Book Release: The Black Experience in Design
There has never been a time when Black designers were not shaping, creating, packaging, distributing, and celebrating through, with, and by design. Black designers from across the diaspora have been integral to the development of our professions and practices, contributing to the design of typography and posters, chairs and wearables, modes of transport and methods of care, financial services and speculative futures.
The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection presents the work of six editors and over 70 designers, artists, curators, educators, students, and researchers who represent a wide cross-section of Black diasporic identities and multi-disciplinary practices. Forewords by Emory Douglas and Ruha Benjamin frame the book in an historical and socio-political context, and an Afterword by Eddie Opara offers an intimate, spiritual coda. Writers spotlight teaching practices, offer critiques of design methods, and shed light on Black interventions in speculative futuring, sustainable design methods, healing practices, activisms, and designing for Black Joy. They write about multi-community design, biophilia as a Black reparative practice, the history of African fractals, and the intersections of race, gender, ability, and sexuality as it informs their teaching, scholarship and professional work.
Editorial team: Anne H. Berry (Managing Editor), Kelly Walters MFA 15 GD (Creative Director), Jennifer Rittner (Development Editor), Lesley-Ann Noel, Penina Laker, and Kareem Collie. With book design by Renald Louissaint and copyediting by Jamie McGhee. We encourage you all to get the book!
Book Contributors: Steve Jones MFA 98 GD, Jon Key 13 GD, Folayemi Wilson MFA 05 FD
