As a graphic designer, you know that your work has the potential to touch the lives of an enormously diverse population. Being an able-bodied, cis-gender, white graphic designer, I wanted to learn how systemic racism is embodied in the world of graphic design. In my research, I found two articles detailing the predominance of Eurocentric design and the experiences of BIPOC designers.
In his article 10 New Rules of Design for Fast Company, Mark Wilson suggests that past and current design aesthetics are constructs derived from 10 Principles of Good Design created by Deiter Rams. The aesthetics themselves are built on principles from the famous Bauhaus School in Germany. In addition to these Eurocentrically based design standards, Wilson notes that design companies disparately staffed with only 3% of designers being Black. In order to change these trends, Wilson laid out 10 suggestions centered around hiring and promoting people of color, creating work for communities rather than individuals, and exploring non-European design aesthetics.
Patrick White, in an interview entitled Elevating Design Voices written for the Association of Registered Graphic Designers, details his personal experiences as a Black designer working in Canada. White’s experiences in the workplace, and during his training, mirror the employment percentage offered by Wilson’s article; he was the only Black person working in those roles. Additionally, White explains that his education was monochromatic, only featuring the work of white artists and designers. His suggestions for changing the trajectory of systemic racism in design center around celebrating multiculturalism, increased hiring of BIPOC, and strict enforcement of antiracist policies.
Based on these articles, what can you as an individual design do? My three basic recommendations that everyone can do today:
- Promote – Visibility is important, so promote the work of marginalized designers!
- Learn – It is not the job of our marginalized friends to educate us – the info is out there, go find it!
- Collaborate – Work together to create a community where we can support and learn from each other!
It is up to us as a design community to initiate these changes – no one is going to do this for us – and NOW is the time to start. These are base level activities that we can all do right now but we must, as a community, continue to create and design novel solutions to this persistent problem.
Lick Frog Design 