Indigenous Design Archives

Creating best practise in Indigenous graphic design

In 2013 I wrote a post titled Indigenous Issues + Graphic Design. I was responding to a question I’d been asked by someone about if it was okay if they (a non-Indigenous graphic designer) would be allowed to do ‘Aboriginal style’ illustrations for an educational company.

tl;dr: No, it’s not okay. This afternoon I saw my first “we’re a rugby team, submit a design and we’ll choose the best one for our jersey” post of 2018, and again (for probably the fourth year in a row) I’m cranky. Why?

Indigenous Issues + Graphic Design

As someone who works with Indigenous issues in graphic design and art, I get asked frequently about what is okay to do. Most Australians and most workers in graphic design have little or no understanding of the issues involved in working with Aboriginal people, design and artwork. People generally ask the question, without realising that the answer is long, full of qualifications and is something that requires discussion and thought.

…it will give you plenty of exposure….

When you’re starting out as a content creator, you know that you might have to do some free stuff in order to build your portfolio. But a point is eventually reached where the ‘can you do it for free, it will give you great exposure’ argument is no longer tenable.