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Underrepresentation of BIPOC Designers in Graphic Design History Textbooks

Year: 2023


Presenter Name: Alejandra Henriquez Roncal

Description
Graphic design history textbooks used at an undergraduate level seem to focus mostly on works and movements that originated in Western Europe and the United States of America. Thus, graphic designers of color are significantly underrepresented. This project aims to focus on the underrepresentation of non-European and non-North American designers and especially the lack of presence of Latin American designers. In order to provide a concrete insight on the current graphic design history education, the project analyzes a specific textbook titled Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, which is used for the graphic design history class taught at Utah Tech University. This textbook includes a total of 773 pictures of which 771 display graphic work by different designers. For the analysis, each one of those images was catalogued with information regarding its date, graphic design movement, author's name, author's gender, author's nationality, and author's ethnicity. From the data collected this project aims to shed light on the percentage of works that belonged to designers of color, and specifically Latin American designers.
University / Institution: Utah Tech University
Type: Poster
Format: In Person
Presentation #A88
SESSION A (9:00-10:30AM)
Area of Research: Humanities
Faculty Mentor: Rachel Ramsay