Black Love by Design (Part 1 of 2)

You might have heard that “all’s fair in love and war,” but what are the rules of engagement when it comes to marriage and design? In this two-part series, I talked to three creative entrepreneur couples about how they navigate the challenges of being in love and being in business.

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Kevin and Mary Pleasants are the owners of 21five Creative, a design and branding company based in Charlotte, NC.

These college sweethearts met about nine years ago, and have been married for three. They have been in business for a little over a year.

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Jacques and Dahcia Bastien run Boogie, a digital agency headquartered in Albany, NY focused on helping lifestyle brands reach millennials. Since they met in 2009, Dahcia has been an unofficial part of the team —helping with proposals, strategy, and the building of Boogie’s first office. In 2013, Dahcia officially joined Jacques in the business. They were married in 2014.

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Russell and Kathy Bynum met in church about 34 years ago. Not long after they became married, Kathy joined her husband in business. Today, they are the proud owners of Bynum Marketing & Communications, Inc., a marketing and design firm based in Philadelphia, PA, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.
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Behind The Design of Spark Plug

Nia Gordon is a multi-talented visual storyteller that creates concepts that deliver a message to users and consumers. I talked with Nia about her design process and her new mobile app concept Spark Plug — a social media filter for news and activists.

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Could you explain a bit about Spark Plug? Are you planning to bring it to market?

I created the app concept to help combat slacktivism, and I named it Spark Plug because a spark plug is something or someone that starts or forces a change. This was all inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement and other current injustices happening amongst African-Americans. The prototype is available online.

I believe Spark Plug has the potential to be a great tool for social media users and social media activists to be more involved in their communities. Spark Plug allows you to organize events such as protests or demonstrations, donate to various social charities, and to inform the community and activist groups of the latest updates and announcements. Initially, it was just for my MFA thesis project, but with recent occurrences, I am seeing a demand for an application like this. I would love to bring Spark Plug to market.

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BLACK Brings Us the Black Superheroes We’ve Been Waiting For

Black people don’t have super powers…but what if they did?

BLACK, an independent comic created by Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith 3, Jamal Igle, Khary Randolph and Sarah Litt will answer that question. Funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign, the comic may be an entertaining read for non-Black readers, but was a labor of love, joy and pain for the creators.

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Student Perspectives: Joash Berkeley

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What’s your name, what year are you, and what are you majoring in?

My name is Joash Berkeley and I’m a rising senior at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) majoring in motion media design.

What made you want to attend SCAD?

SCAD offered a wide variety of comprehensive design courses coupled with a focus on artistic professionalism. One of the major criticisms where I’m from — in the Caribbean — is that art isn’t considered as a professional field in which one can be successful. SCAD demonstrated the surety that there are limitless professional possibilities for careers within art and design. Another pivotal quality SCAD showed was their focused approach towards teaching with small classes and collaborative opportunities. I’ve always wanted to learn more than design in order to become a versatile professional, meaning: design, animation, photography, business management, social sciences — all of which are available for every student at SCAD. [They give] each student a holistic professional foundation for a creative career.

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Pokémon Go: Accessibility and Design in Augmented Reality

Pokémon Go traverses the border between sandbox and society by using augmented reality (AR) to lead players on an epic search to catch and train as many Pokémon as possible. An outpouring of praise has noted the game’s success in bringing people together as well as encouraging time spent outside, with many players citing the game’s positive mental and physical health benefits.

However, there are also a lot of people who are either put in harm’s way or outright excluded from the game due to a lack of accessible design and game modification that could otherwise welcome a larger audience. Players with physical disabilities, particularly ones affecting mobility, have no guarantees that the spaces where Pokéstopsand gyms are located (as well as where Pokémon spawn) will be within reach. Further, a recent software update has removed the ‘nearby’ Pokémon tool, rendering player hacks to forego traveling great distances on foot inaccessible. Players of colour have rightly highlighted the systemic risks and limitations imposed by society onto players, as Omari Akil mentions in his personal essay on the dangers of playing Pokémon Go while black.

Games often emphasize player immersion, but AR games like Pokémon Go overlap with landscapes devoid of ludic context, so the ability for hypervisible marginalized people to lose themselves in the world of AR is significantly restricted — and often interrupted — by the presence of the real world. Let’s discuss the ways design influences access to AR games, and how Pokémon Go’s design could be improved to make the game safe and welcoming for a wider audience.

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