Design can be a powerful tool to help students "go home"—that is, to find out who they are at their core and imbue their work with their own perspectives and identities. But since design in the US tends to be taught from the white/European point of view, how do designers who come from another race or culture engage in this process of self-discovery?

This workshop, led by globally recognized graphic designers Saki Mafundikwa and Sadie Red Wing, will help students from all backgrounds visually identify themselves, exhibit pride in representation, and gain courage and motivation to learn more about themselves to strengthen their design work. Demonstrations and hands-on practice will debunk the myth that design is a “Western” construct.

Participants are not required to have prior knowledge of the histories, terms, and concepts relevant to these practices.

Saki Mafundikwa (He/Him/His) is the founder and director of the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA), a design and new media training college in Harare. He has an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University. He returned home in 1998 to found ZIVA after working in New York City as a graphic designer, art director and design educator. His book, Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Africa (2004), is the first book on Afrikan typography. His award-winning first film, Shungu: The Resilience of a People had its world premiere at 2009’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). He was a speaker at TED2013 in Long Beach, California, and recently keynoted the first ever Pan African Design Institute (PADI) conference in Ghana. He has run workshops for design students in Europe, North, South and Central America, and Afrika, and has been published widely on design and cultural issues. He is currently working on a revised edition of Afrikan Alphabets, and he lives and farms in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Sadie Red Wing (She/Her/Hers) is a Lakota graphic designer and advocate from the Spirit Lake Nation of Fort Totten, North Dakota. Red Wing earned her BFA in New Media Arts and Interactive Design at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She received her Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University. Her research on cultural revitalization through design tools and strategies created a new demand for tribal competence in graphic design research. Red Wing urges Native American graphic designers to express visual sovereignty in their design work, as well as, encourages academia to include an indigenous perspective in design curriculum. Currently, she serves as a Speech and Computer Science Professor at the Indian University of North America where she introduces contemporary pedagogies on tribal visual sovereignty and representation in forms of technology, communication, and persuasion. Her work has been featured on AIGA’s Eye on Design: “Why Can’t the U.S. Decolonize Its Design Education?” (2017), Communication Arts: “Decolonizing Native American Design” (2017), and The World Policy Journal: “United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” (2018).