Black artists/designers (yes, there is a whole section dedicated to art/design interplay). The range is not to be understated: the breadth of thought — including some more radical challengers: Dantley Davis, Terrence Moline and, most of all, Nii Kommey Botchway, who rejects the premise of the book altogether — is a reminder that “Black people are not a monolith.” Too, the breadth suggests the range and depth that Black artists/designers have to offer to more interesting futures, to thought and practice. Perhaps this is where Botchway’s point takes hold: there is no singular “The” of any Black experience, and yet, the editors, in spite of the title, seemed to be keenly aware of this.
While it is possible to get a little weary in that many of the essayists and interviewees do share similar points of view, variation in their approach is high enough that each essay offers insight into a very particular way of looking. For example, the structural difference between Moline’s community and Malene Barnett’s community. Or the medium difference between Barnett’s community and Maurice Cherry’s community.
The Black Experience in Design is an important site of inquiry: For all of our strategizing around the pre-college to college art class pipeline, who is thinking about the designer who comes to the field by way of language (Schessa Garbutt)? The curator who comes by way of space / environment (Michelle Joan Washington)? When it comes to legacy, who is asking what will be passed down (Adah Parris)? Who is asking about the overlooked and undervalued spiritual component of design, which, perhaps, requires little to no structure or methodology at all (Botchway)? Much like Toni Morrison asked of literature in Playing in the Dark, who is wondering about how to get at the truth of things beyond all of the -isms? About the crippling “rationality” of artists and the “respectability” of designers (Rick Griffith)?
As a graduate student in design, I also found that some of the essays helped me to better access more difficult academic texts and projects. David Pilgrim’s “At the Jim Crow Museum We Use Racist Objects to Engage Hearts & Heads in Social Justice,” for example, helped me to unlock John Dewey’s Art as Experience, in which Dewey talks a lot about the relationship between man and object. Essays from June A. Grant and Michele Y. Washington, as well as the entire Afrofuturist section, help to connect the dots between space and storytelling, as one might do in AR/VR.
This text is one that will stay with me, and which I hope to consult regularly in my personal and professional studies. Nevermind the title at all, really. The Black Experience in Design is an important reference material for all creatives.
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“I am about three years old and looking intently at a design imprinted on the walls of the house I grew up in, in Guyana, South America. The design is beautiful — glimmering greenish-gold hues against an eggshell matte surface, the outlines of a fleur-de-lis pattern catching the light flooding onto our floors and walls. I think, This wall is magical, chameleon-like. I move by body side to side, to see where it glimmers and when it turns static. Of course, if I am three, this is not my vocabulary. But it is my sentiment — wonder. I am a small girl encountering a large wall, but it is my wall and canvas. My space.”
— Michelle Joan Wilkinson, “Curating My Way Into Design: A Work in Progress”
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I will start with the only notable downside I could find: the images were black/white and poorly scanned. Not sure if it was a budget issue, but the book is so beautifully designed that this shortcoming is pretty glaring. In some cases, the text even referenced a work’s color, so it was very frustrating not to see those, most especially, rendered in full color.
Colorlessness aside, The Black Experience in Design must be readily available in art/design schools and libraries. Though thick, the book is a well-edited, well-organized and well-curated collection of bite-sized essays, representing a wide range of thought and approach from Black artists/designers (yes, there is a whole section dedicated to art/design interplay). The range is not to be understated: the breadth of thought — including some more radical challengers: Dantley Davis, Terrence Moline and, most of all, Nii Kommey Botchway, who rejects the premise of the book altogether — is a reminder that “Black people are not a monolith.” Too, the breadth suggests the range and depth that Black artists/designers have to offer to more interesting futures, to thought and practice. Perhaps this is where Botchway’s point takes hold: there is no singular “The” of any Black experience, and yet, the editors, in spite of the title, seemed to be keenly aware of this.
While it is possible to get a little weary in that many of the essayists and interviewees do share similar points of view, variation in their approach is high enough that each essay offers insight into a very particular way of looking. For example, the structural difference between Moline’s community and Malene Barnett’s community. Or the medium difference between Barnett’s community and Maurice Cherry’s community.
The Black Experience in Design is an important site of inquiry: For all of our strategizing around the pre-college to college art class pipeline, who is thinking about the designer who comes to the field by way of language (Schessa Garbutt)? The curator who comes by way of space / environment (Michelle Joan Washington)? When it comes to legacy, who is asking what will be passed down (Adah Parris)? Who is asking about the overlooked and undervalued spiritual component of design, which, perhaps, requires little to no structure or methodology at all (Botchway)? Much like Toni Morrison asked of literature in Playing in the Dark, who is wondering about how to get at the truth of things beyond all of the -isms? About the crippling “rationality” of artists and the “respectability” of designers (Rick Griffith)?
As a graduate student in design, I also found that some of the essays helped me to better access more difficult academic texts and projects. David Pilgrim’s “At the Jim Crow Museum We Use Racist Objects to Engage Hearts & Heads in Social Justice,” for example, helped me to unlock John Dewey’s Art as Experience, in which Dewey talks a lot about the relationship between man and object. Essays from June A. Grant and Michele Y. Washington, as well as the entire Afrofuturist section, help to connect the dots between space and storytelling, as one might do in AR/VR.
This text is one that will stay with me, and which I hope to consult regularly in my personal and professional studies. Nevermind the title at all, really. The Black Experience in Design is an important reference material for all creatives.
December 24, 2024
Incredibly ambitious and well-executed. Hard to distill this in a few words, but easily one of the most transformative pieces of media I’ve ever engaged with, and one of my favorites
June 8, 2022
This is a must-read for any designer. There is so much knowledge packed into this book that spans so many topics, and provides so much insight and thought into the ways in which centering the Black Experience can create transformative change in design.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews