Black by Design
The Black By Design poster series began as a preliminary exercise for my BFA thesis, Curating Color. The posters feature three prominent Black graphic designers throughout history. Each poster contains a graphic element relating back to one of the designer’s most notable works from their career.
Georg Olden was a renowned graphic designer and pioneer in the field of broadcast advertising. He expanded the amount of opportunities for Black people within the business world during his time working for CBS & the McCann-Erickson ad agency. In 1963, Olden made history by being the first Black person to design a postage stamp. His poster features his iconic stamp with a broken chain commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Cheryl D. Miller tackled two major issues during her design career: the lack of black graphic designers & gender issues within the profession. In 1987, Miller wrote the article, “Black Designers: Missing in Action.” for Print magazine in which she discussed the dismally low number of black people recognized as professions within the design field. This article would go on to be considered what wrote black graphic designers into the annals of history. Throughout the rest of her design career, Miller used her outspoken voice to continue to promote diversity. Her poster features a figure from one of Miller’s most notable works, the program for Defying Odds, Expanding Opportunities: The African American Challenge // Congressional Black Caucus Foundation 21st Annual Legislative Program in September 1991.
Since the start of his career, Emmett McBain has paved the way for Black graphic designers. He began his career in 1956 at Vince Cullers Advertising, the first Black owned advertising agency in the United States. This led to McBain becoming a key protagonist of the Black consumer consciousness movement of the 1950s & 60s. Throughout his life, McBain enjoyed a varied design career from being an Assistant Art Director for Playboy Records at 22 to co-founding what would become the largest agency in the country, Burrell McBain Inc. This agency would become a pioneer in Black advertising by introducing corporations to the idea of shifting the focus from the Black community’s relationship to white society to concentrating on the community’s own ethics and culture. The company had its first major breakthrough with the 1972 Marlboro Cigarette campaign which helped secure accounts with Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
