Overview

Design is expression, a service, an act of creativity. But if designers design for everyone, how can there be so little diversity in the profession? In this book, Jessica Bantom examines the implications of design in everyday life, from spaces and products to images and the fashion industry. Too often design concepts are based on assumptions and stereotypes that don't necessarily reflect customers' lives and values. Certain company symbols and brands, such as the image of Aunt Jemima, have stirred controversy for years but only recently has there been a corporate social awakening. The demographics of our society are changing and becoming more diverse, yet different perspectives are often ignored unless there's fallout from public backlash. Bantom explores the concept of human-centered design that taps into an understanding of identity: how people live, what's important to them, and what informs their perspectives and experiences. Engaging directly with customers to identify their challenges and working with them to test ideas and solutions is the foundation of human-centered design. It's vital for businesses to get on board and change outdated mindsets if they want to be successful. Bantom explains the six habits of culturally competent designers that can make this shift happen, and result in design solutions that resonate with people of diverse backgrounds. She offers a Design for Identity blueprint that honors humanity, celebrates diversity, promotes equity and inclusion, and ensures that the design profession mirrors and keeps up with the realities of our evolving world.

Full Product Details

9798887970141

Table of Contents

Reviews

Empathy and understanding are core principles of user-centered design. Yet we seem to struggle as a society to understand the impact of race, gender identity, and culture outside of our own lived experiences. Grounded in concrete examples ranging from innocent mistakes to willful ignorance, students, interior designers and architects will learn from the mistakes of others and Bantom's wisdom as they strive to center the cultural identity of all users in their designed solutions. This book should be required reading in every architecture and design program. Doug Seidler, Director, School of Design + Art and Professor, Interior Design at Marymount University In our unique way, each of us has a hand in designing a more equitable world. We design every day, but without close attention to who's included, heard, and valued as an integral part of that process, we will be designing an incomplete future. Jessica has laid out a roadmap for all designers that invites us to consider how we might shift our process to generate a more complete and representative reality. This book is a critical contribution to the conversation. Jennifer Brown, Founder and CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting, Best-Selling Author of Inclusion, Beyond Diversity and How to Be an Inclusive Leader Inequality in all of its forms is just as much a threat to our future and our present as are the issues of our environment's care and our sustainability concerns. The fact that higher density cities are going to be the norm due to the need for resiliency and that we are all going to be living and working together in closer proximity, architects and designers of all backgrounds and cultures are going to be needed as the mediators in our cultural differences to bring us together in peaceful coexistence. If events in our country and society at large continues on the track that it has since the end of slavery, the dawn of Civil Rights and Reconstruction after the Civil War, then in my opinion, the turmoil we went through these past few years will seem like a cocktail party in comparison to what will happen in the future when the cities and environments we design and live in are even more densely and diversely populated. The fact that most of the world's population will be living in urban centers has been projected by economists, think tanks and policy makers as we are witnessing across the country and globally in the next fifty years. In Jessica Bantom's beautifully articulated thesis and book, Design for Identity, our epoch needs to come to an understanding that we need to be prepared to deal with the culturally sensitive matters of what we design and how it is that we design in the service of an increasingly diverse and urban focused population. Jessica's book and its advice is timely and perhaps overdue. I hope that it will be valued in design theory classes throughout all design programs in universities as a standard must read and in our profession as architects, planners and designers. Michael Marshall, FAIA NOMA NCARB I met Jessica when she was a standout facilitator for an organization I was partnering with. Jessica did not call herself a standout, she just listened better and made connections better than a significant majority of others in the culture and diversity-to-belonging spaces. It was for this reason that I knew she would make a good author. It's not easy to truly help people help themselves explore, understand, and resolve their longstanding biases and knowledge gaps, but Jessica's ability to take on complex, often subjective, and always emotional topics made it easy. Chris Armstrong, Certified Master Facilitator, Certified Diversity Executive

"""Empathy and understanding are core principles of user-centered design. Yet we seem to struggle as a society to understand the impact of race, gender identity, and culture outside of our own lived experiences. Grounded in concrete examples ranging from innocent mistakes to willful ignorance, students, interior designers and architects will learn from the mistakes of others and Bantom's wisdom as they strive to center the cultural identity of all users in their designed solutions. This book should be required reading in every architecture and design program."" Doug Seidler, Director, School of Design + Art and Professor, Interior Design at Marymount University ""In our unique way, each of us has a hand in designing a more equitable world. We design every day, but without close attention to who's included, heard, and valued as an integral part of that process, we will be designing an incomplete future. Jessica has laid out a roadmap for all designers that invites us to consider how we might shift our process to generate a more complete and representative reality. This book is a critical contribution to the conversation."" Jennifer Brown, Founder and CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting, Best-Selling Author of Inclusion, Beyond Diversity and How to Be an Inclusive Leader ""Inequality in all of its forms is just as much a threat to our future and our present as are the issues of our environment's care and our sustainability concerns. The fact that higher density cities are going to be the norm due to the need for resiliency and that we are all going to be living and working together in closer proximity, architects and designers of all backgrounds and cultures are going to be needed as the mediators in our cultural differences to bring us together in peaceful coexistence. If events in our country and society at large continues on the track that it has since the end of slavery, the dawn of Civil Rights and Reconstruction after the Civil War, then in my opinion, the turmoil we went through these past few years will seem like a cocktail party in comparison to what will happen in the future when the cities and environments we design and live in are even more densely and diversely populated. The fact that most of the world's population will be living in urban centers has been projected by economists, think tanks and policy makers as we are witnessing across the country and globally in the next fifty years. In Jessica Bantom's beautifully articulated thesis and book, Design for Identity, our epoch needs to come to an understanding that we need to be prepared to deal with the culturally sensitive matters of what we design and how it is that we design in the service of an increasingly diverse and urban focused population. Jessica's book and its advice is timely and perhaps overdue. I hope that it will be valued in design theory classes throughout all design programs in universities as a standard must read and in our profession as architects, planners and designers."" Michael Marshall, FAIA NOMA NCARB ""I met Jessica when she was a standout facilitator for an organization I was partnering with. Jessica did not call herself a standout, she just listened better and made connections better than a significant majority of others in the culture and diversity-to-belonging spaces. It was for this reason that I knew she would make a good author. It's not easy to truly help people help themselves explore, understand, and resolve their longstanding biases and knowledge gaps, but Jessica's ability to take on complex, often subjective, and always emotional topics made it easy."" Chris Armstrong, Certified Master Facilitator, Certified Diversity Executive"

"""With changing demographics and cultural dynamics, firms have embraced multicultural ethics and diversity to adapt to the growing market needs. So why is the design profession yet to acclimate to the changing cultural landscape? Jessica Bantom is an interior designer with decades of experience in marketing and consulting. With Design For Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World, Bantom explores the necessity for designing spaces that represent people from a wide range of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic statuses, and sexual identities. Despite affirmative action, diversity, equity, and inclusion haven't been fully embraced in the design profession until now. In this book, Bantom emphasizes the need for cultural awareness and competence, providing an in-depth analysis of the two and their roles in the design industry. Design For Identity offers readers a framework to help boost the cultural quotient and showcases the application of that knowledge for the cultural competence shift. As society becomes more multicultural, there is a growing need for a firm establishment of ethics that celebrate the diverse and inclusive nature of the modern world. Author Jessica Bantom shows ways to bring that cultural shift to the design industry, with an increasing focus on the needs of the customer and the distinct aspects that play a part in making them who they are. This book is a must-read for contemporary designers and business owners in the design industry. The author presents the content in an accessible manner to ensure that even readers who may not be too familiar with the technical aspects will have no problem understanding the topics explored in the pages. Personally, I found the book very informative and inspirational. Highly recommended."" Pikasho Deka for Readers' Favorite ""Empathy and understanding are core principles of user-centered design. Yet we seem to struggle as a society to understand the impact of race, gender identity, and culture outside of our own lived experiences. Grounded in concrete examples ranging from innocent mistakes to willful ignorance, students, interior designers and architects will learn from the mistakes of others and Bantom's wisdom as they strive to center the cultural identity of all users in their designed solutions. This book should be required reading in every architecture and design program."" Doug Seidler, Director, School of Design + Art and Professor, Interior Design at Marymount University ""In our unique way, each of us has a hand in designing a more equitable world. We design every day, but without close attention to who's included, heard, and valued as an integral part of that process, we will be designing an incomplete future. Jessica has laid out a roadmap for all designers that invites us to consider how we might shift our process to generate a more complete and representative reality. This book is a critical contribution to the conversation."" Jennifer Brown, Founder and CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting, Best-Selling Author of Inclusion, Beyond Diversity and How to Be an Inclusive Leader"

Author Information

Jessica Bantom is a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) practitioner and workplace strategist whose mission is to enable individuals to take immediate actions that create meaningful outcomes for historically excluded people. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Marymount University, Bantom is a skilled management consultant with over 20 years of experience, a compelling speaker, and a certified facilitator and coach with a passion for helping people and organizations activate the values of DEIB to become more culturally competent and thrive in our increasingly global economy. Bantom is also active in the interior design industry as an interior design and color consultant and as an engaged advocate committed to promoting DEIB in the industry and in practice. You can learn more about Jessica and her blog, 'Start Where You Are' at JessicaBantom.com.

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