Big news! We have submitted two proposals for presentations for SXSW 2015 (Interactive and SXSWedu) and they are included in the SXSW PanelPicker!
We need your help to make sure these presentations included in SXSW’s programming for next year. Public voting accounts for 30% of the decision-making process for inclusion, and it’s an extremely competitive process.
So how can you help? By voting for our panels on the SXSW PanelPicker and leaving a comment! Here’s how to do it.
- Go to https://auth.sxsw.com/users/sign_in and sign in. If you do not have an account, click the “Create Account” link under that big blue button to create your free account. You will receive a confirmation email to activate your account.
- Once your account has been activated, enter your email address and password at https://auth.sxsw.com/users/sign_in and click the big blue “Sign in” button.
- You’re now on the main SXSW PanelPicker page. You can click the “Search/Vote” link to search for our presentation names, or visit our voting pages directly (see links below).
- Once you are on the voting page for the presentation, click the thumbs up icon to cast your vote. You can also leave a comment on this page as well (the more positive comments, the better).
- That’s it! Your vote has been cast for our presentation! Thank you!
Voting ends on September 5, 2014 at 11:59pm CDT. Check after the jump for our presentation descriptions and links directly to the voting pages. What panels are you voting for to be included at SXSW 2015? Let us know in the comments!
Where Are The Black Designers?
In 1991, Brenda Mitchell-Powell wrote a report called “Why is Graphic Design 93% White? Removing Barriers to Increase Opportunities in Graphic Design”. And now, nearly 25 years later, we’re still trying to come up with the answer.
Diversity is a hot topic in the design community. Conferences promise to do better every year after unveiling all-White speaker panels. Design-driven companies in Silicon Valley like Twitter report only 2% of their US-based employees are Black. And between magazines, podcasts, and other media, the field of design can look like a monoculture.
How do we fix this? Can we fix this? And what is the overall benefit of diversifying the design industry? Maurice Cherry will explore these questions and more in this session.
He’ll share information distilled from dozens of interviews with Black designers of all stripes, and attendees will walk away with information they can use to diversify their companies, conferences, departments, or meetups.
Questions Answered
- Why does the issue of diversity keep re-surfacing every year without real, sustainable solutions?
- How do we diversify the design industry in a way that doesn’t look like “affirmative action” or “tokenism”?
- What do Black designers (or designers of color, in general) want from the design community?
- How can I attract design talent from underrepresented groups?
- Is solving the “pipeline problem” a viable method for ensuring a diverse future design industry?
Vote for “Where Are The Black Designers?”
Diversifying Design Education
In 1991, Brenda Mitchell-Powell wrote a report called “Why is Graphic Design 93% White? Removing Barriers to Increase Opportunities in Graphic Design”. And now, nearly 25 years later, we’re still trying to come up with the answer. Maurice Cherry will explore these questions through the prism of design education. He’ll share information distilled from his own experiences as an educator, along with information from dozens of interviews with Black designers of all stripes.
Questions Answered
- Learn how you can become involved with diversifying design education in one easy step.
- Learn about what AIGA is doing to help with diversifying design education via the AIGA Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.
- Learn about new avenues of outreach for research and inspiration for design students.