Tariq Dixon's Work Nudges Designers to Learn More About the Full Scope of Design History by Allison Fonder

Our Core77 Design Awards are always led by experts in their field with fascinating stories as to how they got there—that's why we love getting to know them better in interviews we share with our Core77 audience. In 2021, we're proud to have a number of judges out there actively changing the industry as we know it, including this year's Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain, Tariq Dixon.

Tariq Dixon, co-founder of TRNK NYC (Credit: Ellliott Jerome Brown Jr.)

Tariq Dixon is the co-founder of TRNK NYC, a curated online furniture brand that includes over 50 designers as well as a in-house collection designed by Dixon. Beginning his career in finance at Lehman Brothers in 2008, the same year the investment firm collapsed, Dixon quickly became disillusioned by the idea of an involvement in Wall Street. He later moved into fashion as a men's buyer at both Gilt Groupe and Armani. During this time, his personal passion for furniture design got him started on a curation project with his business partner. As Dixon recalls of the early days of TRNK, " we would travel across the states, go vintage shopping and to flea markets, and then we acquired a surplus of product. We needed to get rid of stuff, so we ended up reselling it on vintage marketplaces, and that eventually evolved into what we're doing today." What initially began as an exploratory exercise born out of a love of design helped blossom the idea for focusing on home furnishings full time.

Much of Dixon's recent work within TRNK reflects his belief that designers have a responsibility to explore how prejudice can be upheld through design conventions, even (or perhaps particularly) the aesthetic ones. He's helped organize two recent art and design exhibitions exploring themes of race and identity, and a desire to move beyond the simplistic concepts of diversity and inclusion to something far more evocative and three-dimensional. The photography show Mien opened in June 2020 and was organized to benefit the Ali Forney Center, a community center focused on helping LGBT youth experiencing homelessness—as described in the exhibition statement, Mien featured "a cross-section of queer artists of color who leverage portraiture photography to explore identity beyond visibility." TRNK's latest virtual exhibition to open toward the end of 2020 was Provenanced, which sought to explore colonial aspects of traditional design history and modernism.

We recently spoke with Dixon about design histories largely untold, and how TRNK hopes to serve an example of how pipelines can be made to welcome even more up and coming black and brown designers into the furniture design industry.

How did your start with TRNK collecting vintage furniture evolve into designing your own collections?

Our first e-commerce experience was and still is partly this multi-brand curatorial platform, so we work with about 50 different brands from around the globe. And we select our favorite products and their collections to highlight on the website, but we were identifying some voids in the market. Initially we saw that in upholstered seating; we were looking for a particular look within a particular price point and couldn't find it, so decided we wanted to design and develop it ourselves.

And that's often how the TRNK collection evolves is through problem solving. For example, our second collection for TRNK, which was the Arc and Angle series, was really trying to solve for needing a versatile, friendly seating solution for a small space. With our more modular series, we felt like a lot of the modular seating units on the market were oversized. So again, we scaled it down to something a little more petite and refining some of the details. So for a TRNK collection product, that often is sort of the nexus of the design process—trying to solve a particular problem for our customers or feeling there's a void in the market we can identify.

Sofa by TRNK NYC

How has the past year affected how you look at your business and your design process?

This year has certainly been unusual and it just forced us to embrace technology in new ways we previously wouldn't have considered. Even having to manage a lot of the design and product development process virtually was something very new for us; we had to embrace renderings in ways we hadn't before. We previously didn't use renderings for lifestyle imagery, but had to because of the pandemic. So all of that has its pluses and minuses, but one thing we did realize is we can bring products to market quicker or at least test and validate concepts with our audience quicker using technology. So that definitely allows us to expand the scope of what we're able to do and minimize the liability associated with taking risks. The attitude of the consumer is changing too. There's more of a willingness to purchase big ticket items online, And so, the role of digital's is obviously ever- growing and becoming more important.

Despite the challenges, it's exciting we're able to take on more risks and try out concepts more quickly. It's also allowed us to expand our talent pool, and how we work with designers. There's not so much a requirement for the designer to be local. For example, I'm actually working very actively with a designer in Chicago on some new TRNK collection products and I previously wouldn't have even considered that because I typically want the person side by side working with me. But I've learned a new way of collaborating that expands who we can work with.

Between TRNK and exhibitions you curated like "Mien," your work in my eyes really expands the definition of not only what a designer can do but also the impact they can make. How would you define what it is you're trying to do with TRNK and the overall impact you're trying to make?

For me, the impetus, the motivation for starting the business was really developing this newfound appreciation for design and how design was so formative in a lot of my fondest memories and experiences. Whether it's the interactions with friends and family at home or just waking up and developing morning rituals; I am very much an introvert too and spend a lot of time at home.

The role those design decisions play in forming those experiences are oftentimes so overlooked. A lot of these design decisions are sort of made for us. And we don't fully understand the impact of them, we can only implicitly appreciate them. So I saw an opportunity with TRNK to bring that role of design more to the fore, and those are some of the conversations we've tried to start. Like helping our customers become more mindful and aware of the implications of their design consumption choices.

So, you look at some of the exhibitions we've organized, like Provenanced, and that was motivated by the fact that I thought there was greater opportunity for the design world to interrogate not just the implications of diversity and inclusion within the workplace, but also performative qualities of works and how the same systems infiltrate the end product. So some of the lenses we were trying to apply to workplace culture, I thought, we can also apply to how we look at the actual work we're producing ourselves. One of the most glaring omissions I saw [in design history] was the contributions of African and indigenous makers, artists, to contemporary Western visual language—especially in the modernist movements. I saw this conversation I was having among my own peers and one that was very topical at the moment, and found new ways of inserting design into those conversations.

A hand-carved stargazing chair, made by the Lobi people in the first half of the 20th century is featured in TRNK NYC's latest exhibition "Provenance"

I had some questions about Provenanced because, first of all, it's fascinating to dig into these non-European design histories that had such a huge impact on the modernist movement. Do you have any interesting historical examples of design contributions from black and indigenous societies that have been overlooked yet have had massive influence?

I think the most obvious one is the role African works played to 20th century modernists like Picasso. And the reality of the fact that these ideas only really gained validation to the Western world through the lens of Picasso and the likes of his peers. The works were literally discarded to pawn shops and antique shops and treated as worthless artifacts until this movement of 20th century artists in Europe granted it this new validation. And, you know, that's not an unusual process; it's very much the rule rather than the exception.

So it's about realizing how concepts still become validated with the same mechanisms, but also who's awarded provenance for those ideas. I don't think much has changed since the era of Picasso. That's an example most people can use once you actually take a step back and really analyze it. It seems glaringly obvious, but we're just so accustomed to how these systems operate that we just kind of implicitly accept it.

Yes, we're still very indoctrinated in that perspective. For example, we haven't questioned until very recently designers' blanket acceptance of Swiss style modernism and minimalism as being the only "right" form of design, and give all the credit to the Europeans behind those movements.

Even for us, Provenanced wasn't even remotely comprehensive. You can also analyze the same ways in which the Japanese have been hugely influential to minimalism and modernism, but not afforded the same recognition.

Another relatively new phenomenon is our willingness to even question history. We almost just accept something we've read in history books as truth, even though oftentimes there is very much a biased agenda in how history is written. And so we're now coming into a time where we're actually interrogating what we've been taught and realizing there are two sides to every story—or even multiple sides every story. So that's what exhibitions have to do as well is take a look back and really question some of the assumptions we made based on what we've been told.

Within our collective culture, we seem to be really inundated with examples of design that fit and reinforce this Euro-centric modernist design mold. I'm curious within your own journey in design how you've helped yourself break away from the collective consciousness a bit, inform yourself, and appreciate new design perspectives?

Especially in the age of social media, there's an impulse to gravitate toward what we see most repetitively. You see, in the design world, trends become so pervasive and then it's reinforced when you see it 10 times over every single day. So it's only natural to almost make the assumption what you're seeing is good or valuable based on the popular pandemic opinion around it.

You just have to be willing to to take a step back and critique and question, and look for the patterns within a lot of assumptions. And you know, a lot of these exercises of progress and change aren't really passive; it requires you to really actively critique and actively identify your own omissions.

Part of my individual process is really relying on intuition, considering which things I just emotionally respond to or gravitate toward. I often think about that in the spatial design process as well, just about not overthinking how something seemingly disparate will fit into my living space. Remembering I see value in this individual object or design and I want to look at it every day, so I'm going to make it a part of my everyday experience even if it feels disconnected at first. That's kind of how I navigate those decisions.

That's an excellent point, it speaks to the idea that we're all living by these silent style rules we've maybe absorbed through study or observation. By becoming aware of that, you're reminding yourself you can break those rules and create your own.

Exactly. A different example that sort of, conversely, you see popularized is African masks in decor. And you often see this even paired with the sort of luxury French midcentury works like Prouve is very much an aesthetic. But I think one of our obligations too is we want to make a better attempt to understand that work if we do emotionally respond to it and we love the way it looks in our space. Perhaps taking the time to better understand that individual work and contextualize it as opposed to just treating it as mere decoration.

A view of the entirely virtual exhibition, "Provenanced"

I think there's a little bit of an obligation, especially people within the design industry, to take that additional step. Because I do think not doing so has certain risks, too. And that's something we definitely learned, that was one of the takeaways from Provenanced is if these histories aren't maintained, they're just forever lost. That's one of the challenges right now with trying to re-contextualize some of those works from West Africa. Over the years, the lineage was lost, especially for works that were originally pillaged. But you can even see how this same attitude still applies in many ways now. So I think having these conversations, reminding each other of those impulses, and asking what taking that additional steps actually means are the first ways to re-engage.

In your opinion, where you think the furniture industry is going wrong in terms of access and the embrace of black and brown designers? I think it's safe to say furniture design is probably one of the more privileged areas of design to go into, and therefore is an area of design with a lot of gatekeeping still intact. How do you think we create those new pipelines to welcome more diverse perspectives into the industry?

I think the pipeline has to start much sooner. The reality is going to an art school or industrial design program is very much a privilege. So broadening access is essentially the long term stuff that's essential. In the interim, there are some ways businesses like mine can be beneficial by assisting in providing some of the resources to bring ideas to market. That's the thing, the barriers to entry are often capital, but then also having access to an audience through an institution with established clientele. And so there are ways in which we can expand that visibility and reach of diverse voices. And in some cases, yeah, that might require us to take some additional steps.

In our example, one initiative we're looking to undergo is we're starting to work with designers on not just carrying existing products, but also on the product development and production piece; so more like a licensing arrangement. It broadens the talent pool we can work with too because they can be someone who's younger, more emerging with fresh ideas, but doesn't necessarily know how to bring an idea full circle to the market. There are different, unique ways, especially in this day and age, to broaden the scope of talent we're working with.

You are leading the 2021 Core77 Design Award's Furniture & Lighting jury team this year. What will you be looking for in the entries you review, and what would excite you to see within the selection of projects?

For me, a narrative is always interesting. I love hearing more about the context and the sources of inspiration, how the works connect to past experiences or memories makes them all the more interesting. What also fascinates me is materiality. There are always new materials developing in this day and age, but there are also new approaches and tactics for manipulating old materials. So I'm always fascinated by seeing how new designers are reinterpreting or reinventing these materials.

Thinking of submitting to the Furniture & Lighting category in the 2021 Core77 Design Awards? Enter today—Final Deadline ends Thursday, April 1st.

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Insane 1967 Dodge Concept Pickup Had Most Elaborate Ingress/Egress You've Ever Seen by Rain Noe

In the early 1960s, during his final year as an Industrial Design student at Pratt, Harry Bentley Bradley accepted a job offer at GM. After moving to Detroit, Bradley took on side gigs designing hot rods--under the pseudonym "Mark Fadner," to skirt GM's company policies.

In Detroit Bradley met Mike and Larry Alexander, a/k/a the Alexander Brothers, a pair of car customizers. They hired Bradley to design a futuristic twist on the 1965 Dodge A100 pickup truck, which they wanted to use as a show car.

Bradley's resultant design was completely radical. Below you can see the original truck and what he came up with:

You may have noticed there are no reveals to indicate front doors.

That's because the Dodge Deora, as the concept came to be known, didn't have any. Instead both driver and passenger were meant to climb through the front of the vehicle:

With no way to integrate a dashboard, the steering wheel was cantilevered out from the left side, and the gauges were split between locations between the seats and beneath the driver's side window.

Unveiled at the 1967 Detroit Autorama, the Deora was a huge hit, winning both awards and a two-year leasing contract from Chrysler, who rotated the Deora into their factory concept displays.

The vehicle became so iconic, that it was selected as one of the first 16 Hot Wheels cars when that brand debuted in 1968.

To be fair, the designer of that inaugural Hot Wheels line was...Harry Bentley Bradley himself, who had quit GM and moved out to Mattel in California. Detroit weather just can't compete.

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Guerilla Kitchen: A Low-Cost, Compact, Modular Alternative to Food Trucks by Rain Noe

While getting his Masters in Industrial Design at Germany's Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Erik Mantz-Hansen chose an interesting employer to intern with: The Steinway & Sons piano factory in NYC, which we looked at here. Mantz-Hansen produced renderings for them.

Perhaps it was in New York, with all of its food trucks, that Mantz-Hansen was inspired to design his Guerilla Kitchen.

"Guerilla Kitchen is a compact, modular street food kitchen designed as a less costly alternative to the conventional food truck. High mobility and small size allow for efficient navigation through dense urban areas and enable the occupation of tight spaces. Guerilla Kitchen is a tool designed to address the needs of any type of street food production and empower more people to start a street food business."

I especially like that he's added the touch of stair-climbing wheels.

The Guerilla Kitchen won the IMM Cologne Pure Talents Contest 2021 in the LivingKitchen category.

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Exploring Bio-Design by JM Skibsted

To help mitigate the negative impacts of climate change we will need to significantly change our consumption and production patterns within a very short number of years. The pace depends on how hesitant politicians are. Business, consumers and designers are ready to explore new opportunities now. A promising area to explore is the relatively untapped frontier of bio-design.

Bio-design is many things, probably best described as the practice of using nature's distinctive strengths to create solutions that are both sustainable and functional. By and large, bio-design is very similar to industrial design: You design a product that can be made, produced and sold. However, an industrial designer has ordinary tools and materials at hand, and most often an engineer to implement the design. However, with bio-design the product is often grown, and as a result your design partner is most likely a researcher or scientist, with access to a lab. In today's economy, industrial designers work with engineers to use well-known tools, processes and materials. When pursuing bio-design, a designer will work with a scientist in a lab setting to test and iterate on ways of growing and controlling organic material. Lab costs today are very expensive, as historically scientists have not been incentivized to provide this level of access. In a future green economy, many products will be grown, so improving access to scientific expertise and facilities is critical. An exciting example of this is a new research facility just announced in New York City by the Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. They have invited renowned bio-designer Neri Oxman to develop an innovative research and design lab as part of the project.

Around the world there are examples of designers collaborating with nature to find solutions for everyday life. They create "classic" products while designing organic materials and production processes. It is difficult to get mainstream society to embrace this type innovation. In France, cups and plates are being designed with algae as the main component. But they cannot go to market yet, as there are very strict requirements for products that have to do with food. Only very few materials may be used, and "natural" materials such as bacteria and algae are not on the list. For food safety reasons, it makes good sense that very few synthetic materials should come in contact with what we eat. But when those rules were made, bio-design was not an option at all.

Despite the challenges a number of foresighted designers are working closely with research labs to generate products that will become everyday items in the near future. Ecovative Design can grow an industry leading package design made of hemp and mycelium. It performs great compared to similar non-organic products, and is fully compostable, breaking down in only 30 days.

Mushroom packaging by Ecovative

Another good example is designer Natsai Audrey Chieza, who developed a method of dyeing cloth in which she uses bacteria and non-chemical materials, which is usually the go-to method in the clothing industry. Not only does her method reduce the use of chemicals, the amount of water used in the bacterial process is one five hundredth that of the ordinary dyeing process. When her method is standardized and disseminated, it will make a huge difference to the climate footprint of the clothing industry. Chieza was fortunate to have the opportunity to explore and experiment with her various ideas and theses because, as a designer in London, she gained access to a laboratory where she could work side by side with scientists and engineers working on more "serious" topics. Today, she is partnering with Boston based Gingko Bioworks to create industry scale solutions.

UK based startup Polymateria, have devised a way to create a 'self-destructing' plastic for single-use applications. Their Biotransformation technology allows the company to produce plastic products designed to last for a set amount of time. Once the lifespan of the product is over, a chemical conversion causes a rapid loss of physical properties, allowing the plastic to break down into a wax, and degrade organically over time.

The key to make bio-design succeed now is investment and legislation. Designers need access to labs, and they need scientists with an open mindset to test commercial use of their methods. Reducing barriers to these facilities and providing support to designers working with scientists to prototype and test biomaterials for the creation of everyday consumer articles will help drive adoption by the design community and consumers. Secondly, updating legislation and policies to allow for this sort of experimentation is needed, rather than keeping rules and regulations from another time.

By not exploring bio-design today's large-scale manufacturers could be at risk if they define their business and expertise too narrowly. Globally, bio-design could be the next big industry, but we are still at the level where the world's 100 largest design companies do not yet have bio-design departments. Yet. This is sure to change as consumer demands for greener products increase.

Title image by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

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"Patented" Book: Industrial Design History as Told Through 1,000 Influential Patents by Rain Noe

Designer, author and historian Thomas Rinaldi has compiled what looks to be a captivating book of 1,000 influential design patents. Called "Patented," the book is billed as "an unprecedented history, as well as an essential field guide, to more than a century of fascinating product and industrial design, told through 1,000 design patents."

As you'd expect, names like Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss and Harmut Esslinger appear; spotting their work will be part of the fun of leafing through the book. Here are some samples from a variety of sections:

Transportation

Office Products

Entertainment

Published by Phaidon, the $40 "Patented" is available for pre-order and will be released this spring.

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Industrial Designer on What to Do After a Brainstorming Session to Keep a Project Moving Forward by Rain Noe

Every creative has been in several brainstorming sessions where great ideas emerged--but for some reason or other, the follow-through just never happened. Why, and how can you avoid this?

In this video, veteran industrial designer Michael DiTullo explains the intelligent system he's devised for harvesting nebulous ideas into realizable next steps. "It's important," DiTullo says, "to create a bridge in between the generation of the idea and the development of a concept:"

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Kevin Bethune Says Building a Brighter Design Future Means Taking a Hard Look at the Industry's Deepest Flaws by Allison Fonder

Our Core77 Design Awards are always led by experts in their field with fascinating stories as to how they got there—that's why we love getting to know them better in interviews we share with our Core77 audience. In 2021, we're proud to have a number of judges out there actively changing the industry as we know it, including this year's Consumer Technology Jury Captain, Kevin Bethune.

Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a consultancy that balances clients' business objectives using a combination of Strategic Design and Industrial Design. Growing up in Downriver Detroit, Bethune's experience surrounded by technical professionals working in the auto industry naturally led to a curiosity in engineering. After studying mechanical engineering at Notre Dame, he took his first job in the nuclear power industry at Westinghouse Electric Company, which offered rare opportunities to work on new product development fresh out of school. Exposure to conversations around business at Westinghouse stoked an interest in learning more, and he went back to school at Carnegie Mellon University to merge his knowledge of technology with an MBA.

Despite his deep knowledge in engineering and business, a lifelong creative curiosity lingered. While working for Nike after graduating with his MBA and making friends with lead Nike footwear designers, he got his first chance to work on a design project, side-hustling with footwear projects on top of his business role at the company. This opportunity motivated Bethune to eventually graduate from ArtCenter with a MS in Industrial Design, which solidified Bethune with the knowledge trifecta of technology, business and design that allowed him to carve a unique space within the industry. Bethune has gone on to help build the consulting powerhouse that is BCG Digital Ventures, and just three years ago started his very own think tank in dreams • design + life.

We spoke with Bethune about his journey from nuclear engineering to founder of his own design think tank, the dwindling boundaries between design and business, and the importance of leaders tackling issues of racial inequity within the industry head on.

I wanted to ask about dreams • design + life. Maybe you could expand on what you focus on most particularly there and what made you want to go out on your own specifically?

So with dreams • design + life, I love to really focus on strategic design, to help companies shape their future opportunities, and then industrial design, to really make sure that design outcomes are reflective of the context that we surface in those strategies.

We focus on two things that inform our filters of the types of projects we take on. The first is, is there an opportunity to actually focus on a human centric problem, no matter if it's b2b, b2c, or b2b to b2c? There has to be an unlock of human potential and human performance, really addressing the human centered value criteria that's playing in any ecology that we're working on. A lot of companies may have different agendas that may contrast that; it might be to digitize, it might be to transform. You know, I think we dealt with that a lot in my past chapter with BCG, and now, I want to really address those human-centered problems with my business.

The second filter is, because my experience has been very multidisciplinary—through a thread of physical product creation, combining some digital—I really focus on those opportunities that can yield new experiences across physical, digital and human-based service touch points. We're really working on ecologies of opportunity, not just thinking about what is reflected in rectangular viewports or apps—there needs to be more than that for us to take on the work. So those are the two filters, and it's funny, being all of those things to all industries on the BCG platform, it made me think, "where do you want to really steer your calories?" And that's why I decided to eventually leave.

Your expertise lies just as equally in business as it does in design and strategy. And it sounds like you were really far ahead of the curve when it came to understanding the importance of merging these elements together. So as someone well informed personally in the space, why would you say it's so important for designers working today to now understand aspects of business? How do you see this sort of co-collaborative state evolving in the near future?

Honestly, [my interest in both] came from an initial point of challenge where it wasn't easy to go through those inflection points between engineering and business. But you sort of look forward and see what's happening in the marketplace. You see these needs coalescing. And to answer your question, as we look to the future, I think designers find themselves in the room with more diverse actors than ever before. Every organization, big and small, is thinking about their future relevance. And especially if 2020 has taught us anything, the paradigms of change can happen and are definitely happening more exponentially than we ever thought was possible before.

So for a business to understand that the world can move out from underneath your feet in an instant, business folks, designers, technology professionals need to be in the room together, at least some of the time. When we talked about this convergence [years ago], it was more of the exception, not the rule, especially in my experience navigating larger organizations. But I think now, especially with clients that I serve, we're having a conversation of, how do we open the aperture and create more space for this multidisciplinary collaboration? And they feel the potential, but we're actually working on true innovation opportunities that their existing business didn't have the appetite or the attention span to even think about. Now we're enabling them to think about these things. And it's exciting. And they feel like they can actually have some license through these winds of disruption. So we're designed to handle that and understand their role in that. That's where I want to bring these lessons to life and how I mentor designers, as well as how I mentor organizations to change.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts about all the talk within the business world in the past few years around bringing design thinking into the fray. Do you have any examples of what you would consider a shallow perspective of what that is, and conversely, truly effective ways of implementing design into business?

It definitely reflected a worry that I had as we were cultivating design within the BCG environment; they hadn't known the power of design. But to their credit, BCG gave us the trust and runway to prove ourselves. I think we did fight the perceptions, not just BCG, but maybe their executive clientele, where they'd heard of design thinking, but design to them felt like post-it note exercises, the brainstorms, the workshops that was a part of—that, arguably, to their eyes was design.

They didn't see the deep work that was happening, the iterations before the designer is comfortable putting up a wireframe or an industrial design sketch. The creative process was quite foreign, like, "what do you mean by 'discovery'? We hire a market research agency to go do discovery for us."

So we said, let me show you what design investigation means and the superpowers that are required to do that well. Let me show you what the ideation process means and how prototypes and stories can actually propel us forward into better thinking. And a lot of that doesn't happen in the team room always. We have to actually give the experts that we're bringing into this multidisciplinary conversation some room to breathe. I started writing about those experiences, those concerns. And that actually led to an invitation to give a talk at a TED Institute event in partnership with BCG in Milan, Italy, where we talked about the four superpowers of design. I shed a light on applications of design thinking and practice, but also sharing how to really give design as an expertise the ability to shine and to really go deep on opportunities. That balancing act is still very nebulous for most organizations.

So I think another interesting thing to flow into is one aspect of design thinking, this idea of quote-unquote, empathy. And I think that definition has really evolved even in this past year, because we're seeing the short handedness of that definition in design. This also relates to the discussion on design equity.

There are a number of organizations like Where Are the Black Designers? that have risen in the past year, and you've noted personally that promoting more black, BIPOC designers is a particular mission to you. This is such a huge question, but it's really just a starting point to our discussion. Where do you personally think employers and fellow designers are missing the mark in this regard?

It is a big question, but we need to talk about this more. Unfortunately I think we have a sort of an ivory tower problem in design, that's fair to say. And the reason why I say we have an ivory tower problem is, many times, whether we're embracing a design-thinking mindset, human-centric mindset, we tend to relish in the pedigree of our studios or teams. And we talked about walking in someone's shoes or designing for the audience that we're serving and we run the risk of designing with inherent biases, of making gross or hasty assumptions about people and we may design stuff that we like, or that we can envision ourselves going through. But we might not realize that, in the act of doing that, we exclude so many, we exclude some important value criteria, sensitivities, realities that our audiences, our increasingly diverse and interconnected audiences are going through.

And we're not just talking about society as one-note people, by race or gender or whatever it might be, we're talking about intersectional human beings that have many layers of diverse perspectives informed by their lived experience. And when I look at a lot of design studios, innovation studios, they don't represent the world that they're arguing that they're serving. They're not mirroring the world in terms of representation. And oftentimes, I hear the rhetoric of, "There are just not enough black designers to hire, BIPOC designers to hire." Yes, the community, the population is small, and I think there are a number of forces that feed into that. For example, there's the lack of investment in the arts and design education in the early years of primary school and study so people can even realize it could be a career path.

There's also the lack of diversity at top design institutions, and these kinds of things play into it. But there still is a pipeline—it's a myth to say that there's not a pipeline there. There are minority or underrepresented designers of every sort out there pioneering and finding their own voice in the industry. But unfortunately, the industry doesn't necessarily look for or celebrate their voices. And I think thanks to the Internet and the advances of connectivity, black designers are sort of peeking up from their efforts to burrow and carve new lanes. They are looking up for the first time and waving at each other like, "Hey, here I am! I'm over here!" This person over here's doing a similar thing, let's connect. And that's when you see platforms, like Where Are the Black Designers, and kudos to Mitzi [Okou, WATBD founder] and those who are pioneering the formation of these communities. So it's a testimony of, hey there is a pipeline.

When I look at my peers and friends who come from HBCUs, where the industry doesn't talk to them or doesn't even think of them as credible players when they absolutely are, they overlook that incredible talent coming out of those schools. Again, we have a perception problem that the pipeline is a problem when it's not, that's a myth. It almost feeds into an excuse that a lot of design teams make around their next generation of hires.

Another part of this whole struggle is, like you were saying, getting more BIPOC designers in those roles. And I'm really interested in that question around, how do designers and organizations begin to invest in those designers with great potential, but maybe less of the extensive credentials we see listed on job descriptions?

Yeah, it's an unfortunate conversation. Because I listen to all these conversations, whether it's design Twitter or whatever, around these pedantic requirements and these platitudes around requirements being floated around, like what makes a good portfolio or what makes a good design interview. And I watch the people that are making those claims or asserting those requirements. And if they were honest with themselves, looking at themselves in the mirror, I don't think they can measure up to the pedagogy that's being espoused in these conversations.

And honestly, after touching many Fortune 100 enterprises and navigating large organizations and helping startups, when you look at the work, and perhaps the lack of empathy, the lack of relevance to the dynamic paradigm changes that are happening in the marketplace, that lack of humility, ultimately their posture shows itself in the work.

Now, in my experience, and at least the BCG example, we were cultivating digital ventures and building and design functions out of nothing. You know, of course we were victims of habit to where, for example, I came from ArtCenter. And naturally operating out of LA, the school was right in my backyard so of course, I'm going to go to my ArtCenter network to find my first hires for the growing design function.

But after a little while, I felt uncomfortable with that because we need different points of view on the pedagogy, because the market needs are vacillating all over the place. And we need a diversity of lived experiences, approaches to methods, approaches to empathy and compassion and idea creation. We need people to really push us—every hire is critical and diversifying our ability to be nimble and flexible and agile to the needs of the market. And so we had to think about, where else on the planet do we need to go to find like-minded practitioners? Yes, in terms of the fundamental things that we know are needed, but we need diverse actors to come in—women, BIPOC people, you know, people with different lived experiences, different backgrounds, different pedagogies. We need different people pushing us and really breaking our methods physically for the better, so that we can come up with new methods that are more relevant and more impactful. And sure enough, you know, after a handful of years, you look back and realize, oh, wow, this is the most diverse place I've ever worked because we really pushed ourselves to find additional hires who were going to push us and take us to new realms of performance and possibility.

And in your experience, how do you think the process of design changes when there are more BIPOC and women designers are a part of or leading that conversation?

First is, in many ways navigating industry, our lived experiences put us in a position to hyper empathize, if that makes sense, because we've had to do everything to not just do the work but also make our teammates or stakeholders comfortable with our very being in the room. I can't tell you how many times I've been mischaracterized just based on people's initial impression of my sitting in the room. You know, not to conjure up all the negative things, and there's been a ton of positive things that I've had the privilege of experiencing, but I think the BIPOC person does have those challenges of being perceived as a junior person in the room, of being the quiet person in the room, or being the one that's expected to be the most calm and comforting to make sure the room is okay versus bringing bold assertion.

But what's interesting is that I think those experiences help us be hyper empathetic when we're dealing with folks that are different from us, when it comes to investigating things happening in the field, of having a volition to ensure that any audience that we engage, we're actually treating them as respected co-creators, not just as research subjects to study. That includes practicing inclusion, and deliberately conveying what inclusion means based on our normal everyday habits, because we've had to do that ourselves. And having an eye toward diversity as not just some extracurricular social impact endeavor, that it actually will move us forward or move us to a bad place if we're not careful, if we're not invested in the practices of diversifying as we're growing and designing capabilities.

I think a lot of design organizations historically have thought their intent was enough to show that they are harbingers of change, yet movements to illuminate the lack of women and BIPOC leaders in the industry are showing there's an enormous amount of work still to be done. In your opinion, how can organizations prove their dedication to this mission? And how do you think we make sure it isn't strictly left to BIPOC individuals to fight for change?

There's a lot of conversation happening right now around, how do you become a better ally? Folks like Ti [Chang] and Raja [Schaar], incredible women out there in the field are definitely leading these conversations of how do you, as a white design leader or design practitioner, become a better ally in these situations? Where the burden isn't always on BIPOC or women, you know, folks trying to be at least be considered, respected, included members.

I think an education is required in terms of just recognizing that it's not enough to think about design thinking as a human-centered mindset and that if you do those things, empathy is taken care of, compassion is taken care of, and we're all good. It's not enough to think about business, design, and technology being integrated, even though that's a new novelty over the last 10 years. Still, that's not enough to think that way. We have to humble ourselves and recognize that every design decision, every business decision, every application topology, there are broader ramifications that we need to think about now because the world is especially hyper-connected.

If we reinforce messages from folks like John Maeda or Kat Holmes around the power of computation and the need for inclusion, you know, these elements are so intertwined now. And so that white male design constituent definitely needs to educate themselves on the interconnectedness, and also the threads of historic inequities that have shaped the BIPOC pipeline. That there is a pipeline, but just recognize that your pedantic requirements around what constitutes a successful designer need to be questioned, those assumptions need to be dismantled, because many of us who have had to figure out creative ways to even thrive and survive in this industry are not getting celebrated for it and being rewarded for it.

We found design through unconventional means because we didn't have the pathways of privilege that some others have had. And not to say that they didn't work hard, we're not taking anything away from our white brothers and sisters in the field, you've worked hard for sure. But at the same time, recognize that your BIPOC constituents have worked incredibly hard to survive. And we've had to bring atypical experiences to find our way into the lane of design. And so your evaluation methods against us add an additional burden. And I honestly felt it where I've walked through the lobbies of your favorite world class design studios only to be completely insulted in terms of how I was treated. I've sometimes felt the insulting nature of the interview process where I'm already on unfair ground because I'm not part of your clique and don't understand your language, or the pedigrees that you think are important that I clearly haven't had, or haven't had the luxury of even having because I wasn't afforded those paths of privilege. So you're already discounting me before I can even open my mouth or crack open my portfolio.

And I'm not just sharing this from my own experience. With my BIPOC friends, we hold up receipts with each other as these companies espouse platitudes of wanting to do the right thing. But we share receipts about what has happened to us. There's been gross mistreatment by the industry toward us. And so all that BS, if you will, has to stop. And the industry needs to humble itself to realize that your world class design studios of XY and Z do not mirror the world. And this is not about social impact. This is about, for one, human imperative to do the right thing. But secondly, you're missing out and the organizations you're serving are clearly missing out on business opportunity, because you can't respond to the market.

Just a quick benchmark to add to that idea—We started BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV), or restarted I should say with BCG backing us, at the start of 2014. And you know, we started as a no-name entity, no one knew who BCGDV was. But going from a handful of us to almost 1000 people by the time I left in the spring of 2018, and one third of that organization was design, and Forrester rated Digital Ventures as the number one digital transformation capability in the marketplace… You know, I credit diversity as being a huge catalyst for us to be able to have that level of recognized impact.

I wanted to talk a little bit about your involvement on the board of Don Norman's Future of Design Education Initiative [Bethune is a Steering Committee Member]. I feel that fits well into our conversation right now of, what responsibility design education has today and making room for more voices in the industry. I'm curious about the conversations you're having and what you're working on within that team.

The initial Future of Design Education Initiative group consisted of roughly 16 steering committee members who are reflective of the world in terms of BIPOC women, cross gender representation. Once formed, we essentially then problem solved, thinking, if we were to talk to the world's collective of academic institutions and community of design practitioners around the future of design education, we need to comprehend what has been working in the field in terms existing pedagogy, foundational elements of learning, and make sure we don't erode that or dilute that. Make sure that the strong things continue forward.

But we also need to shake up and recognize that much of the pedagogy has come from, again, circles of or threads of systemic inequity, privilege, and power dynamics that have shaped how we think about what constitutes good design education. There's probably an opportunity to hold up a mirror on the changing nature and changing nuances of that to reflect the world paradigms, and to ask ourselves, does the present pedagogy measure up? Can we actually handle the shifts that are happening in the world and ensure that our students are prepared to address those future challenges?

And in some cases, we can say yep, we tick the boxes, these methods still make sense to move forward in other areas, and we have some glaring gaps. And part of that conversation is taking stock of all the other pedagogies that exist in the world that we've just completely overlooked, other cultures and how they think about creativity, how they think about prototyping to address human needs. There are things happening in the emerging markets that we need to take stock of, new dynamic methods of education that are being employed in pockets that didn't have a voice. We want to have this platform and give them a voice. And then all of a sudden, you have this new set of recommendations that I think, reflect a couple of things.

I think the recommendations we'll make to the community after [our initial research is done] is to say, okay, how are we actually leveraging a new sense of breadth of how design collaborates with the world? And by breadth I mean, how do we coach our future designers to collaborate in a hyper-diverse, hyper-connected world? How do we get them to appreciate respectfully as well as ethically the power of computation, that being such a huge threat in our lives moving forward? How do we get future designers to recognize the threads of systemic imbalance and recognize ways to dismantle or reimagine or disrupt, to create opportunities for everyone, not just some and that is going to be a part of that future pedagogy. Then still, beyond breadth, which which involves collaborating and communicating differently, bring your depth of design expertise. And that's an additive conversation because a lot of the pedagogy—in terms of visualization and prototyping and form making, sense making, investigation—those things are absolutely still required to move forward. But we need to build on them and ensure designers feel they are empowered and enabled and understand where they need to go deep with their craft, to make sure that we're still championing the best practices of design to their fullest potential in every opportunity we find ourselves in.

Lastly, as the Consumer Tech Jury Captain in this years Core77 Design Awards, I'm curious to hear what you're hoping to see and what type of work will stand out to you?

My hope is that we can serve as a new exemplar of sort of reimagining and re-questioning, do we have the right success criteria to evaluate each of the proposed submissions as relevant to the needs of a changing world, inclusive of different audiences? I would definitely be curious, and I'm sure my fellow jury members would be very curious in terms of, what were the initial tipping point inspirations or insights that led to each of the design proposals or submissions? Were they coming from a place of really finding that hidden voice and underserved voice, are they really tapping into the deeper value criteria that makes us human? Just designing for existing sensibilities with market convention, projects that are really pushing the needle toward making a new level of impact that can be inspiring, and creating a new way for how designers proceed. Those are just a few elements that I hope will come out of the conversation this year.

Thinking of submitting to the Consumer Technology category in the 2021 Core77 Design Awards? Submit today—Regular Deadline ends March 9th.

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