The following letter appeared in the July 2006 issue of Communication Arts…
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Lack of Diversity
The reason I am sending this letter is to voice my displeasure with the design industry. Employers are dishonest. They say they want highly creative professionals, all the while producing substandard products with very little creative value. The terminology of so-called creative firms (as stated on many Web sites) has started to sound more like investment banking or corporate rhetoric than a creative mission. If this is the true climate of the industry, schools should stop teaching design theory and start teaching business theory instead. We’ve become what other industries have become, dull, boring and stagnant.
Part of what is making the industry stale is lack of diversity. I’m always hard pressed to find other minorities at design events. In fact, finding a minority in design magazines or books is also rare. In this day and age everyone wants to tap into the urban demographic. Yet this demographic is rarely employed in most forms; interesting. How can you design for an urban market with no urban creatives? I know how, you make assumptions.
Now I know you have published issues in the past highlighting the history of minority creatives, but I guess the industry doesn’t get it. I hope in the future the design community can come to grips with these issues and move forward. Maybe someday we’ll grow to be as creative, diverse and interesting as we should be.
Kenneth Thomas
Graphic Designer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nice one Kenneth. He's absolutly right.
ReplyDeleteI'll go further.
ReplyDeleteNot only is there is a lack of diversity, but there is this prima donna attitude by all designers who believe they are annointed from God with special design skills which can't be taught, and that they alone possess.
I suggest instead that design studios merely stop renting space in the inexpensive (read: lower-class/poor) urban areas, and instead open their doors to teens/students of the area.
He's from Philly, NASCAR is doing that with some of its pit crew training. Now, changing a tire and picking a serif font are two different skills to be sure, but the idea is that design skills can be learned and are NOT some mystical provence of the upper class. They just need a venue in which to be taught.
Furthermore, change won't happen until the status elite actviely seeks out talent from all areas, not just SVA.
The preeminent ad agency, W&K, had an opportunity to select such diversity, and who did they select for this year's 12 program (btw, "12" students pay W+K 13K to work there for one year on W+K's clients): 12 fucking prima donnas right out of central casting with all the same glasses, hair style and complexion and add-on arteest angst, half of which came from Portland.
Even after last year's call from the higher ups who said "next time, less white."
Yeah right.