Dr. Cheryl D. Miller: Let’s do the work for the next generation.
From the conversation with Lefteris Heretakis RCA s on Design Education Talks podcast
Hello and welcome to Design Education Talks by the New Art School. Our guest today is Dr. Cheryl D. Holmes Miller . Welcome Cheryl.
Hi, how are you and to our audience calling in today. Thank you very much for having me and happy new year.
Happy New year. It’s fantastic to have you here. So tell us about you and your work.
I’m a designer and an author and I am a design historian, a designer, you know, doing some decolonising graphic design history. And so I have been at this work and advocacy for BIPOC. As far as I’ve been at it over 40 years and this is what I do. I’m a design professor in the States and I’ve got loads of articles and styleship and recently two books published. And I’ve just got another conversation.
Now I just have another conversation to graphic design history. Wonderful. So how did you end up researching this kind of work? What was your journey? I felt a sense of urgency because the history is pretty sterile and there are other stories of the communities, globalisation, there’s a broad audience now and I’ve lived through a lot of history that has not been recorded.
And so I’ve had a sense of urgency to, to make sure that other stories are included in the design canon because design canon is pretty flat at this point. I say it’s flat because it’s been rehearsed so many times over, you know, over the modern era of graphic design in history. And I would say that I’m one of the elder stateswomen of the business.
I’m 72 years old. I started when I was a kid. And so I’ve lived almost two thirds of the history that gets replayed over and over again.
And it’s just pretty flat. And so a part of that is I know that there are other stories of design from different points of view, different locations, different genre. And our North American canon, it says repeated itself for decades.
And now the community of students that I teach is so diverse, honestly, they’re kind of tired of it. They are. They’re very tired of it, you know.
So my urgency is to publish and do scholarship that’s brand new and to record some stories and some histories that people aren’t aware of. Starts with my work and me, you know. I occupy a big space of travelling through design history, and I’m not recorded.
So a big part of it is the era of my greatest practise and my colleagues, and there’s just a lot going on that the standard, at least North American design canon doesn’t, it doesn’t tell those stories. So tell us more and tell us why that happened. Let’s start with the beginning.
Tell us why that happened?
Because the gatekeepers have been Eurocentric and trade publishing has narrowed the market of those who are published. It’s just the way the business is.
It’s just Eurocentric mail repeating the stories over decades of education and trade publishing. And now it’s a little more diverse, but that’s really it. Just the same players rehearsing the same story.
And in many cases, it’s an injustice, but there’s a demand now because the audience has changed. It’s broadened. And really, I find the kids are intolerant of just one perspective, design history.
Yeah, they come in from around the world to study. They don’t see themselves necessarily in the content that’s being driven toward them in history. And it’s just black.
That’s the only thing I say. It’s just a repetitive historical timeline that’s been told over and over and over and over again. And it’s a very strong Eurocentric, Baha’i, Swiss, German story over and over and over again.
Over and over and over again. And there have been so many authors, so many books, so much content that excludes everybody else that the demographic who’s out here now doesn’t always represent, you know, the archives and body of work in terms of education and approach that has become the main diet.
So how it’s happened is a very strong Eurocentric, German and Swiss perspective from a male patriarchal view has repeated itself into our community. That’s just the way it is. So what has been left out? So who are the people and who are the other elements? The whole wide world is left out.
And in my world, the African-American community were great contributors. And there isn’t a day that doesn’t go by that, you know, I meet someone that says, oh, I didn’t know. Oh, I didn’t know.
You know, it starts with, oh, I didn’t know you. You know, I’ve been at it 50 years, you know. And so there are a lot of things that are complicit to this lack of awareness.
But my urgency is to publish and create new content that maybe not for such a time as this, but it’s definitely a need. And a part of that is looking out into our classrooms. And even the teachers don’t represent the student body that they see.
So there’s a void in all of it. Diverse professors, diverse content. And it doesn’t represent the demographic that is in the classroom.
What do educators and students need to look at more? What are they missing? Well, they need to look at design contributions around the world. And my current class, I’ve had a course that I developed that has now turned into a textbook. And it’s Decolonising Graphic Design from a Black Perspective.
It’s not a black history book. It is a graphic design history book that I show how I’ve been able to add stories into the main live canon. I believe in the canon.
You can’t be a designer without understanding the basic tenets of the canon. But my course prompts students to look into their ethnicity, their community, and to do the research necessary to broaden their scope. And so the place of correction is in this generation.
So my work is to inspire them and to give them scholarly tools in my courses for them to create new content. They’re going to be the new designers, the new authors. It’ll change eventually because they’re doing the work now.
So what would you like to see in those new designers? What I would like to see is their stories canonised. And my course starts with, I’ve canonised my own story from the African-American community. And so the prompts for the class is I teach the traditional canon.
I put new facts from my community on top of it. And I charge the students to go do research and scholarship to create stories from where they come from. My students come, I’m in a very unique position in having taught across the country through pandemic and I’ve been honoured to have a lot of keynote graduation ceremonies for honorary doctorates.
I’ve sat in some interesting graduation position of view from the dais and the designers that are graduating are not white dominant. And this is the reality. I teach at Art Centre in College of Design in Pasadena.
Please pray for our community there. I have, last semester I think I had one if two white students. I came along the whole class was dominantly white.
So the angle population, depending on where you’re studying in the country, in the United States has declined. And so continuing to teach a Eurocentric angle perspective to a community that’s not even sitting in your class, it’s pretty flat. So new work has to be done.
And so I’ve learned the students have taught me so much and I’ve been so active in a variety of places across the geography of the world that the new, like for example, I went to Pratt, last year I went to Pratt’s graduation exhibition and the students were so diverse and they come in from around the world to study here in America. And one graduating project, thesis capstone project, really caught my attention to the point of my conversation. I don’t know what part of the Mediterranean, I don’t recall where the student was from, but he had a project where he analysed Gulf, G-U-L-F, Gulf graphics. And I’m like, oh my goodness, I’ve never seen this type of analysis in any book. All right.
And so his thesis is a piece of scholarship where he analyses Gulf graphics. I just had a young designer from India in my publication class and he created the assignment there in ArtCenter in publication design with a spin on diversity. He did a 64-page book on the Indian truck drivers and analysed the trucks, the art, the Indian truck driver lifestyle, made the art, is unbelievable.
The trucks are unbelievable in expression. And so this is what I mean. My Asian community, ArtCenter is dominant Pan-Asian and the publications that we design are expansive and dynamic.
And hence, we’re, listen, the students that study with me, like Picasso says, you can’t break the rules unless you know them. Oh, they know Swiss. But when they start studying with me, I’m like, okay, so where did you come from? And what’s your order? What’s your design order? What’s your design system? And it’s in many ways, I celebrate what a student brings.
Okay, the sense of space is dynamic. Another project, one of my students that I met along the way also graduated and she did a complete analysis of the Black aesthetic that breaks every rule for Swiss in box. But nonetheless, the brands, the community, the audience are there for these young designers to step onto the platform of resistance to create product and brand.
So the times have changed. What, so my work, my work in my world proves my point or my thesis that the world I grew up in that was predominantly male Eurocentric angle isn’t the dominating force any longer. Now, I’m sorry, that’s a piece of resistance that’s hard to embrace, but it is so because of globalisation and America’s melting pot.
It’s just, it’s students from around the world coming here to study design from everywhere. It’s unbelievable. And they are the ones, social media has put them in a position to be emboldened to demand more.
Yeah. So I, in my world, I’m just supplying the portion of food I know. Have it be added, not correct. I don’t need to correct a cannon. I need to add to it. And I need to broaden it. I need to say it’s okay to tell more stories than Swiss and German. If this has got to be more stories.
And so with that, I have a scholarly approach that I call synoptic criticism. And synoptic criticism is, I’ll give an example. One of my baseline premises is that, let’s just take the era of the Renaissance, which is a great era for the development of our tools to the industry.
So typography, lithography, the printing press, those kinds of things that during the Renaissance era, you know, most of us teach. But my juxtaposition is that the same colonisers who developed this technology, okay, they were slave traders. They had two businesses going on.
And so I dare to show you how a lot of this technology was used to steal Africans. And make business. And so my book kind of shows you how the graphics were used, how the technology was used for the transatlantic slave trade.
Now who’s going to show you that? Who’s going to dare to tell you that? Okay. That the same timeline of the cannon, let’s just take that Renaissance era, is the same. And all of those colonisers, especially England, okay, you know, the main players of creating the technology, they’re also in a business of stealing Africans and promoting it.
So I talk about tobacco branding, slave branding, for sale. I mean, that’s controversial, but that’s what my book shows you. Because it’s from my perspective, oh, by the way, the colonisers that made the press, made the typography, made the lithography, you know.
I’m going to show you also, I mean, I’ve seen enough of Bible illumination pages. Let me show you what else is going on at the same time. And that’s controversial.
But it’s the slaves for sale, capture slaves, poster broadsides, a lot of the art, the woodcut. So when we talk about the woodcut in traditional, I’m going to show you woodcut, you know, from the slave trade. And it’s fascinating.
It’s beautiful. And then I go ahead and claim that the first, you know, part of my work has always been in this mantra of where are the Black designers. And so my community needed some answers.
And so my scholarship gives it. And so, you know, I claim the first Black artisan into the era of type and printing and, you know, graphic design, the term comes much later, but it’s all the process of printing, was your West African slave. And there’s no question about it.
They were the ones running the presses, you know, getting picked up from Africa. And a lot of that comes from my indigenous knowing. I’m a Danish West Indian with a rich history of the Ghanaian slave trade with Denmark.
And so I was able to track at least from my historical scholarship, because the slave trade goes all up and down the Ivory Coast. But in my story, and I saw a lot of tremendous amount of research from W.E.B. Du Bois that points to the West African slave artisan from Ghana travelling to colonial ports. And so the documentation of our history may not be pretty, but my community has been asking for decades, where are the Black designers? So I have two books out here where the Black designers are, which talks about my work, a lifetime work, and all of my findings to stop answering that question.
And my new textbook, “Decolonising Graphic Design from a Black Perspective”, is this synoptic view overlaid the traditional Eurocentric canon to show you more things and to encourage students who study with me to do that same rigour, to create more stories, because they’re going to be the ones to write the next set of books. So this work needs to be done. You know, I’m sorry, I’m one of resistance and transformation, but the work needs to be done.
What is your recommendation to colleagues that want to adopt your perspective?
First buy my book? By both of them. Become aware, okay, and start asking questions, and don’t be afraid to move past the traditional canonical timeline. You know, because there are other communities, let the students produce so that I’ve learned so much.
You know, in California, which is interesting, the Pan-Asian community, I teach students from Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwanese, and then they can be mixed. So they can have a mom that’s Chinese and a dad that’s Japanese. Their stories are brilliant and need to be recorded.
This generation, they’re going to be your next set of trade author, and they need to be allowed to, and not forced into holding these Eurocentric values. To be curious and let the students bring their stories forward. You’ve got to learn the basics, but they are bi-visual language
They come with a lot of stories that need to be celebrated just as well. And so colleagues just have to let the students be the students. And not be timid.
Then just because they’re not particularly acculturated, it’s like sampling new foods, you know. And I find the Eurocentric palette is pretty, it’s pretty flatline. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it can’t take too much.
Okay, so too much colour, too much, you know, too much boldness, too much, you know, everything has got to be splash left, rag right, Helvetica, a lot of white, one colour blue. And so pushing people who come with such brilliance and diversity all into that, you have to know that. Okay, what I’m saying is we have to know what other communities.
And so the willingness to change, you know, I find the students telling me egregious stories of professors who resist, resist their contributions in projects, in solutions, mostly because professors don’t understand a lot of culture. And that is surprising. I mean, I hate to make it a bold statement, but I’ve been in this community a long time.
And the resistance is what the students feel. And now they’re emboldened, social media will allow them to communicate when they’re unhappy. And they’re unhappy with pedagogy.
Okay, they want it broader. They don’t want, they don’t want the basics taken out, but they want some space to breathe. Yeah, absolutely.
So what is your recommendation to students that want to do research more on this part?
Do it. Don’t be afraid to do it. You know, and a lot of students might feel compromised in that, but that’s what it means to be a designer.
No, this is fantastic. This is a great contribution. And of course, there are colleagues on the other side as well.
I mean, I always encourage my students around the world to research their own culture first. So, I mean, there are colleagues that are also doing similar work to you. Right.
Yeah. So it just has to, it just has to multiply. Yeah.
And we’re in a transitional position. Okay. The industry is growing.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Is there anything else you’d like to add to our conversation?
That’s, you know, our time. Anything that will help to help us grow together is an important, you know, conversation. And that’s because I have a heart for the students from around the world.
They’re just demanding more of us. Yeah. Yeah, they’re demanding more from us.
And I think that there are new scholars writing that the Arab community is writing, the Mexican community is writing. To broaden the syllabus is our own responsibility to really study more books and stories. So it is, it’s a willingness to broaden that, make a new syllabus.
Okay, that’s, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot to pick from now. And I know it’s easy to cut and paste and, you know, move it from year to year. But if you really care about what’s going on, you’ll get involved with new books, new scholarship, visiting webinars, meeting new people.
A lot of it is not leaving our cadre behind, but inviting new people, you know, on the East Indian community, design is big, you know, move away from looking at ourselves with places that we have community. And you’re going to find new designers, new scholars, new professors, new teachers. Not many of us, it’s growing because the trajectory of to rise up in academia, you know, takes time.
So the professor pool is broadening. And just be willing, sometimes just be willing to have lunch with somebody that doesn’t look like you. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. How can our viewers and listeners find you? I think the greatest place is on my Instagram is where I post events and my stories. And it’s Cheryl D. Miller Fine Arts.
I was going to open a gallery, and I’ve just kept doing design work. I never changed the handle. So my going and comings, my colleagues, I promote events, things are there.
And then my LinkedIn page is also a great place. And right now I’m promoting both of my books and my textbook. My textbook, I’m really promoting right now heavily because everybody’s starting, you know, school again. And it’s a very interesting, it’s an interesting book. You have a hard copy of it, but it also, Kendall Hunt has published it into its e-learning format. And so it’ll drop down on a tablet.
It’s interactive, so it links out to extended content and pictures and things. And so you can find those links in my bio link. I know Kendall Hunt, so it’s maybe in this post, you can put the link for getting the textbook. Shows you how to do this. That’s the part of, I teach the canon. I show you how I created new stories. And the prompts for the students is to do the same work.
Wonderful. What advice would you like to leave us with?
Let’s do the work for the next generation.
Fantastic. Well, Cheryl, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And I look forward to following your work.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
I hope this attitude grows more. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, happy new year again.
Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is the leading voice for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the graphic design industry. Holmes-Miller is an American BIPOC communications designer, writer, artist, activist, and theologian, best known as a design justice advocate and decolonizing historian. She lectures widely, and in 2023–24 was Professor of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Communication Design, ArtCenter College of Design; Former Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Design at the University of Texas at Austin School of Design and Creative Technologies; lecturer at Howard University; and adjunct at the University of Connecticut. Holmes-Miller has been awarded the AIGA Medal and a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award as a Design Visionary, and she is a One Club Creative Hall of Fame inductee and an IBM Honorary Design Scholar.
https://www.instagram.com/cheryldmillerfineart/ https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/decolonizing-graphic-design-black-perspective https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_D._Miller https://www.printmag.com/book-club/print-book-club-recap-with-designer-writer-activist-cheryl-d-holmes-miller/
Since its inception in 2019, Design Education Talks podcast has served as a dynamic platform for the exchange of insights and ideas within the realm of art and design education. This initiative sprang from a culmination of nearly a decade of extensive research conducted by Lefteris Heretakis. His rich background, intertwining academia, industry, and student engagement, laid the foundation for a podcast that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of educational discourse. See all of our work on:
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