Graphic Designers are helping to preserve and tell African & African American History. In doing so, designers are taking on the role of “citizen designers,” designers that use their creative skills, and leverage design tools and principles to improve the livelihood of society.
Graphic Design Students in a Second Year Graphic Design Studio at NC State College of Design worked under the guidance of Dr. Derek Ham and Professor Scott Townsend to design proposals for an exhibition space at the National Civil Rights Museum that will host the museum’s first Virtual Reality experience. The “I AM A MAN” VR experience transports visitors to the Civil Rights Movement and highlights moments of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation workers strike, and the events leading to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The “I AM A MAN” VR project along with an immersive experience I’m currently developing that simulates the cooking of a Liberian dish, are examples of ways in which designers are using “Design as a Tool of Cultural Preservation.”
The following presentation originally recorded at the 2018 Conference on African-American & African Diasporic Cultures and Experience (CACE), explains the design process and outcome of the “I AM A MAN” VR exhibition design proposals.