Is Graphic Design too White?

Written by Jonny Pathan

Date of blog 2009

Website GROWFOX

Graphic design has a monumental impact on society; we know that. From websites to logos, TV ads and mobile applications, almost everything involves graphic design of some sort.

As a graphic designer, my job is rather important. I am in a position of influence just like any other designer out there; we are paid to provide aesthetics that ultimately lead to the awareness, sale or use of a product. We have the ability to change people’s minds, the ability to alter a company’s public image. You’d imagine that to get the best results, the people responsible for this should pretty accurately reflect society.

So, is Graphic Design too white?

According to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, in 2013, the UK creative economy had 178,000 jobs in Design (product, graphic and fashion): 93.3 percent of those jobs were filled by those who are white, that means 6.7 percent were filled by all other ethnicities combined.

Let’s say your agency has a team of 100 designers, 6.7 percent of that team would be non-white. If you had a smaller team of 10 designers, only 0.6 percent of that team would be non-white: totalling just over half a person.

What does this mean for graphic design in general?

You could argue that having a predominately white work force affects the creative output of a company. We tend to design for ourselves, imagining ourselves using a product or seeing an advert in the street. Are we being fair to the whole of society? When we’re creating websites we sometimes assume most people have newer computers that are able to handle more graphics processing and super-fast broadband; what if they don’t? What if I told you that two-fifths of people from ethnic minorities live in low-income households? That’s twice the rate of White people. Is a simple decision to create content that only works on a decent machine actually excluding certain groups due to socioeconomics?

Of course, you could argue that only a small percentage of the population are ethnic minorities and this is accurately reflected in the workplace. Not necessarily. In 2011 the total UK population amounted to about 63.3 million people. 87.2 percent white, 12.8 percent black, Indian, Pakistani, mixed and other. The numbers don’t match; there is a clear difference in the creative industry.There are various factors attributed to reasons for the low number of minorities working in design.

The real question. Why?

Socio-economics

Briefly touched upon earlier, socioeconomics could be a contributory factor. To learn, practise and hone your skills in design, you primarily need a computer and suitable software. That may be a small ask for some of us, but what if you were a teenager with no income, in a household with no income. Besides the computer, could you afford the monthly fees of Adobe CC: software package that is almost a staple purchase of any graphic designer?

Coming from a home with a low-income means when you look for jobs, you look for stability. The design world is notorious for instability, the majority of designers are freelance, and income is hard to predict.

“Parents and children in underrepresented groups don’t know that graphic design exists, let alone that it is a viable profession for a person with artistic talent. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that certain racial and ethnic groups actually discourage children from going into visual arts pushing them instead toward science and engineering.”
Terry Lee Stone

Education & Culture

Terry Lee Stone wrote an article in 2006 called, ‘White Space: Examining racial diversity in the design industry’, the article detailed the disproportionate percentage of white designers in the U.S., relative to the ethnic make-up of the U.S. work force.He also asked professional designers some probing questions, such as: “Do you make adjustments in your behaviour because of your race? Do you think you try to slip into ‘white cultural norms’ in your design work? Does race affect your design?” It’s questions like these that make you start to think.

What
Next?

Thankfully, there are bodies out there like AIGA, the professional association for design, providing much needed support and resources in this area. I highly recommend casting your eyes over their material if you get a chance.

This article is not meant to provoke, it’s more a set of questions that might make us think a little more about diversity in design and how we’d benefit from more of it. The more creatives we have from different backgrounds looking at a problem, the more likely we’ll have a balanced output. And great design always has good balance.

Find the link here

Reading
response

Initial thoughts

I resonated with the article a lot, especially because I come from an Indian family who was pushed into engineering and later ended up transitioning to design on my own after graduating. I have always wondered, after changing fields and working in a design studio, about how much representation mattered.

White men vs man

Back at home, the representation of women in the workforce was really skewed. Most authoritative figures were men, taking the last call on a project. It was only recently that back home things started to change, bit by bit. It started with gender neutral icons on a food delivery app (similar to UberEats) to having pink auto rickshaws (it's like a small 3 wheeler, traditionally only driven by men in India) to signify women drivers. These smaller decisions impact not just inclusivity in design but accessibility as well. I talk about it from the lens of design as a whole but it does change people’s perception and perspective.

Man's world?

I am of the opinion that we are all still forced to live in a world designed for white men;from the AC temperatures set in the office, to the working hour patterns set, and the expectations of our work. It might also be possible that when you want a final nod on a product/design decision, your own set of decisions would skew in a way that would favour the men in authoritative positions to say yes.

Design now

It is pretty obvious then that when we then start to design - in the contemporary world for digital products, the output would be fairly skewed for a user base that is more widened than before. The wider the audience gets (for a single digital product designed these days, there are more diverse eyeballs on it than ever), the more diverse the designers should get, and the reading got the ball rolling to a conversation that should still continue now.

Contradictions

I think the only point where the reading would not hold up right now is that majority of people have smartphones these days, so the socio economic aspect plays the opposite role in the sense that now we need to think of a much wider user base while designing a product - for eg, maybe a ride hailing app which is designed for a really busy worker AND an older citizen with more time on their hands - what is the optimum number of steps I should design for that takes into account minimum number of steps needed for a busy worker but is descriptive and user friendly enough for the older person to understand as well?

The reading talks about the ratio of white:immigrants in the workforce, and the same parallel with men:women draws well back home in my country.
written by Shambhavi Varma