Design

Thinking

is

a

Rebrand

for

WHITE

Supremacy

how the current state of design is just a digitally updated status quo

by darin buzon

march 2, 2020

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Introduction

For all of the progress proclaimed by evangelists, little has changed from the previous century for design today. Designers still are overwhelmingly white with most executive positions continuing to be occupied by the 36% minority of men within the industry. This demographic truth, however, reflects a more urgent issue that manifests itself in structures that reify its status quo.

With design becoming one of the most visible professions in the United States, who qualifies to enter its gates is of serious inquiry amidst the deepening socio-economic divide between Americans. In spite of supposed attempts at diversifying the industry, entry is barred by arbitrary certification, exorbitant costs for design boot camps, and the saturation of work primarily to be reserved in rapidly gentrified urban centers.

This form of colonialism however was never unique to design nor the tech giants which have co-opted it. We have seen in modern history how the extraction of wealth takes many forms: the pillaging of indigenous lands, cultural appropriation, and wage theft which its victims today continue to be under Stockholm syndrome induced by their masters.

Indeed, capitalism and its ruthless operations is nothing new to the United States but design appropriated as an extension to capitalist venture has never actually progressed simply because the tools now live digitally. The prescriptive nature of Modernism never escaped contemporary conversation, rather it became one of many rebrands in the 21st century to co-opt the weaponization of design. Indeed, Modernism has undergone a rebrand and today is marketed as “Design Thinking.”

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Modernism

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While Design Thinking has only recently taken the spotlight, its essence takes precedence from the Modernist movement. Pioneer Tim Brown frequently references Modernist practitioners including Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Isamu Noguchi as precursors to the Design Thinking dogma. But at what point of intersection intertwines Modernism to Design Thinking? Why is it that Modernism has acted as such a reference point for the Design Thinking doctrine?

It is in this that Modernists often proclaimed design as neutral, viewing style as divorced from content and inheriting a universal ability to communicate to any human being. But to highlight once more, such aspirations to achieve this is impossible let alone prone to racism. Doing so renders all the nuances of humanity to a uniform visual code.

It is impossible to divorce content from form and certainly context from a practitioner. However, those who proclaimed to do so or even urge others to follow suit inherit the privilege of not being affected by such a sociopolitical context because the context in which they live in safeguards them from experiencing the heightened consciousness the marginalized are forced to reckon with. This act of prescribing racelessness or more broadly neutrality is itself a racial or sided act. An urgent questioning forms: What is universal? What templates as neutral? What are our defaults?

These sentiments are far from gone today. They have revived themselves into the current digital landscape. And when the systems go unchallenged, its byproducts maintain and perpetuate the manufacturing of these grim realities. What is Modernism if not the cultural weapon to erase nonwhite aesthetics? What then is Design Thinking if not its succeeding methodology for cultural white hegemony?

in white supremacy, whiteness is default. and through the creation of whiteness in america, anything outside of it acts as a difference in which it is vehemently targeted.

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Flat Design

Today, visual design no longer solely exists for example on the canvas of a poster nor the printed matter bound into books. It exists intangibly, embodying products completely removed from physical space. It works to represent businesses with no offices, or technology with no hardware.

The state of affairs for design today, however, acquire a familiar yet different insidious development. Recall that in Modernism, design was “universal” only if it adopted a certain curated form, adhering to stylistics codes. Even going so far as to codify standards, the conversation of design accreditation tried transcending into institution. Were designers so insecure that the erecting of arbitrary gates seemed like the remedy to validate themselves? And yet while absurd to imagine, it is precisely the reality design today inherited.

What tie Modernism and Design Thinking so frighteningly close was the shared sentiment of catering to the “needs of humanity” and “centering the human in the design process.” Yet this assertion inevitably becomes empty since no single design approach can ever truly be universal or wholly ubiquitous to any one human experience. By bankrupting design through “neutrality” or “universal humanness,” making judgments through an ocean of sticky notes drowns cultural implications from its purview. The incessant insistence that “design is human” or that “design empathizes with the user” not only plays into white supremacist defaults of a user/human but also creates a carefully constructed lexicon which persuades lay people that design is a nonnegotiable product intended to be sold whether or not some lay people may fit the target audience to be served.

The unchallenged mindset of seeing the world as a landscape to redesign and “make better” (as if everything in the world is a problem to be solved) is not so much to proselytize design itself but rather under capitalism to make morally just the existence of the corporations these design evangelists represent. At the end of the day, Design Thinking is so entrenched in capitalism that the euphemism of “human-centered design” is only so “human” as it relates to the underlying business model. And perhaps this is why criticism on Design Thinking seems so little considering its rigid framework does not provide a vocabulary for an alternative outside of raw capitalism.

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at the end of the day, design thinking is so entrenched in capitalism that the euphemism of “human-centered design” is only so “human” as it relates to the underlying business model.

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Conclusion

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The reality is that designers simply aren’t best suited to tackle all the deep-rooted systemic challenges that we have ordained ourselves to solve. For all the jargonistic gravity that revolves around being “empathetic” in the design process, perhaps the correct approach is simply to take a step back, remove oneself from the conversation, and acknowledge the original caretakers of the space we occupy.

At the end of the day, both Modernism and Design Thinking are byproducts of white supremacist capitalism that maintain its operations through a thinly veiled promise for visionary change. No matter how progressive a designer’s politics may be, unless overthrown we are all complicit in the unabated maintenance of capitalism.

Unless we decolonize design through a radical shift towards alternative practices, we continue to lose sight of the margins and watch the process of design being weaponized, neglecting those barred from its gates. It is in this that our urgent call as designers ultimately is to accept the responsibility of design not as a tool for oppressive capitalist exploitation or cultural hegemony but instead challenge the status quo in an effort to uplift the communities which it targets and decolonize the practice to prevent such a reemerging from happening in the future.

In this call to action, our efforts towards an equitable society begin with maintaining this criticality of our industry and relentlessly continue providing the radical alternatives to white supremacist capitalism which might liberate us from this cycle of oppression.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darin Buzon works with letters in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in its Design | Media Arts program, where he developed and continues to maintain a practice primarily focused within cultural and public spheres of work. He thinks, writes, criticizes, and creates in subjects centering around the contemporary in politics, power, technology, and culture. Ultimately a working-class person, he talks like a normal person IRL.

Find him on his website, Instagram, and X.

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