Course

Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in Graphic Design 19th Century – 21st Century

$120.00 - $300.00

MSRP:

Identify as BIPOC?
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We offer our courses and classes at subsidized rates for students, educators, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) individuals.

If you are interested in a scholarship, please email us at [email protected] and we will help.

Interested in licensing for your institution? Learn more

Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in Graphic Design 19th – 21st Century is the first in a series of BIPOC Centered design history courses facilitated by Polymode.

Through recorded lectures, readings, and discussions, the class sheds light on moments of oppression and visibility. The series revisits and rewrites the course of design history in a way that centers previously marginalized designers, cultural figures—and particularly BIPOC and QTPOC people.

Each class below is an available to purchase individually, or at a discounted rate when the course pass is purchased.
Mbuti bark-cloth
Mbuti bark-cloth 'pongs; from deep in tthe Ituri Forest, Congo, c.mid 20th centry

Afrikan Alphabets & African Diasporic Design Lineage

with Saki Mafundikwa

Counter to colonial notions of the savage or primitive African, there is a complex, rich and multi-cultural history of African design. From the research of graphic designer Saki Mafundikwa on Afrikan alphabets and graphic languages, this opening video will set...

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My Strength Is My Blood. Ziddi Msangi. Kanga, 2021.

Systems of Slavery and White Supremacy

with Ziddi Msangi

Slavery was a designed system that expanded into a mechanized and colonial tool of European empires. The proliferation of design products marketed to Africans on the continent, such as the Dutch wax prints of the company now known as Vlisco,...

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“Outrage,” February 2, 1837. Handbill. New York City, 1837. Library of Congress

Designing Emancipation

with Pierre Bowins

From the early 1830s to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation outlawing slavery in 1863, Boston was the center of the American anti-slavery movement. Organizations such as the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society posted broadsides throughout the city to publicize the day’s...

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The Coon Town Chappie. The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America, 1901

Blackface and Minstrelsy Tradition

with Kelly Walters

This lecture will explore a brief history of Black representation as it appears in music publishing during the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. Following Emancipation, White entertainers and musicians adopted Black stereotypes into minstrel show performances. Minstrel shows...

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The Georgia Negro Plate 2. Assessed value of household and kitchen furniture owned by Georgia Negroes. 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois and Students of Atlanta University
The Georgia Negro Plate 2. Assessed value of household and kitchen furniture owned by Georgia Negroes. 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois and Students of Atlanta University

Black Data: W.E.B. Du Bois and Data Visualization

with Jason Forrest Silas Munro

Known for being a prolific author, renowned sociologist, fierce civil rights advocate for people of color, founder of the NAACP, and historian, WEB Du Bois was also a pioneer of data visualization. The American Negro was one initiative of the...

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Front Cover of Fire!!, published in 1926, with artwork by Aaron Douglas. Harry Ransom Center
Front Cover of Fire!!, published in 1926, with artwork by Aaron Douglas. Harry Ransom Center

Black Queer Stories in Print: 19th Century to the Harlem Renaissance

with Jon Key Silas Munro

In the 1830’s The Sun Newspaper ran a story never shared before in print: a man by day and woman by night who was on trial in New York for theft. Mary Jones/Peter Sewally was one of the earliest known...

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Jacob Lawrence. Migration Series: In the North the Negro had better educational facilities. Panel 58

The Great Migration: Harlem Artists Guild, and the 306 Group

with Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton

The harsh impact of Jim Crow laws in the South of the United States triggered a mass exodus of  Southern Black Americans to northern cities seeking equality and economic opportunity. Cities like Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia were well known...

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Placard stating "I AM A MAN" carried by Arthur J. Schmidt in 1968 Memphis March

Strikethrough: Typography Messages of Protest for Civil Rights

with Colette Gaiter

Free

In the 1960s and 1970s of this country, everyday activists took to the streets with placards in their raised arms with urgent messages made visible in typographic form. This selection of protest graphics will focus on a Black experience. However,...

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The Negro Motorist Green Book, 1940 Edition, Victor Hugo Green

Iterative Identity: Art Deco, World’s Fair, and American Limits on Humanity

with Omari Souza

One of the key promises of the American Dream made by the automobile industry in the 1930s–1950s was the individual freedom of a car owner on an open road. This was marketed with innovations in advertising, exhibition design, and product...

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Ebony, Special Issue: The Black Revolution. August 1969.

Black Revolutions: Organizing the Production of Black Design

with Chris Dingwall

The cover of the August 1969 issue of Ebony declared the age of The Black Revolution. As a commodity, however, the issue of Ebony embodied the ethos of Black capitalism. The flagship publication of the Johnson Publishing Company, was the largest Black-owned...

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Buddy Esquire, Kips Bay Boys Club, Feb 13, 1982 Flyer Design, Cornel Hip Hop Collection
Buddy Esquire, Kips Bay Boys Club, Feb 13, 1982 Flyer Design, Cornel Hip Hop Collection

Funk, Blaxploitation, & Hip Hop Aesthetics

with Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton Pierre Bowins Silas Munro

From the bass heavy riffs of Curtis Mayfield’s SuperFly 1973 soundtrack to the scratch and synthesized Brox rhythms of 1970s and 1980s DJ’s like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash—the histories of Black music and Black design have been intermixed. Many scholars have foregrounded Phase...

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There Are Black People in the Future, by Alisha B.Warmley
There Are Black People in the Future, by Alisha B.Warmley

Behind and Ahead of the Times: Histories and Futures of Black Futurity

with Lauren Williams Silas Munro

The Black experience(s) in the United States cannot easily be extracted from how we are collectively situated in time: it is shaped simultaneously by the weight of past and present oppressions and the precarity of our futures. White supremacy would...

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Fractals in African settlement architecture, Ron Eglash, 1998

Radical Design Pedagogy: Towards an Autochthonic Black Aesthetic for Graphic Design Pedagogy

with Audrey Bennett

Since Cheryl D Holmes Miller's 1987 Black Designer's Missing in Action, there have been far too many calls for increased access and visibility of Black folx in Graphic Design education and the field at large. In 1998, Sylvia Harris offered educators...

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Credit

  • Curriculum Design
    Silas Munro, Pierre Bowins, Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton
  • Instructional Design
    Brian Johnson, Silas Munro and Tanvi Sharma
  • Course Marketing And Operations
    Audrey Davies, Brian Johnson, Silas Munro, and Tanvi Sharma
  • Production
    Audrey Davies, Randa Hadi, Michelle Lamb, Silas Munro, and Tanvi Sharma
  • Teaching Assistant
    Tanvi Sharma

Licenses for institutional use are available and customizable to fit your needs. Contact us at [email protected] to provide your students, employees, and designers with access to our BIPOC Design History Course.

Learn More About Licensing