Where Are The Black Designers

0:09 such a warm London oh my God go to campy more often I know right.

0:17 Anyways so my name is Mitzi and I am a visual and interaction designer and some fun facts about me currently I have this obsession with low budget Nollywood films because of how chaotic the women are and I love and collect super cheesy dad jokes because they literally make me laugh until I cry and I'm also the co-founder of the beautiful where the black designers Community hi everyone my name is Roshana we are so so excited to be here tonight presenting to you by day on the creative operations manager for future impose and Vlog together and by night I'm the marketing and creative Partnerships director for where the black design is and we are here today to talk to you about the journey the work and the future Legacy of where the black design is so if you remember 2020 was a time of shift and Awakening as the death of George Floyd was just felt throughout the world and across everything communities jobs politics classes and just so much more it was a moment that made the world stop and reflect as we had the time and energy to just finally pay attention and recognize the ongoing oppression that has and still happens in different black communities around the world but thing is this cycle of violence death and recognition that happens to the black community has been happening for quite some time and has almost become normalized so I like to show this diagram and I call it the cycle slash mimification of the death of a black person and usually it starts out with footage of an innocent black individual being murdered at the hands of police is surfaced around the summer time and companies peoples and organizations they release statements they show up to one or two protests and they kind of just like throw their money around really without any like accountability or like follow-up.

2:22 And then we see this like overwhelming spike in activity related to BLM and then arguments and positions they come up. And it kind of gets unhealthy to look at this all the time and you know breaks naturally they need to be taken but within those breaks normalcy kind of starts to creep back in and then activism and allyship and interactions with platforms related to just like BLM just kind of like start to decrease until there's little to like no activity in the fall. And we have been stuck in this Loop for years.

2:54 And I had just had about enough especially as a person whose superpower is design ERS have the power to change everything in the most creative ways through the most creative mediums and we design products and technology for a living that is supposed to enhance different people's lives yet it felt like to me that design was being used to gatekeep and perpetuate violence against black and Indigenous people. And so when the death of George Floyd happened as you can imagine we were in that part of the loop where companies people and organizations were releasing statements showing up to one or two protests and just kind of like throwing their money around in different places without any follow-up or accountability and they were just doing them through these awful wretched black squares and so many of these squares exist on so many people's pages and they just kind of like serve as this like reminder that some people's actions were just like all talk and like no follow-through and I remember when design companies started posting these black squares on their Instagram page I used my personal Instagram to comment under their squares and asked questions like what were they doing as a tech company or a design agency to solve and contribute to Breaking this chain of violence or why did their demographics show that they were not hiring black folks and I would get responses like oh you know we've just been taking such a long time we really haven't found like resources that connect us to like Black Talent we did start a project that you know helped the school to prison pipeline all these just like responses right and after reading these responses I went and I watched the original where the black designers presentation by Maurice cherry and just decided to publicly ask this question. And so I called my friend from college who was a great Ally he was super supportive of me in and at my school at Savannah College of Art and Design and I was like hey I had this idea of doing a small community discussion are you down and he's like yeah I'm free I'm totally down to do it. And so we decided to do a protest of our own and ask our Social Circle to design a poster for our event and we would just post a different artwork now with the intention of attracting a very very few number of posters and just have a small community discussion we ended up going from getting like a couple of posters from random people within our Social Circle to receiving hundreds upon hundreds of posters and in tandem as people's posters were becoming more visible to others the attendees were like increasing from like a regular size Zoom room of a hundred people to like 15 000 people and Garrett and I we would like virtually meet and we were like looking at each other like crazy because we couldn't afford a zoom room past 100 people.

6:00 But that timing was so great because people across the industry came out of the Woodworks to donate time and resources and energy to produce this event because I think we wanted an answer to this question and the event turned out to be just way more beautiful than we could ever imagine as we got to witness amazing raw exchanges between black designers and we got to see accountability finally being taken and it was a moment that really shined a light on the black design experience as well as connected the little solo islands that black people were on into one giant community and this held the tech space accountable and to knowing that.

6:44 There is a community with thousands upon thousands of black designers out there therefore answering the question where are the black designers and the thing that also made the conference so special was the slack that we pushed everyone into it was a special moment where people felt like they were in a space where they were watching and reacting all together and after the conference was over I kind of like assumed that you know people would just like leave the slack but everyone stayed and started organizing the community itself chaotically mind you.

7:20 But it was just such a beautiful thing to see people just take initiative to organically change the space from a chat to a virtual community and I noticed that.

7:30 There were like some people who were like more outgoing and organizing the community than the rest and so I chose those people to come on this journey with me to be on the official where the black designers team and because of them our community has increased from about 1.5 000 people to 10 000 plus people with almost 70 percent of our community being amazing black creators and 30 being amazing thoughtful allies and as a small team of black and Allied professionals with our skills and passion we have been able to just execute and accomplish so much and with time and patience and hard work we establish ourselves as a non-profit that exists to heal support and amplify black creators we also make space for them through education events and collaborations and we also encourage dialogue that helps to decolonize design through talks like our conferences now although where the black designers has primarily focused on democratizing the design community in the U.S we've always had an international footprint and over the last few years that footprint has truly grown with our community now extending across the diaspora in Europe and Africa and other parts of the world now over the last few years we've been supported by Brands agencies and platforms that are also invested in diversifying design we've worked with giants like Google and Spotify design but also to with Indies such as queer design club and the design kids it's so vital that we build relationships with other organizations to truly make the change that everyone needs to see this isn't a problem solely for where the black designers this is a problem the entire industry needs to solve now I'm going to share some examples of outputs that we've produced that speaks to our mission.

9:28 So we've collaborated with fashion brands like Barney's in New York Urban Outfitters and bagu to Showcase back illustrators through digital and physical products we've also worked with working at working which is a curated platform that supports and matches creative Talent with companies together we work towards a virtual exhibition.

9:48 And introduce the concept of black and narrative that we developed to celebrate the expanse of breadth and resilient nature in the black creative experience we chose Community member and designer Leticia Auguste to oversee the art Direction and branding and shows web and Design Studio okay Jack to oversee the website build through months of planning and many many late night zooms the site eventually resulted in displaying work from almost 300 black designers and creators worldwide we even had a submission from then it was an emerging designer who was only 12 years old this is an especially emotional and pivotal moment for us and you can still view the website today.

10:30 And then for us Black History Month our technology director Terrell Griffith who's somewhere in the audience who's here from New York [Laughter]

10:39 produced an educational series that spotlighted black designers both past and present the response on social media was amazing and really exposed the Gap in knowledge of prolific black contributions within design history you can also discover more on our Instagram and then we've also partnered with creative Studio something to Showcase black creatives from our community and there's something spaces extension each time you opened a new tab you were met with an inspiring piece of work.

11:06 And then in the two months that it was live we were amazed to know that the views reached over 1 million.

11:12 And then a result of that visibility this created opportunities for our featured members and then off the back of that partnership we also were involved in something spaces partnership with JC Deco UK as the community Channel this event that you could discover work from our members on digital out of home screens all throughout the UK now as a black designer and a black creative we are often the only black designer or black creative in that room we've heard from this from almost all of our members regardless of location level or industry and because of this it's been one of our primary focuses to bring our Network together through community events our slack is very much the heart of the organization we will continue to Foster it but as Mitzi said earlier we never really set out to be a digital community and so over the last year we've made an especially conscious effort to take things back into the real world to Foster these micro communities and to bring everyone together we offer meetups talks and various design and wellness focused activities and to date we've hosted events in London New York Atlanta Portland and La amongst others now I'd like to talk a little bit about a live project and definitely one of our proudest moments so far this April we announced a long-term partnership with global Design Studio us too I also want to give a little shout out to the crew who are here from the London team and the audience led by the London New York offices we're working together to drive tangible change across the design industry we are planning 12 months of digital and in-person activity across all of their sites and we'll be sharing an impact report at the end of the year we chose where the black designers member illustrator designer and now literally of I think this week International author Tyrell waiters to oversee the branding and so to share this great news we launched not one but two launch parties held in London and New York on the same day we did have a feeling we'd maybe have a positive response but we didn't quite plan for the tickets to go and reach capacity in 24 hours in both cities the response was truly overwhelming and once again really solidify the need for us to exist whilst all of our Partnerships have in some way helped to make a smaller immediate change to our community we can only truly Drive Long radical long-term change by forging close relationships with organizations like us too organizations that are brave enough to be open with their time their resources and ultimately get a little uncomfortable it's important to note here that everything we offer to the community is free we're not looking to monetize our output there are enough barriers we need to overcome as it is so these Partnerships are crucial to the development of black creativity and the future of the platform now usually people will come up to us individually and ask us where do you see where the black designer is going long term and while I honestly do not have the ability to think past when my next delicious meal is going to be I always respond with world domination and usually people will let out a good little hearty laugh and then while they're laughing I maintain eye contact to an uncomfortable degree and I don't smile until they stop laughing as I want people to understand that I'm delusionally serious about where the black designers taking over the world she's not lying yeah I'll tell you because I deserve to live in a world where I can see black and Indigenous design practices and stories woven into my daily life whether it's through advertising or social media campaigns for example I want to see what a sneaker or trainers as you Brits say would look like in combination with designs from Ivory Coast and I need and deserve to know what our world and products would look like if we actually included black designers and their design and creative history into our own design education processes and curriculums and how would the way we visually communicate and express ourselves affect people if we really took the time to learn acknowledge and advocate for this spectrum of Blackness and the creative and text space these are some of the questions that where the black designers are trying to answer and mold into our future through what we do because we all deserve to be able to see ourselves and our cultures reflected in any space because recognition is a necessity to help us know that we belong and all of the work that we have done and the support that we have received so far really has solidified that where the black designers Champions black creators and black creativity and we are here to stay and if you want to help us with our mission come say hello we don't bite we're very nice people or give us a virtual wave at hello at watbd.org or you can DM us on Instagram at where the black designers thank you so much thank you