The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection

Again, an intersectional lens in this context does not require that Black or POC designers reject European modernism in whole or in part. It is not an anti-Bauhaus, anti–Swiss Grid, or anti-minimalist stance.

There is no single Black perspective. Nor is “The Black Experience” a concept that can be easily captured, branded, and packaged with a beautiful design bow. The essence of Blackness is simultaneously complex, deeply rooted, deeply felt, and above all else, human.

Too often, cosmetic representation—digital Blackface—stands in for substantive change to the real conditions of people’s lives. So, how do we move toward the latter?

The imperative, as I see it, is to not only approach design from the perspectives of those who are routinely written out of Humanity—those who are typecast or get no speaking parts—but to draw on their insights, imagination, and expertise from the very beginning.5

Innovation, after all, breeds inequity, not inevitably, but predictably.