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THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN DESIGN X DID
Harnessing the power of the DID Collaborative often means working together to achieve goals, but it is equally as important to highlight individual DID member successes. DID Founding Advisor Lesley-Ann Noel Ph.D. is one of six editors of a collection of insights from over 70 designers and creatives, a new book entitled The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, & Reflection.
Lesley-Ann Noel worked with around 15 contributors, five in each of the three chapters she coordinated: Chapter 3 “Design Scholarship”, Chapter 5 “Afrofuturism in Design”, and Chapter 8 “Collective, Radical & Liberatory Spaces in Design”.
"The thread that runs through these pieces is that Black designers must boldly create these spaces for themselves. These spaces need to be visionary, liberatory, and emancipatory communities for Black designers who are being ignored by the design industry." - Lesley-Ann Noel, Chapter 8, pg. 505
We're also proud to highlight the work of participating DID members with chapters in the book including Eddie Opara (Pentagram) and Yocasta Lachapelle (COLLINS). Learnings from Yocasta's chapter, in particular, have been informally shared ahead of publication to guide the work of DID committees focused on pathways between higher education and the design workforce. DID also touches this work through a chapter by DID brand/mark designer/Founding Advisor Forest Young, who speaks of it in this recent Fast Company article.
"Too many companies still uphold a scarcity argument relative to talent acquisition. Earnest actions must extend beyond incrementalism and the tallying of mere percentages. A goal is to pursue a new normal, one in which a single, colorless beam becomes prismatic. And for that, a new mechanism altogether is needed." - Forest Young in Fast Company