In the nearly forty years since Cheryl D. Miller took the design industry to task, asking why the design industry hasn’t made better use of Black talent (her 2016 follow-up is here), the number of Black designers has grown from a measly 1% to hovering somewhere between 3-4%. It’s movement, but not the kind that will bowl anyone over. Since her 1987 PRINT article, Miller has not stopped researching, writing, and working to preserve (and bring to light) the history of the contributions of Black graphic designers and artisans. During the political and cultural shift of the pandemic years and its renewed focus on social justice, her scholarship re-emerged, and people came looking for her. People wanted to know, “Cheryl, what’s your confederate statue?” (More on that later.)
Miller’s new historical memoir, Here: Where the Black Designers Are, is part of this topical resurgence with Cheryl Miller at the helm, but it’s also the story of a woman coming into her purpose, a reflection on all she’s learned, and a passing of the baton to the next generation. Steven Heller and Debbie Millman will discuss the book with Miller at our next PRINT Book Club on Thursday, October 17.
Miller and I chatted recently; excerpts from our conversation are below.
Advocacy and activism are just part of Cheryl Miller’s DNA. Growing up in Washington D.C. (her father, what she called a “highbrow negro politician”), Miller’s upbringing was somewhat insulated amidst the backdrop of Black nationalism, “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and Nina Simone, her father scooting out the back door to attend the March on Washington. She was busy “dancing and graduating” when MLK was assassinated. “I was a kid,” Miller said, “I didn’t realize I was deep in a big part of history.”
Design was also a central theme of Miller’s childhood. Dansk flatware, ceramics, and jewelry filled her family home, carefully wrapped in local newspapers and shipped by her West Indian grandmother, a perfumier. The juxtaposition of the muted, minimalist, function-forward Scandinavian housewares with the newspapers’ Afro-Caribbean iconography and the family’s traditional, patterned textiles of the Danish West Indies (now the Virgin Islands), planted the seeds of design. However, she wouldn’t realize this until she landed in the commercial/graphic art program at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art).
Often, we have to go back to move forward. We all have those foundational things that shape us, and if we’re listening and open to the world as adults, these things tend to bring us to our purpose. Talking about her childhood resonances made me curious. Miller’s career could’ve gone in a myriad of different directions. I wondered about those moments of change, choice, and struggle in Miller’s life—what, in hindsight, does she believe made the most significant impact?
One of those pivotal moments was the death of her father. Miller was in her first year of art school at RISD. “I went up to RISD to paint,” she says, utterly unaware of the conversations swirling around the school about the value of Black art, the ongoing civil and human rights violations, and the Vietnam War. Moving to Waspy New England from D.C. was a culture shock, and she felt the isolation of being one of very few African-American students. Her father would soon be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and would pass away ten months later. Miller moved closer to home, where she would study graphic design at MICA in Baltimore (the only regional school with a commercial art program). There, she met Leslie King-Hammond, a woman who would serve as her academic mentor (and still does).
Moving to New York with Phillip, the couple met in high school, was juncture number two. The move required her to leave her burgeoning broadcast design career in D.C. to start over essentially. Miller could’ve picked up the broadcast career in NYC without a beat—she had a tempting offer at ABC—but she felt the pull towards publication design. “I wanted the dream of what New York could be.” She contends that had she taken the ABC job (a job that, by any account, would’ve set her up for a successful and financially rewarding career), “I wouldn’t have made the contribution I did, had I taken it.” Miller decided to go to grad school instead, entering Pratt. Many of the things she’d seen at RISD and in Baltimore coalesced with what she was experiencing as a Black designer in NYC.
Being in New York really brought into light that Black designers were underexposed and under-educated in the field of graphic design. My community was suffering and I had something to say.
Cheryl D. Miller
On the cusp of finishing her graduate degree, her advisor threw her a gauntlet: instead of a graduate design project, Miller was to undertake a written thesis. She called King-Hammond, who encouraged her toward scholarship. “I started learning how to write history, about social justice. I started owning my skillset,” Miller said. “Leslie gave me the heart and the rigor for the work. The only way I was going to be able to make a difference was in the footnotes. Data and scholarship move the needle.”
Miller at the helm of her successful design studio, Cheryl D. Miller Design (1984-2000); In 1992, Miller was commissioned by NASA to create the poster for Dr. Mae Jeminson, America’s first African American woman astronaut.
I may not look radical, but I am.
Cheryl D. Miller
The third moment is our current moment, the resurgence of the social justice conversation in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far too many others. The next generation is asking many of the same questions as Miller and her peers have asked in their time, “There’s nothing new about this,” Miller contends. She readily admits that after fifty years in the business, she doesn’t expect that 3-4% representative number to jump up suddenly. “Where the Civil Rights Movement pushed the idea of equality, it didn’t mean that it would then be equitable,” she said. What is Miller’s prescription for what needs to happen now so our industry can bolster the equity of opportunity for Black creative talent? “We need to diversify design organization boards, we desperately need professors who are versed in a broader cultural perspective, we need more inclusive curricula, we need network affiliations that will offer us business opportunities, and we must carry on,” Miller said.
So, what would Miller like to dismantle in this time of sustained awareness and activism, her “Confederate statue”? “I want to take down the players who make you feel with intentionality that you’re not supposed to be here and the cult of the mid-century male designer,” Miller said. “It’s the imagery of my oppressor.”
But Miller is also an optimist, and she believes, as does Kamala Harris, “We’re not going back.” To close her book, Miller includes a quote from her commencement speech, an inspirational baton passing, to the RISD class of 2022:
Be better than the history I’ve traveled through and make your history far more inclusive and welcoming for everyone to encounter.
Cheryl D. Miller to RISD’s class of 2022
Cheryl Miller is still writing, researching, and advocating for recognizing and celebrating the Black designer and artisan’s contributions to society. Still, she’ll admit, “On this side of the story, I’ve done more finishing than starting.”
There is always more to do.
It is always essential to have people like Miller remind us to look and to see things as they are, not as they are curated for us.
I have only scratched the surface; there is much more to Cheryl Miller’s story. We hope you can join us next Thursday, October 17, for the first of two PRINT Book Club events this month!