It is our pleasure to release long time designer, educator, advocate, researcher and design strategist, Michele Y. Washington. Michele is a historian and advocate for Blacks in design as well as an all-around, down-to-earth solemn character, full of life and knowledge. Pre-pandemic, we visited her in New York to talk to her about her thoughts on diversity in design, career, and advice for young people.

This edition of Designed, features Liz Ogbu, designer, urbanist, and social innovation strategist. Liz talks about what she does, her process, how she got into design and family.

We had the honor to chat with our friend, Marcos Chavez, a principal and creative director of TODA New York. TODA is a multi-disciplinary design studio in Brooklyn whose projects range from designing tea kettles to websites, creating books, chairs and exhibits, as well as packages and spaces. During our time with him, we had the opportunity to hear about his design process, work, and advice for youth.

In 2015, Inneract Project hosted its first-ever panel on diversity and inclusion. That event brought forth an honest, open, and frank discussion about diversity issues in the tech industry and how to develop more informed inclusion strategies.

Diversity in design and technology leads to more creative, innovative and profitable solutions; in our industry, community and in the world that surrounds us. But when we examine personnel data, it’s apparent there’s still a large diversity gap. In 2015, only 6% of U.S. graduates in design fields were African American and only 10% were Hispanic. For these same professional groups, the disparity extends with African American and Hispanic employment representing only 3% of our workforce. We believe those numbers can be improved with a strategic deliverable being stronger inclusivity.

We shot this video a long time ago. In fact this was when Arem worked as a Design Director for the New York Times Magazine. Currently, he is a Cross-Functional Creative Director within Apple’s Worldwide Marketing Department. During our time with Arem, we had to pleasure to chat with him about his work, perspective on diversity in design as well as advice for parents who have kids with creative interests.

D’Wayne Edwards’ accolades precede him. He was the Design Director of Footwear for the Jordan Brand, one of six designers ever to design an Air Jordan 21 and 22, he has designed shoes at the highest level for today’s premiere athletes and teams, such as Michael Jordan, Carmelo Anthony, Derek Jeter, Roy Jones Jr. and 2004 National Champion and the University of North Carolina Tarheels.