It is the majority’s responsibility to ensure there is equal opportunity for everyone
What makes a designer successful? I always have a textbook answer for that question ready. A successful designer knows their way around a layout, uses typography as a creative element not just text on a page, understands that less is more, has a solid rationale behind every design decision they make during a project and understands user experience is the most important principle. What good is design if it doesn’t work for anyone? Graphic design is just as much about critical thinking and strategy as it is about having a natural talent for the arts.
With that explanation in mind, being a successful designer has nothing to do with the colour of your skin. So when I asked myself how many times I have worked with a designer who also happened to be a person of colour, why was “never” my answer?
I grew up in a smaller city in northern Ontario that is predominantly white. My entire class in college (all six of us) were white. All of my design professors were also white. Now, I can certainly try to explain it away and blame my city’s location (almost the middle of nowhere) for the lack of diversity in the immediate community, but even after I graduated and began applying for positions at businesses within the city, I never interviewed at a place that had any non-white staff members. I believe it should be the responsibility of businesses to have policies in place to actively try and be more diverse.
In the short period of time that I have worked at The Ontarion, I have had the opportunity to be part of a diverse community within the newsroom, between the staff and our contributors. It is refreshing to be part of an organization that creates such an inviting environment where everyone feels welcome and part of a unique little community.
Design is a profession that caters to all people. We, as designers, create work and products for all people. And obviously not all people are white. Designers thrive on bringing unique perspectives to design briefs. The more varied those perspectives are, the more effective the solutions to the design problems have the potential to be. Unique perspectives rely on a diversity of experience. Something that would benefit from the lived experiences of people from all walks of life. Sure, not every white person has the same experience and would thus bring different views to the table, but belonging to the majority comes with privilege that we must recognize and use to the advantage of our peers. It is the responsibility of those who enjoy privilege (whether racial, social, economic, or otherwise) to advocate to our superiors the importance of having a diverse creative team on staff. The responsibility of industry professionals is to encourage and make sure that all people, regardless of race and ethnicity, have an equal opportunity to succeed in this industry.
In the future I hope to see a shift not only in the design industry, but in every industry. To reiterate what actress, director, and producer Ellen Pompeo once said during a roundtable discussion, “As Caucasian people, it’s our job, it’s our task, it’s our responsibility to make sure we speak up in every single room we walk into… It’s our job because we created the problem.” The world we live in is a complicated one, we have world leaders who encourage hate every day and a naive audience that eats it up. We cannot let that cloud what we know is right: that all people are people, and it is our duty as members of the majority group to advocate on the behalf of those who do not speak from the same positions of privilege that we occupy, we must do this so that one day things can be better.
Photo obtained via Unsplash/Edited by Tiffany Agliani