Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Creative Director / Editor / Design
The Missing Chapter: A Zine Featuring Black Designers, Black Publications, and Black Agencies
Designers, Black Publications, and Black history books, and only a couple mentions Black graphic designers and not in any significant way. For example, Philip Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, the sixth edition, briefly mentions Georg Olden and Gail Anderson; they are both mentioned in captions. In the fall of 2018, I taught the Survey of Graphic Design History at Southeastern Louisiana University. I gave my students the option of researching a Black graphic designer, a Black publication, or a Black design agency. Then they had to write and design a spread for this zine.
This project was a true collaboration between my students and me. I told them that they had to have an image of the designer and their work (if they were writing about a graphic designer), captions, and they all had to use the super font family Freight designed by Black type designer Joshua Darden. We voted on ink colors, paper colors, and the title. There was no grid, and they had creative freedom with the writing and design of their spread. Going through researching, writing, designing, and receiving a professionally printed risograph zine gave the students a voice, which gave them a sense of agency.
I wrote a grant and was awarded the Center for Teaching Excellence grant at Southeastern Louisiana University. The purchase of paper and printing was made possible with this grant. When I posted the project on social media, several people asked to purchase the zine. I sold all of them except for one. The proceeds went to the graphic design student organization. I continue to use this project as a teaching tool in the classroom and a model for other editorial design, collaborative-research-focused projects about history. My goal is to print a second edition to distribute to students and sell to others interested in the content. I want the proceeds to pay for future printing.
This project confirmed the importance of getting this information out into the world. Most people who contacted me expressed how they didn’t even know where to start teaching about the history of Black graphic design. The zine at least gave them a place to start.
Spread design by Kate White
Spread design by Michaela Thanars
Spread design by Alia Muhaymin
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
Spread design by Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton
