What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design? | Dismantling design history 101, by Anoushka Khandwala

“In everyday design work, to “shatter the familiar” might start by rethinking the needs of the audience you’re designing for. For example, have you considered how people of different ethnicities may identify with what you’re creating? An aspect of decoloniality is questioning how solutions might be experienced in someone else’s shoes.”

Decolonize Design

“Decolonize Design is a community development organization that delivers results and effective alternatives to the status quo, centering African and other Indigenous approaches.”

Why Can’t the U.S. Decolonize Its Design Education? | By Margaret Andersen

“When you begin to ask those questions of what it means as a designer to be a culture maker, you ask harder questions about what kind of culture you’re creating.”

Four Black Creatives on the Importance of Building and Cultivating Community

“The creative technology industry has a diversity problem. Put differently, both industries—creative and technology—have some real work to do when it comes to building welcoming, inclusive spaces for people of diverse racial backgrounds. Though there’s a thriving community of people of color working at the intersection of art, design, and technology, when it comes to jobs and recognition, they’re woefully underrepresented in comparison to their white counterparts.”

James Baldwin’s “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity”

“Well, one survives that, no matter how… You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less.”

A Rush to Use Black Art Leaves the Artists Feeling Used By Tiffany Hsu and Sandra E. Garcia

“Black creative professionals say they have been used to lend legitimacy to diversity campaigns while being underpaid and pigeonholed.”

Searching for a Black Design Aesthetic by Sylvia Harris

“We must also look outside the design disciplines to the performing arts and to fine arts movements, such as the Afri-Cobra, which have based visual explorations on African and jazz rhythms. We can study these disciplines for characteristic black expression (improvisation, distortion, polyrhythms, exaggeration, call and response) that can be translated into graphic form. Black design traditions must be pieced together from a variety of sources to make a complete canon of black expression.”

13 AFRICAN AMERICAN GRAPHIC DESIGNERS YOU SHOULD KNOW, PART 1 + PART 2

“Let’s check out those who flourished in the face of racial adversity, fighting to have their artistic voice heard; who created their own companies and excelled as Black entrepreneurs at a time when this was unheard of, and those who continue to do so to this day.”

The Power of Mapping, Naming, and Connecting Black Creatives by Anoushka Khandwala

“Once a Google Sheet, Black Creative Ecosystems is now a vibrant digital garden that celebrates Black creative thought.”

Black Art in America

Black Art in America is a multifaceted media company based in Columbus Georgia. Since 2010 our mission has been to document, preserve and promote the contributions of the African American arts community.

Bisa Butler's Portraiture Quilts | Brooklyn Made (Video)

Find Black Designers + Artists (Directories + Collectives)

ARTNOIR ensures the next generation of Black and Brown creators, curators, and collectors are connected in community, and contributing to each other’s success.
Black Artist + Designers Guild directory provides direct access to our members who are artists, makers and designers at the top of their prospective field.
Blacks Who Design
The Black Art Expo The Peoples’ virtual culture museum | a space for unapologetic Black creatives+lovers of Black art
Women Who Design is a Twitter directory of accomplished women in the design industry.
A Spectacular Black Girl Art Show is a bi-annual art exhibit displaying the work of all black female artists using varying forms of media. This show is aimed toward celebrating black women, the strength in their diversity, and the power in our unity.
Color Positive was created out of the idea that we not only need to showcase Black talent on its own, but help facilitate growth of new artists for the community at large.
Creative Ecosystems is a growing digital garden and directory of ecosystems that explore Black art & imagination.
Dope Black Art Championing black culture through visual art.
People of Craft is a growing showcase of creatives of color and their craft in design, advertising, tech, illustration, lettering, art, and more. It’s time to redefine what a creative looks like.
SheLovesBlackArt Virtual gallery specializing in art by established & emerging artists of the African diaspora.

Find Black Creatives

Shades of Noir: The Creative Database is an ongoing project to archive and document creatives from various disciplines, including design, fine art, sound art, writing, film, fashion and photography. The Creative Database is an online space that champions creatives of all disciplines who do not tend to be celebrated in traditional and mainstream media, centering the achievements of people of color in particular.
People of Craft is a growing showcase of creatives of color and their craft in design, advertising, tech, illustration, lettering, art, and more. It’s time to redefine what a creative looks like.
Creative Women Build (CWB) is a platform created by and for Black women entrepreneurs.
The Idea Girl Design Studio collaborates with creative women in business to tell their brand’s story through emotive design that cultivates meaningful relationships and hella cash.
Dana James Mwangi, owner of Cheers Creative, an award-winning branding and website agency

Find Black-Owned Galleries

Black-Owned Galleries to Support across the United States | Artsy

Support Black Artists

Black Art in America