Design community solidarity
Design inspiration series. This week: design community solidarity, designing for belonging, equality and diversity, cross-cultural design and more.

The Design Community Must Not Stay Silent
Harrison Wheeler invites the design community to use their power to question systems that are not right. We work with empathy, reasearch and solution-based approaches every day. It’s time we use the same techniques to find better ways to support and uplift our black neighbours, friends and colleagues.
🔗 Read the article (on Medium)
Designing For Belonging: Why Image Localization Matters
Music can be a unifying experience. But it’s also a personal and localized one, explains Nora Ahlenius. How do you make a global product feel inclusive and relevant for people all over the world? Spotify does representation well, through research, involving local experts, and by questioning bias.
🔗 Read the article (on Spotify Design)
Blast Off: Visionary Vintage Children’s Book Celebrates Equality, Diversity, and Space Exploration
“For as long as she could remember, Regina Williams wanted to become an astronaut,” the story begins. Regina is a black girl with a passion for space exploration and is the protagonist of “Blast Off”, an inspiring and imaginative book from 1973.
🔗 Read the article (on Brain Pickings)
Cross-Cultural Design by Senongo Akpem
The web has always been worldwide, and yet this concept is relevant today more than ever. Our designs should be able to create rich experiences for everyone, regardless of location, language or identity. If you’re curious about how our Western assumptions bias our design choices, this book is for you.
🔗 Read more (on A Book Apart)
The Culture Map: Breaking Through The Invisible Boundaries Of Global Business by Erin Meyer
Following on the topic of an ever more globalised world, this book is not much about design per se, but it helps navigate and decode the cultural differences within the context of business. Since work is likely to become remote for many in the design field, it is also plausible to spawn multicultural teams. A great opportunity to expand our mindset.
🔗 Read more (on Goodreads)
About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge
Reni Eddo-Logde is the author of the book Why I’m Not Longer Talking To White People About Race. Her 2018 podcast takes the conversation further, by looking at recent history that lead to the politics of today.
🔗 Listen here or on your favourite podcast platform.
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