Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Cultural colonization

Definition of cultural colonization

The assumption that colonization patterns and imperialism in general, regard only territories or space is a huge mistake. Along with conquering the area, the culture is also affected. It is colonized. Nowadays the term “cultural colonization” is exchanged with “cultural appropriation”, but they mean the same thing.31

Cultural colonization, or appropriation, is a one-sided process of adopting the elements from the culture of a minority and benefiting from it without the permission and approval of the group, as well as not giving back anything valuable in return. One of the consequences of cultural appropriation is the oblivion of the marginalized group’s culture. Because of the changing of the cultural symbols’ initial meanings and by providing no references to the culture of origin, the history of the oppressed group is erased and allowed to be misinterpreted, left undocumented, and thus, forgotten.

But while appropriating the culture of the minority and exploiting it, the colonizer rewards the group with “universal” and “standard” western culturalcodes, claiming that it will enhance an “undeveloped” culture, educate it and allow it to enter the high society of the world. The results of this process are called “cultural crisis”. In this concept western culture is seen as the highest step of evolution. Even though the evolutionary concept of culture was largely abandoned, it is still embedded in our status quo.32

But when did this process of standardization start? Centuries ago the African continent was full of different writing systems. However, when the colonizers from Europe came, they imposed their Latin writing systems over the indigenous ones to be able to control the communication and have more power over locals.33 The same process happens in the visual communication field nowadays for the glory of capitalism. For example, when advertisements hand-painted by locals are being replaced with factory-made plastic signs leaving no trace of the individuality of the local community.

Hidden racism in design

It is no secret that racism is a result of colonization. In the imperialist era, scientific racism was extremely wide-spread to justify colonization and slavery. A lot was done to artificially differentiate races so one could gain all the power and profit from others. In fact, such labels as “black” and “white” were invented to establish the biggest linguistic contrast possible and therefore a hierarchy in society in times of colonialism.34 This hierarchy is deeply rooted into our bias, so everything ever designed in the world was based on the assumption that western culture is a supreme standard.

Five races from Isotype collection by Otto and Marie Neurath

© University of Reading

It explains why there is still a lot of hidden racism in modern culture, including in visual communication. Take Isotype, the International System of Typographic Picture Education. This system of “universal” graphics was invented by the Viennese philosopher Otto Neurath in 1920 to enable communication outside of any language, so even illiterate people could understand a depicted information. The goal was commendable, but if one looks closely at this system, one will notice, that “races are reduced to five, with the white race first, and the non-white races as secondary, depicted as dark, shirtless, and with traditional attire.” 35 In addition to racism we can see “othering” of all non-white races and reducing their cultural backgrounds to one object – a hat or a hairstyle. Isotype was proclaimed a standard and became so successful, that it still influences icon design. But this “standard” is just a standard of imperialist Europe and is extremely far from being universal.

Cultural appropriation in design

Yet systemic racism and cultural appropriation are different sides of the same coin. Both of them are products of colonization, which change the perception of marginalized groups and their culture.

Using cultural elements outside of their context, this system of power creates a stereotypical image of the minority. These stereotypes are harmful because they make indigenous people fit into the box of prejudices and expectations coming from the simplified version of their culture. Ethnic typefaces often have nothing in common with real cultures but rather with the history of their application. Ethnic typography is actively being used in restaurants to prove how “authentic” they are or in movie posters to create some “exotic” vibe.

Chinese Restaurant Fonts collection on the website with design resources.

Source: fontspace.com

But cultural appropriation can be not only misleading, but offensive as well. In February 2020 one British brewery launched a new sort of Indian Pale Ale named “Veda”. Vedas, in fact, are large bodies of sacred texts and the basis of the oldest religion in the world – Hinduism. That is why the product was immediately criticized by an Indian society. Hindus urged the brewery to withdraw this ale and apologise. The president of Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed, stated that “using Vedas to sell beer was highly insensitive and trivializing of the immensely revered body of sacred and serious knowledge.” 36

Another big problem connected to cultural appropriation is the existence of double standards in western society. In the design canon, everything created by marginalized cultures is labeled as craft or ethnic art, even though the same things created by white people would be considered design. A good example is the textile industry. There are plenty of study programs in Textile Design in Europe what implies that textile in the west is being designed, but textile produced in Ghana gets cast as art rather than actual design even if the result is mostly the same. 37

Ghanian batik

© Image by Molly Hamilton

Work of the Textile Design student Sara Kelly, Chelsea College of Arts

© Sara Kelly

Problematics of cultural appropriation

In many ways the topic of cultural appropriation is problematic. In the last few years, it earned some popularity in the west. Accusations of cultural appropriation became trendy. But the understanding of the term worsened drastically. To be considered a cultural appropriation, an occasion has to be pointed out by the representatives of the oppressed culture. But nowadays the privileged white race decides again for other races, what they should be offended by.

Karlie Kloss appears in Spirited Away editorial

© Mikael Jansson for Vogue US March 2017

To prove these words I want to discuss one example. In 2017 Karlie Kloss was photographed for Vogue magazine in Japan styled as Geisha. The model was accused of cultural appropriation for not being Asian and being styled like one. She issued an apology right after it became a scandal.38 But the problem I saw, in this case, was that all the blaming voices were not representing the culture that was supposed to be appropriated. On the opposite, Karlie Kloss got a lot of support from Japanese people telling her that they see the difference between art and appropriation. And this beautiful creative photoshoot was not insulting to them at all.

Moreover, domination of this topic in media made people worry about whether it is allowed to try on traditional clothing if you are not a native of the culture. But representatives of non-western cultures sometimes ask themselves the same questions: is wearing a kimono by a white person not the same as wearing jeans by them? Is it allowed now? Does it not divide people even more into “us” and “them” and give the opposite effect?

With the globalization of the world, a lot of cultures began mixing into one due to the normalization and the spreading of interracial and intercultural marriages, as well as a lot of languages die out. It is a sad yet natural process. So I think of the topic of cultural appropriation as some sort of controversy. The phenomenon is definitely complex and a lot of it is in a grey area.

I believe it is important to know that there are some irresponsible and disrespectful cases of cultural appropriation as well as some moments where our society overreacts to what is initially an inevitable process. And some white people, while trying to make the world a better place, still lack one quality – the ability to hear others.

Designer under capitalism

Why designers contribute into cultural appropriation

As the western culture was implanted as a standard, the western design canon was accepted as universal too. We are convinced that design is just an instrument and therefore neutral. But design is an instrument of capitalism, and capitalism is an instrument of colonization.37 It means that the same colonial patterns as in space exploration exist in visual communication.

Sometimes people underestimate the influence of graphic design on society. As does verbal language, visual language also shapes our image of the world and defines our visual landscape.39 We unconsciously learn the norm from what we see around, but the world is not perfect yet. So what is seen is often full of racism, prejudices, stereotypes, disregard, and injustice. The danger of having a universal design canon lies in excluding all the rest of the cultures and in “othering” them, supporting the established hierarchy. We have to admit that design has the ability to oppress. Design a priori is not neutral. Everything we do is political. We either support the discriminating status quo by helping to sell irresponsible products and services, or we help to demolish this system.

Racist or exclusive design solutions are results of education. The years of oppression of non-white people led to a major dominance of the white in every sphere of life, including design education. Western conventions largely prevail in the field of visual communication. And when this homogenous group of creatives tells everyone what is “good”, then professional society adopts a similar style.

When a young designer comes to a school, the school often lacks teachers and professors from various backgrounds. If this design-student comes from marginalized background, he gets neither a room nor support for his own design practice. The teaching process is unified to a western canon, and students have no idea how they can develop their own approach to design while being judged according to a “universal” one.37

The reason why designers contribute to cultural appropriation is because the awareness of this issue is not taught in design schools. While in cultural studies this problem is being discussed since the 60s, conversations about it are rarely on the designers’ curriculum even now.31 “Designers are trained to be chameleons.” They often do what they are asked to, not questioning themselves whether their work contributes to this systematic racism or not. Yet it is not possible to decolonize design completely within this capitalist system as we depend upon it. But designers still need to be aware of the problem and address the issues of politics and prejudice in their work.

One more problem of design education that I have already discussed in the context of cultural colonization, is double standards. Works produced by non-western cultures are often undervalued by the canon and are not considered design. But we see the hierarchy even inside of the western canon. Capitalism made us think that northern minimalistic design looks expensive, while colourful and playful southern design seems cheap. Do we still choose to believe in it?

What designers have to do

Nowadays I see two polar roles in the design world, around which all designers more or less gravitate. The first role is the designer as a celebrity and the second one is the designer as a reporter. These roles shape the industry but also reflect its current state – mainly that the industry is stuck in an identity crisis, and being just a graphic designer is not enough anymore.40

Social media era boosted the role of designer as celebrity even further after it was formed in the 90’s. In this concept “the personality comes first and the work comes second.” 39 We see a lot of organizations in the visual communication field which support this idea entirely. Most of the conferences are conducted not to educate, but to raise popularity of popular practitioners even more. And of course to entertain. There I should note, that none of that is done to harm. However, nothing good comes from this approach either. Popularity in this context also became a problematic measure of success and professional worth. Because of that I often doubt my professional skills as well. If It’s nice that does not publish articles about me, do I deserve to get a job and get paid for it?

The problem of this designer role is in supporting the existing system. Nothing in the world will change for better if we continue to look at nice pictures and listen to motivational stories of success. Yet a lot of internet resources for graphic designers still prefer to publish materials focusing on aesthetics rather than on the social and political issues that are hidden behind a beautiful branding. And designers are still being judged based on the “coolness” of their work.41

The role that in some ways fights this order of things is the designer as a reporter. During the last decades, we have been confronted with quite a few definitions of: designer as an author, designer as an editor, and many others. But I believe that designer as a reporter is the most radical yet uniting form of them all.

Being a reporter for designers means telling stories, showing the truth, and becoming an expert in something beside design itself. The work of a designerreporter is self-initiated visual journalism. This way of creating is political and could be a kind of activism that does not agree with the world as it is. Design in this case is carefully used to translate the narrative correctly. This approach makes the designer think more about the effect that his work has when perceived by the audience. Furthermore, a visual journalist has an opportunity to change the current discriminating system, which should be the initial goal of everyone who has this power.

So what can designers do to help subverting the status quo? Decolonize design! “The term ‘decolonization’ was originally used to describe the withdrawal of a state from a former colony.” In design, the key to decolonization is realising that the standards we have been taught are not universal. But to do so is extremely hard. For us to unsee the Western culture as the only right one could be compared to getting a “fish to understand it’s in water.” 37

Decolonizing design is a long process of “shuttering the familiar,” and some steps should be taken to achieve better results. In this section I will list some opinions and recommendations, which I have found useful for those who wish to contribute to the movement of decolonizing design.

1. First of all, designers should educate themselves not only about aesthetics, but about politics as well, and learn to see hidden colonial patterns in visual communication and in their own biases.

2. Designers should be aware for whom and what they are designing. They should rethink the needs of the audience and constantly ask themselves how their design solutions “might be experienced in someone else’s shoes.” By avoiding it, designers assume that everyone in the world has the same background and the same grade of visual literacy, which is not true.

3. Designers should make sure not to take charge of another’s narrative or to appropriate what is not theirs. Designers should recognize when a project is not theirs to take. This means letting people from marginalized backgrounds work on everything that is connected to their culture.

4. If designers have some financial stability they are welcome to work with non-profit organizations, projects, agencies, or other institutions. Doing the kind of work that will be beneficial for society in the long run could be a more purposeful alternative to making money.

5. If designers have a voice which could be heard, it is their responsibility to speak up. To be not only a designer-celebrity but a designer-reporter and designer-activist as well.

6. Designers should help eliminating “the false distinctions between craft and design, in order to recognise all culturally important forms of making.” 37 Double standards must be debunked and local art and design respected.

7. The industry itself should try to reflect the actual world gender and ethnic ratios as in the working places as in the produced visuals. Design studios and agencies should embrace more diverse practitioners from all cultures to give everyone an equal chance to succeed and to make design products more intelligent and sensitive. But while “diversity is about bringing more people to the table,” decolonization is also about knowing “which kind of seat you are offering.” 37 It is a responsibility of the agency to create a workplace environment that is welcoming for people of all backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.

Current and future generations of designers have to be more critical and inclusive in order to free the design. That is why all of us should constantly educate ourselves to be more tolerable and understandable to anyone whose experiences we could not live through.

What designers have already accomplished

Intentions to free visual communication from stereotypes are not something new. On the contrary, the first attempts were taken already at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1925 Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy stated that capital letters were a sign of authority and power, therefore they were discriminational. This design solution became even more popular over time, for graphic designers it was a way to break traditions and, at the same time, to use another fancy aesthetic.

Later on there was an attempt to change capitalization in the opposite direction as well – by writing “Black” with a capital letter, when speaking about race, the same as it was for the “White” race since the colonial times.

We could also observe how depicting beauty standards in advertising was becoming more inclusive. One of the first steps in this direction was made by Dove in 2004. Since then a lot changed, and now we see a good amount of beauty and fashion brands advocating for the natural beauty of all sizes, ages, and races. This change also had an opposite effect: some companies started profiting from faking diversity by using pictures from photo stocks that did not reflect the actual situation in the company. This cheating is easy to recognize and just using diverse pictures does not make the company any better neither for minorities working in them nor in the eyes of society looking at identically blueprinted ads.

Ogilvy & Mather, ‘Dove Campaign for Real Beauty’, 2007

© Dove

Monki Christmas 2017 Campaign

© Monki

The last couple of years have also contributed to the history of protests in graphic design. Instagram now is filled up with all kinds of carousel guides with political messages. These instructions are supposed to not let the moments of protest remain just moments. While being extremely popular and easily understandable, this way of posting exists in spite of Instagram algorithms that are recommending only a certain type of content to its users: portraits of people, vacation photos, and motivational quotes. Graphic designers do fight this injustice by disguising political content as the one that would be preferred by social media. However, there is a controversy as well: not all the users do good research before posting these instructions. That is why no information should be taken as the truth without further detailed fact-checking.

Carousel posting in Instagram explaining what gaslighting is.

Source: @soyouwanttotalkabout

Despite all the controversies, things are slowly but constantly improving. And this is of course not the full list of designers’ accomplishments in terms of decolonizing design. In this section, I would like to recommend more resources for further reading on the topic.

The Politics of Design by Ruben Pater was a good starting point for understanding the concept of cultural appropriation and racism in visual communication. For more advanced readers The Decolonizing Design movement has its own website, where they post articles and educational materials. The multilingual research platform depatriarchisedesign.com provides materials and conducts workshops on the politics of design, gender unbalance, etc. And this list must go on. There are also numerous manuals and separate articles which I have found interesting and which I will additionally mention in the sources of this work.