You’ve seen their work—but have you seen them? Black designers have been working in every major industry but, for the past decades, have not been given the spotlight anywhere near to the extent of their white counterparts. This vibrant and wide-ranging book, full of photographs and illustrations, aims to correct that oversight, bringing a century of Black designers and their work into focus.
Organized into three sections focusing on Fashion, Architecture and Graphic Design, Prempeh uses the pioneering work of key figures from the twentieth and twenty-first century to explore important aspects of how Black design has been perceived within culture and society. From the necessity of the side-hustle, to interrogating the value placed on Black design, from reclaiming traditions, to exploring how design can be a form of protest, this book brings to the fore the stories of figures such as Ann Lowe, Dapper Dan, Norma Sklarek, Francis Kéré, Emory Douglas and Liz Montague to unpick what it means to be a Black designer. (Verlagstext)
Inhalt:
Now You See Me: Introduction | 06
Part 1: Fashion
Introduction | 16
First Ladies | 18
Zelda Wynn Valdes: A Black Polymath | 34
Black Legacy | 50
Contemporary Black Designers and Value Dynamics | 68
An Education: Bianca Saunders and Telfar | 84
Q&A with Law Roach | 98
Part 2: Architecture
Introduction | 106
Paul Revere Williams and Respectability Politics | 108
Norma Sklarek and Being the First | 116
Hilyard Robinson: A Room of Our Own | 122
Welcome to Africa | 130
John Owusu Addo: Do Not Live in a Glass House | 136
Design Institutions as Changemakers | 140
Demas Nwoko: A Maverick | 146
Joe Osae-Adelo and Responding to a Patronized Africa | 150
Diebedo Francis Kere: Building Back Africa | 160
Q&A with Samuel Ross | 170
Part 3: Graphic Design
Introduction | 178
Jackie Ormes and the Erasure of Female Genius | 180
Charles Dawson and the Blessing and Curse of the Side Hustle | 188
Emory Douglas and Black Design as a Call to Action | 196
Art Sims and the Curious Case of Film Advertising | 202
Emmett McBain: Marketing Made for Black People by Black People | 208
Jackie Heiress: Meet Liz Montague | 216
Where are all the Black Graphic Designers? No Really, Where are they? | 222
The New Frontier of Design | 230
Image Credits | 238
Acknowledgements | 240