When I started RECOGNIZE in 2019, my goal was to showcase the next generation of design writers — indigenous people and people of color. With financial and editorial support from InVision, we were able to publish our first volume, Space, and help six designers get their work out in the world to a larger platform.

The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent restrictions on nearly every facet of life affected the second volume of RECOGNIZE, Fresh. We lost funding and volunteer support, and then I lost my job, but even with these setbacks we released a smaller volume later in the year, which also got some additional syndication through A List Apart. 

2021 was going to be a year of starting over for many people, and I thought this year’s theme, Reboot, would be fitting. We had the longest submission period for essays to date (three months), and received a lot of early support and encouragement from educators and companies alike. However, this did not translate into submissions for this year’s volume in terms of quantity and quality, and a big potential title funder for this year backed out, so I’m making the very difficult decision to close the book on RECOGNIZE for this year.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted for this year’s volume. While your essay may not have a home in this year’s volume, I highly encourage you to publish your work anyway! Whatever spark compelled you to write and submit for RECOGNIZE is not a spark that should die down because of this news. Continue to fan that flame and let your writing be an extension of your design talent.

RECOGNIZE may come back in the future, but for 2021, we’re shutting it down. Once again, thanks to everyone for your support of the design anthology.

• Concept – the designer’s basic idea and raison d’etre. The concept should be unique to each designer, yet open to interpretation by interested parties (collaborators, colleagues, students, clients, etc.); this informs the evolution and finalization of the concept.
  
  
• Method – the designer’s journey to executing the finalized concept. The method is a series of steps taken toward this end. Steps vary depending on the designer’s skills, tools, and level of mastery, which dictates the sequence of steps.
  
  
• Project – the designer’s complete manifestation of the concept. The project is the culmination of conceptual maturation and methodical success. This is the pure realization of the designer’s vision within a creative structure void of corruptive and potentially destructive elements.

The straight line between each point represents the creative phase from one to the other. By linking these points, we create an integrative process through which diasporic designers can formulate and manifest their respective visions.

S-aT is a purist alternative to culturally incriminating design propaganda. Its points deepen S-aT’s existential dimensionality and capacity to elevate the human condition. Should diasporic designers adopt the triangular, straight-ahead approach, I truly believe that we can expand upon our future horizons with full, aesthetic clarity.

Since March 2020, most of us have been working from home, and the days blend into each other and look the same. This is not the first time I have experienced this type of feeling. 

My commute — New York to New Jersey — is what folks in my area call the reverse commute.While going to the office, my days began to look the same: riding the subway to a bus to a shuttle to get to my job. Have you ever arrived at a destination and not even realized how you got there? This is how I began to experience the world everyday. I stopped paying attention to my surroundings.

Because I worked a lot, the only time I would take off was for the holidays. During this time, I was a consultant and was coming to the end of an existing contract. For six years straight, I did this, until I decided to take six weeks off work to travel to Europe and visit places I had not seen before.

A family friend let me stay with her in Munich, Germany; I did not speak German, and so began my adventure. I was in a new place, where I did not know anyone, and I got lost every single day. My eyes were opened to the fact that every day is an opportunity. It just took me going on a trip and traveling halfway around the world to realize it. There are new things to experience each and every day.

When I returned to the U.S. and went back to work, I made a conscious decision to make each day different. Sometimes I would walk a new route. Some days I would take another train. Each change meant I saw something new: new clothing, new buildings, and new faces. It really impacted the way I viewed myself in the world.

But what do you do when you cannot travel? Seeing a situation with new eyes takes practice, and you can still create the opportunity to see something by not taking your surroundings for granted.

How do we do this? For me, I adopted a new philosophy of being WOQE: watching, observing, questioning, and exploring.

Watching

Let go of assumptions to open up your mind. This takes looking at yourself and understanding your beliefs.

When I am looking to design something, I always have to tell myself that I am not the user. I don’t know where they come from, and I don’t know their reason for making the decisions they do. I begin the work to understand where they are coming from. It all starts with why.

Observing

View the situation from different angles. Architects think about the details of a building and look at different viewpoints and perspectives (i.e., outside the building, different sides of the building, etc.)

How can you apply this approach to your designs? Here’s an example. I sketched something once as part of an augmented reality experience. Using my mobile device, I was able to walk around the sketch and see it from all sides, including the top and bottom. As a UX Designer, I have had to view items from both a user’s perspective and the business’ perspective. If I am giving a talk at a conference, I look at the talk from an audience perspective and my own.

Questioning

Use the “5 Why Technique” to get to the root of the problem. This involves asking “why” 5 times.

You know how kids keep asking “why” when you answer a question from them? This approach is how you can get to the root of problems. For example, a friend of mine who is blind expressed interest in playing a popular augmented reality game. This intrigued me and I used a whiteboard as I worked through the 5 Whys with my friend. Here is the process we took:

“Why can’t someone who is blind play Pokémon Go?” I asked.

“Because the game is visual and requires someone to see what is on the screen.”

“Why is the game only a visual perspective?”

“Because this is the way it was designed.”

“Why was it designed this way?”

“Because frequently designers are creating for themselves and may not think about who they might be excluding.”

“Why are designers excluding people?”

“Because they were never taught to include them.”

“Why were they never taught?”

“Design programs often do not include an inclusive and accessible curriculum.”

This may not be a scientific way of approaching a problem, but it is a starting point. My friend could not play this augmented reality game because designers were not taught to make this game for someone who is blind. After this exercise, I was able to work with a group of students who worked with my friend to create an augmented reality concept and ultimately a game using audio and haptic feedback.

It all started with why.

Exploring

Collaborate with others to learn from others and teach others what you know. Let your friends and colleagues know what you are working on, and perhaps talk it through with them.

When I was a freelance designer, I worked on my own and found it challenging when I would get stuck on a design. I searched online and found a group of designers who would come and share their work with each other for feedback. Through this group, I was able to get some insightful comments on my designs and explain some of my decisions. I began to collaborate with the folks in the group and found it very helpful. When talking to clients, this made me feel more confident explaining my designs because I had already been through the process with my online group.

With all of our days blending into each other in this pandemic, we as designers have an unprecedented opportunity to really shake things up. Furthermore, we are problem solvers. As you move forward with your design practice, consider being WOQE to design with a fresh mind.

2020 has definitely been a year for the history books. From climate disasters to worldwide protests for social change to the U.S. presidential race, we have experienced events this year unlike any in modern history. (And yes, that includes the coronavirus.)

We started out 2020 with a lot of plans for RECOGNIZE, but once COVID-19 became a reality, we had to unexpectedly change course after a series of issues threatened whether or not we could even publish a second volume. For starters, we did not get as many submissions this year because our deadline overlapped with the beginning of lockdown procedures in many states. Some authors asked for their submissions to be pulled completely from the anthology for various pandemic-related reasons. We lost funding for this year, and then I lost my job (which meant losing backup funding — my paycheck.) In many ways, we had to start from square one for this volume — pretty ironic, considering this year’s theme for the anthology is “fresh”.

After a three-month planning period and reworking a few deadlines, we managed to keep RECOGNIZE going and come through with this year for you, the design community. In this year’s volume, you’ll learn about a straight-ahead method to design inspired by the sounds of jazz. You’ll read about how an unexpected trip to Europe created a new way of approaching problems and solving them through design. (I also started writing an essay on design recruiting, but didn’t have the time to finish it before today. Blame it on my head, not my heart.) All essays this year, like the year before, are accompanied by the brilliant art of illustrator Robert Liu-Trujillo.

If 2020 has shown us anything, it’s this: many of the systems and practices we took for granted can be easily manipulated, hacked, or dismantled. How will designers use their skills to contribute to this change and bring about something new? I hope this year’s essays provide you with some food for thought towards realizing that we have the unique power to create the reality that we desire.

According to my mother, my four-year-old self asked her this question one day after coming home from nursery school. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was already beginning to navigate the complexities of cultural and ethnic identity in America, existing as both insider and outsider, moving in and out of black and white worlds.

Decades later, as both a designer and an educator, I continually find myself asking the same question. I may or may not choose to speak my sentiments aloud in a given moment, but those words—or some variation of them—hover on the tip of my tongue: “Why am I the only brown/black one?”

Forming my identities

Like many other designers in the United States, my identity as a creative professional has been primarily shaped by the Swiss Style/International Typographic Style tradition. As a result of the Bauhaus’ broad influence on design curriculum in the US—the model of “abstraction and experimentation” for learning universal design principles became the standard for design curriculum (McCoy, 5–7)—I know that what I absorbed and subsequently embodied in my work ties me to an entire community of designers across the design universe. And my aesthetic preferences are indelibly linked to a Swiss Style tradition.

As much as I appreciate the myriad ways in which my design education has served me, however, pursuing a career in the field has been a strange and lonely odyssey. The phenomenon of simultaneously feeling like an insider and outsider among the circles/worlds I inhabit has stayed with me.

Despite everything I have gained through formal education and professional connections, I am aware of how much I have to discover about the history, stories, and work of non-European designers whose contributions have been systematically eclipsed in favor of the European greats.

A few decades before Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus, for example, noted sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and author W.E.B. Du Bois was developing “Hand-drawn Infographics of African-American Life” (Miller). I learned about this only a few years into my tenure-track teaching position in higher education.

To be a Black designer who knows relatively little about the work of other Black designers is an embarrassing admission, but it also reflects the limitations I encountered: a path to design punctuated by frustration. I experience an ongoing need to understand my experience, as well as the experiences of other designers of color.

During graduate school, my independent pursuit of learning, understanding, and discovering how and where African Americans fit into the history of design and advertising led me to a distressingly eye-opening examination of negative Black lack caricatures. Throughout the research process, I found myself posting favorite photographs of my Black relatives in my graduate studio space to combat the ugliness of grotesque imagery I was confronting daily.

A photo of the author’s mother and father that hangs in her workspace.

However, no matter how much they upset me, I could not bring myself to look away from the dehumanizing images. They reminded me of the importance of the profession I had committed myself to: though negative caricatures and stereotypes do not define the profession as a whole or invalidate all of the good that design is and does, they remain a testament to the ways in which a full, inclusive design history has yet to become the new standard for design education.

I was fortunate to be part of a graduate program that wholeheartedly supported me, but there were still many moments when being “the only brown one” yet again created a sense of detachment. Part, and also apart. Insider, outsider.

When I finally came across the late Sylvia Harris’ seminal 1998 essay, Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design, I felt as though I was being seen for the first time. She spoke to my experience when she wrote,

“Black designers are working at a disadvantage when they do not feel a kinship with existing design traditions and also have no evidence of an alternative African or African-American design tradition upon which to base their work.”

Yes, indeed.

What I need from design culture

From a technological standpoint, design is accessible to a wide audience. The democratization of our field through advancements in technology and a profusion of online communities and resources has made it easier than ever for the average person to learn the tools of the trade. And yet, participating in the design community is much less accessible.

Whereas technology can fill in knowledge gaps and connect people with similar interests, it cannot make design spaces inclusive or demand more diverse representation in our ranks. A predominantly white profession since its inception, design continues to exist as a space in which European influence remains the primary standard by which “good” design is measured.

I see distinct parallels between my transformation into a graphic designer and my cultural, racial, and religious identity formation. In both cases, time, education, and experience led to greater perspective, insight, and understanding. However, the foundation of my identity is based on full awareness of my family history and its diversity.

In consideration of both my Swiss Mennonite ancestors who fled to America to escape religious persecution and my African ancestors who were enslaved and brought to America in chains, I have always viewed my background with a sense of rootedness and pride. My ancestry and family relationships have shaped me, helping to temper the reality of prejudice and intolerance.

Similarly, design, for me, is a mix of all the best and worst parts of my collective experiences. The frustrations are offset by the opportunities to continue my education and the daily victories that come with seeing students thrive. I hope that as they make their way through these same educational and professional spaces, they will see themselves as the embodiment of a more diverse and culturally relevant community.

I used to think that I became a design educator in spite of my complicated relationship with design. In hindsight, however, it may be more accurate to say that I moved into education precisely because of the challenges I faced.

I was not naturally inclined to get into teaching, but being in the classroom led me to think more deeply about my experience/perspectives about space and identity within a larger design context.

I had easily defaulted to my views and my stories. Over time, however, seeing relatively few students of color in my classes presented some obvious and difficult truths. 

Ongoing frustrations and grievances aside, I have come to see how at home I am within the space of design and design culture. The same cannot necessarily be said for students who do not have the same reference points, experiences, or connections to European influences/culture/heritage. Again, Harris captures this sentiment so well:

[The Black students] often exhibit insecurities that negatively affect their performance. In fact, they experience a problem common to many Black design professionals: the feeling that they are not completely welcome in the profession” (269).

As evidenced by the Design Census Surveys conducted in 2017 and 2019, we know that the field has become more diverse in the 20+ years since Harris’ essay was published—and still, these systemic issues persist.

According to AIGA’s 2019 Design Census, 71% of American designers are white.

One might even describe the problem as a chicken and egg scenario, in which a profession that has had little diversity struggles to attract students of color precisely because of the lack of diverse representation. Moreover, whether openly acknowledged or not, students of color who chose to study design are expected to adopt a culture and history that may be removed from who they are and what they know.

Yes, education is primarily about acquiring new knowledge and moving outside of one’s comfort zone; however, without the counterbalance of also emphasizing the important contributions of designers of color, students receive the message that the design world is not a culturally-inclusive place.

Creating the future of an inclusive design culture

Just as my focus on diversity and design has broadened beyond my personal experiences to encompass the experiences of my students, I have spent more time thinking about what I owe them and what they can, or should, expect from me.

Is my role to provide them with the same Swiss Style bonafides that I received, or to push back against the prevailing European-based design cannon? Or, more importantly, how do I help create space for students who may generally feel like outsiders?

The majority of my teaching experience—over a decade now—has mostly been working with white students who come from middle- to upper-class families. I took it for granted that these students already had many of the soft skills and connections, in addition to access to a good education, to them get to wherever they needed or wanted to go. They constantly saw themselves, their history, their culture, their heritage represented in the design world. All of the signals they received served as an affirmation of their chosen career paths.

Now, I teach at an urban institution with a more diverse range of students—from socio-economic status to age, gender identity, and racial/ethnic background—within a diverse city. It is subsequently much easier to see how a traditional, European-based design curriculum, to say nothing of the design stars that the industry lifts, doesn’t necessarily include or represent them.

My design education, as well as ethnic and racial backgrounds (including European/Mennonite roots) and having grown up in a primarily white town, made it easy for me to appreciate and see the value of the Swiss Style. At the same time, I had to take the initiative to try and learn about the Black design world, of which I was completely ignorant.

Finding a sense of community and purpose is difficult when you don’t know where you came from; knowing who you’re connected to shapes your identity. Harris addresses this dilemma as well, noting that educators (and historians) must “teach in a way that addresses the unique cultural experience of all our students” (270).

Pushing a diverse and inclusive educational agenda is not simply about making students of color feel valued. Design students across the board must take some ownership, learning to see the diversity that exists within our profession as part of their design identity, part of their design history, and part of their design culture. It is up to us as educators to lead the charge, raising up the work of designers from traditionally marginalized or underrepresented communities to shape a design history and culture that is relevant for the 21st century and beyond.

Bibliography

• Harris, Sylvia. “Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design.” The Education of a Graphic Designer, edited by Steven Heller, pgs. 269–273. 2nd ed. New York: Allworth Press, 2005.
• McCoy, Katherine. “Education in an Adolescent Profession.” The Education of a Graphic Designer, edited by Steven Heller, pgs. 3–12. 2nd ed. New York: Allworth Press, 2005.
• Miller, Meg. “W.E.B. Du Bois Was A Master Of The Hand-Drawn Infographic.” Co.Design, February 9, 2017. www.fastcompany.com/3068020/web-dubois-was-a-master-of-the-hand-drawn-infographic