Alaysia Brown: so, Omari, I'm going to just go ahead and jump right in. Is that okay? Awesome, awesome. So first question. As both an educator and practitioner, how do you define design as an act of responsibility? And I ask that because you use that wording a couple of times when we had our prep call a couple of weeks and I loved it.

Alaysia Brown: And the more you talk to them, I was just like, yes, yes, yes. So I'm wondering, how do you define design as an act of responsibility? And what does this mean differently for students entering the field versus established professionals?

Omari Souza: Yeah. I think that's a great question. I think I'll start with my definition of design and then, go to where I think our responsibilities lie. So for my students and colleagues, I often tell them, I think design is anything that augments or, amplifies human existence. Right. Anything artificial that augments or amplifies human existence.

Omari Souza: And from that standpoint, it may seem a bit vague, and broad, but really, that's kind of the point. A desk that you sit at at work, it's a designed artifact that you use on a day to day basis. The utensils that you eat with, the clothes that you wear, the house that you live in.

Omari Souza: All of these are design artifacts. But because of the way in which they're designed, culture is established around them. So the responsibility that we have as designers is to consider what we need is culture around us, and whether or not that culture or that artifact harms people. In our immediate space or distant space away. And is that harm ethical?

Omari Souza: Which is never ethical, for sure.

Alaysia Brown: And so as you talk about that, I wonder, does it mean anything differently for students entering the field versus established professionals or is this just kind of a baseline that you should tech all things with just even entering the design space?

Omari Souza: Well, I think it's different. As a student, the majority of the projects that you make, at most institutions are usually hypothetical questions. They don't really go beyond your portfolio. And then when you're in the industry, you're working on things that are actually being made and distributed within the market. So the implications on, irresponsible design, is a lot greater for the working professionals.

Omari Souza: However, it's still just as, if not more so important for these students to have this understanding and to view it through this lens so that once they get into industry, they have tools necessary to apply, push back, to make sure that they're not creating harm. I think this is really important when considering, marginalized groups, you want to make something that doesn't further marginalize them.

Omari Souza: And an example that I use from time to time with my students, are car accidents. I'll usually ask my students, you know, who do you think is harmed most in car accidents? I'll wait for them if there are a couple of answers, and then I'll give the answer, which it happens to be women. And a part of the issue is traditionally, crash test dummies have always been built to mimic male anatomy.

Omari Souza: So the vehicle that's being designed, and all the safety precautions are primarily being designed for men because that's the, the, the anatomy that's being considered. And if we think about the amount of damage that can happen to, an individual in a car accident and how much more harmed women are than men. This design in this layout further marginalizes an already marginalized identity in a way that creates harm.

Omari Souza: So me telling my students, you know, it's really important that you consider this, puts them into a position where they now have nuanced ways of considering how do I test and validate to see whether or not this product is effective? How do I make sure that, the most vulnerable audience that will come in contact with this product or artifact or aren't made more vulnerable, and placed in harm's way?

Omari Souza: And how do we ensure safety going forward for this audience?

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. Absolutely. So after talking about the fact that, you know, it is just quite literally the case, like these biases in discount design, it leads me to think that you've discussed how design oversights can lead to harmful outcomes for marginalized communities. You just gave that example. I'm wondering, are there any additional examples that might help both practicing designers audit their current work and help students develop more inclusive practices from the start of their careers?

Omari Souza: Yeah. I mean, there are thousands of examples. And case studies that can be used. For example, if we stick with women for a second, we can talk about, Tech spaces that don't have enough women in decision making roles. When it comes to designing and testing products, so we could look a couple of years back when Twitter, x now formerly Twitter, was integrating, aspects of their app with the Nike running app.

Omari Souza: The app, didn't basically, you would go for your jog and it would list the route and how far you ran and the time that you ran. And this didn't take into account, safety women and, men who may watch for this. These, these, these routes that are being run and timing them and patterning them.

Omari Souza: And there were a lot of issues that came out of that due to the fact that it placed women in unsafe situations where people were able to stalk and follow them based off of what was being pushed at the time. We can talk about, Bathrooms. For people of color attempting to the faucet if you're in and how the automatic faucets don't necessarily recognize brown skin tones as regularly as they would for, skin tones.

Omari Souza: For, for, non people of color, we can talk about, the construction of bathroom in public spaces. I often will begin classes whenever we're talking about ethical design or equitable design. By asking my students to draw a journey map of what it looks like for themselves to go to a bathroom in a public space versus, yeah, basically.

Omari Souza: But what are the steps it would take for you to use a bathroom at a live event, a concert or sporting event? For the men, it's always 3 or 4 steps. You know, you get up, you walk to the bathroom, you choose to stall a urinal, you use it, you wash your hands, you go back to your seat.

Omari Souza: But for women, that 3 to 4 step now, expands to being 8 to 24 steps, each of which taken to each of which vary based off of whether the woman is on her cycle, whether she has a child, whether she's lactating and needs to pump the complexity of her outfit, whether the stall has a place to hang her purse, the length of the line, the, length of the line for the sink to wash your hands afterwards.

Omari Souza: The time it takes for you to readjust your outfit, so forth and so forth and so forth. Yeah. But for most of the men, they're in the room. They are unaware of these nuances. And because they're unaware of these nuances, they're unable to design for them and because they're unable to design for them. They end up designing, bottlenecks, for women when using the bathroom, even if you have equal number of stalls.

Omari Souza: Or an equal number of stalls to urinals and stalls in the women's room, as you would in the men's room. It still doesn't take into account some of the other, needs that women have stakeholders in these spaces, and thus we, we create, inefficiencies in their ability to go to the bathroom and back to their seats to enjoy the show.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah, absolutely. As you're saying this as a woman, I'm just like, yes, yes, yes. You know what I mean? So just in regard to responsibility and impact, thank you for sharing those additional examples. And it it makes me wonder what concrete steps can designers take to make their work more inclusive, whether they're working within established organizations or just starting their careers.

Omari Souza: So I think it's hard.

Omari Souza: And the reason I think it's hard is because, a lot of the recommendations that I would make requires time to be spent and for insights to be cataloged and referred back to. And in most situations, especially for businesses that operate primarily off of work sprints, you may only have 6 to 8 weeks to work on things.

Omari Souza: So sometimes, the simple answer is it's. What is there? What is the old adage you can go, fast and cheap or or slow and good. The the reality is a lot of these companies need to take more time with particular demographics. They they need to spend less time generalizing and more so focusing on the intersections of identities.

Omari Souza: So going back to the, example of the bathroom, I usually will ask, everyone in the class to, detailed their steps and then share their steps to the class. When women get up and start detailing why it takes them so many additional steps. A lot of the men in the room look dumbfounded. Surprised because they've never heard of these things.

Omari Souza: I'll usually ask the men in the room, to raise their hands if they feel like they would be able to design an equitable experience for women to go to the bathroom without having any prior knowledge of what was shared today, to which no one to raise their hand. For the women, I'll ask the same thing. To which they will raise their hand.

Omari Souza: And then I'll say, okay, keep your hand raised. If you feel you can design an equitable bathroom experience for a disabled woman, to which many of them will put their hands down, for a woman who, only speaks, who doesn't speak English, to which some of them will put their hands down. To for trans woman, to which a number of them will put their hands down.

Omari Souza: And for evidence of there are intersections of identity that immediately come with nuances. And those that that's like difference. Could mean a lot by way of how they experience the world around them. So, we have this thing called the Positionality Matrix where I have them, articulate where they grew up, their socio economic background, the level of education, whether they were in a rural, suburban or urban community, religion, age, physical ability, all these other things.

Omari Souza: And then we compare it to others and then we ask them, like, based off of these positionality, what are some of the nuances in approaching and things that, you know, and ways in which we, we come across problems. By doing that, what we end up finding is even if, let's say, for you and I were both we're both black.

Omari Souza: However, as a male, even though my race puts me as an outgroup, my gender places me within an in-group. So there's certain aspects of safety that I don't have to consider that your gender, would make. You need to consider, as a, as a male, there's certain privileges that I will get in certain things that I might certain time periods I might not have to look over my shoulder.

Omari Souza: But as a woman, especially being by yourself, you may have to and there are other nuances to your experience. Even though we share the same race that I can't understand because I'm not walking in your shoes. So now this puts me in a position where if I have to take my positionality into consideration as well as your own, I have to have a base level of understanding of who you are and what makes things difficult for you.

Omari Souza: And a lot of times that involves me working alongside me, getting to know me, spending time, with you so that I can design for you. And also me giving you equal power and say in terms of what the artifact is, because realistically, your lived experience has just as much authority as my academic experience, especially if we are designing for your identity group.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. Omari, as you're speaking and as you've been speaking the past couple of minutes, the word empathy, empathy, empathy has been like screaming at me because so much of this is taking yourself out of it and putting someone else into it. And we talk about walk a mile in My shoes, or even I know there's some races where people like walk a mile in my heels and the men will get in heels and actually walk the mile.

Alaysia Brown: So much of design is empathy. And to your point, we get so lost in the sprints of it all. But how often do we say, let me put on the heels? Let me put on the fill in the blank. You know what I mean? So it's just been, like I said, as you were saying, that empathy, that word is just like screaming at me.

Alaysia Brown: I wonder if there's anyone else on the call that maybe has any comments or questions. Just based off of what Omari just shared?

Alaysia Brown: Not yet. All right. I'm letting y'all get warmed up. I'm telling you now, we're at an AMA with 42 participants. I'm gonna start cotton. I'm joking. I wouldn't call you out, but I'm letting y'all get warmed up. Omari has so much knowledge and things to share, so I definitely encourage you, especially if you're a student really, you know, dive in and listen to what he's saying and it should come something come up, come off of mute and ask that question.

Alaysia Brown: But I love what you just said, Omari. And getting more so into career development and innovation in regard to designers finding their niche within the design industry, you advise looking for under on Earth. Give me a second. You advise looking for, underserved areas rather than following market trends? Can you speak a little bit more to this?

Alaysia Brown: Also, I'm wondering what strategies can designers use to identify these opportunities?

Omari Souza: Yeah. So when I was younger, as many people have experienced, I had an aunt that would bring me with her to church or she'd had to watch me. And, one Sunday I went with her to a church service, and the pastor gave a sermon on, the idea of the Good Samaritan. And, during the sermon, he then stated, many of you may be confused about who's my neighbor that I should be good to.

Omari Souza: And, the response that he gave, which was very powerful to me at the time, and it's kind of stuck with me since was, he asked the question of the audience, and you asked whose tears impact you the most? And when it comes to finding your niche in industry, I often asked designers the same question. Not from a religious standpoint, but in terms of identifying your passion.

Omari Souza: Who's problems or what problem? Keeps you up at night. What problem do you feel? Really drives you? And is that problem being serviced, and is that problem being serviced correctly? I think the issue with the way that design is taught today in many regards is it's taught from its start, almost like an assembly line.

Omari Souza: We are going to mold these students to think along these lines, to practice this way for their portfolios, to look this particular way so that they get into the industry and they can just plug and play, which is fine. Those skills are necessary, but it doesn't necessarily give students the critical thinking, that it's needed to discover problems before, to discover problems, preemptively, to provide solutions that other people might not be thinking about.

Omari Souza: And in order to innovate, the practice as is, the fact that we are evidence of the fact that we are teaching students how to be innovative as is can be found in the fact that if you visit any most design schools and institutions, if you close your eyes and spun really quickly, you wouldn't be able to tell what portfolio was coming from an institution because they all felt the same.

Omari Souza: It's like everyone is following the same playbook. So when I tell students, don't follow the trends or follow the niche, it's, it's because a lot of times there will be someone else who is also interested in solving the problem that you're interested in solving. And if you become the subject matter expert, it's easier for you to be picked, as a subject matter expert for your particular niche than it would be for you to make a name for yourself fighting through the crowd that's already practicing.

Omari Souza: That's already doing the same exact thing. If growing up in New York City taught me one thing, in a city of 8 million people that are attempting to do the same thing as you, you have to find something that makes you stand out. And sometimes standing out is doing something different than what the crowd is doing.

Alaysia Brown: I love that, and as you were responding, you were saying that the problem may not be being served correctly. What do you mean by correctly? What is incorrect? Like what? I love to hear more about that.

Omari Souza: It might not be effective. So I'm trying to think of, I just did a study, and we were talking about, black retail experiences in the study, and we were interviewing folks and asking them, what businesses do you feel are doing a good job of, reaching out to the black community versus businesses that you feel like aren't?

Omari Souza: And in one interview, the interviewee mentioned, Red bull's sound clash, that they do and the perception of sound clash the first year it was done. Now, if you're from the Caribbean, like my family, sound clashes are huge things, right? They're, they're they're basically they're versus battles were based off of, you'd get two artists in a room and they would play their music in front of a crowd to, as a contest to see who was a better performer.

Omari Souza: Red bull attempted to do something that paid a homage to this, but nothing out of their their, set up harking back to the roots of of of a Jamaican sound clash. Not the speaker system, not the decor. Not even the performances. They weren't they weren't battles at all. So you now are attempting to, pay homage to a culture and community while also ignoring all aspects of that culture and community, in order to make it something that's more appealing to yourself.

Omari Souza: So in this instance, you can look at an attempt to engage with, with a marginalized group, but done so in a way that to that group would feel insincere. So there's still a niche for that group to be represented. There's still a niche and demand for that group to be seen and celebrated on a public stage, because they don't feel that what was done prior was done effectively.

Alaysia Brown: I love that Red bull example. As you're talking, I'm just like, yes, yes, yes, I'm not Caribbean, but yes, yes, yes. So I love that example. Like, I, I completely get what you're saying. And we do have one question in the chat. Miss Ayanna asked. Empathy. Well said. Empathy is the key. What nuances, if you will, might appear during the process that can inform a designer, not a member of the targeted demographic, while helping drive authenticity to the process?

Omari Souza: Repeat the question one more time.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. I love it, she says. Empathy is the key. What nuances, if you will, might appear during the process that can inform a designer, not a member of the targeted demographic, while helping drive authenticity to the process?

Omari Souza: Yeah, I think relationships feel free.

Alaysia Brown: To come off. Yeah, feel free to come off mute for sure.

Omari Souza: Yeah, I think.

Guest: I was rereading that. What am I really saying here? So what I, what I'm alluding to is I kept reviewing it before I pushed. Yes, let it go. It's like, you mentioned like men and women and yes, we're both in the same, same group in terms of supposedly ethnicity, but outgroups opposed to because of gender. And I'm just thinking it's like if a man is desiring going back to the bathroom example bathroom for women, we're designing for it.

Guest: Men are designing for women. What kind of nuances might come up as in terms of through this process that we need to make note of when we're dealing with target, you know, designing for a group that is different outside of us, outside of what we already know, perhaps does that does that help clarify?

Omari Souza: No, it does, it does. Sorry, I apologize, I got distracted. I just realized that, one of my undergraduate professors is in the audience, so I just want to say hello to Professor Mary. You look. How's it going? I just saw you pop up, and I was like, oh, snap, I need to say hi.

Guest: Hi, Mary. It's so want. Your success is just so wonderful to see. It's just fabulous. Congratulate.

Omari Souza: Thank you. To answer the question, I'm not a big fan of the phrase empathy. When it comes to design, I don't, I don't, I don't mind other people use it, but I try not to. And the only reason is because I think, empathy gets used a lot in. All right, backtracking. As a design researcher, a lot of our methodologies are leveraged from social sciences, sociology, psychology, things of that nature.

Omari Souza: But in those practices, the practitioners spend a lot more time with their subject in order to learn them. They build relationships with those audiences, especially if you think of anthropologists whenever they're performing their studies, in their case studies, how much time are they spending with these communities? Who are they speaking to within these communities in order to gauge more information about them, especially to then retell their stories, and not to say that they always do it correctly.

Omari Souza: Now with empathy, it's hard to empathize fully with someone who you are not in relationship with. You can you can feel I you can feel pity for them. You can feel sorry for them. But it's not the same thing as understanding. And sometimes that understanding only comes from being in close proximity with particular people. I'm sure many of us have experiences where we've met someone and they just didn't rub us the right way in their personality.

Omari Souza: But it was through being, through time, that we were able to understand them in a deeper context and realize, certain things that were triggering our dislike for that person were ultimately misunderstandings. I think the same thing happens with insights. And I think the problem for a lot of designers is when they say, I can I can empathize.

Omari Souza: It assumes that although you may have differences with the audience that you're designing for, that's just by face value. You can then make the necessary determinations for that audience group. And what I think the nuance is, should be, is allowing the vulnerable populations that will engage with your products or services or your solution to also be a part of the design process.

Omari Souza: If you are brainstorming what this bathroom experience, for example, should look like, it should involve people that are disabled. It should involved women, and it should involve maybe more so the more vulnerable members, that will be utilizing this particular service. Because if you then make it easier to, use the bathroom, if you are a disabled person or a woman, you automatically make it more efficient for the people that have the easiest amount of time as well.

Omari Souza: So I for me, that's that's really what it is. Empathy isn't empathy without understanding and relationship. You can't fully understand the nuances of anyone's identity. I can read, every novel, every book, every case study on difficulty ease that women experience. But just because I have an academic understanding, it doesn't necessarily mean that I have a lived understanding of those things in those concerns.

Omari Souza: And it doesn't mean that, navigating those concerns and issues are instinctively available to me as I'm attempting to design a solution. So if I myself, even with the knowledge that I have, were asked to design a bathroom experience, it would be equitable for women without women available to then say, this is these are things that I need.

Omari Souza: I don't think I would be able to do it either.

Alaysia Brown: Awesome. Thank you for that question. And I'm sorry. Appreciate your response. I'm actually we got a question from Janine in the chat, and I will get to that. But I also, while we're kind of at this halfway mark, wanted to prioritize some of the student questions that came in via registration, because I know that we have a ton of students on right now and really want to ensure that you all, already you're going to leave with so much value.

Alaysia Brown: But when I get these questions from students tomorrow as well. So I'm going to hit that route. One of them is from Keoni Burnett from Famu. She's a student. Or actually their student says, how do you overcome social anxiety and the inability to advertise yourself as a designer? And I love that question.

Omari Souza: Can you unpack for me the, part about the inability to advertise yourself?

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. And I can't speak for Keoni. So if you're on, feel free to come off of mute. But what I'm gathering from what you know, what they meant is just that I think right now we live in a world where you have to be on LinkedIn, on TikTok, on on Instagram. If you're a designer to just be pushing and advertising yourself and, I just guess just going out of your way to ensure that people know that you are this designer that does have services.

Alaysia Brown: But if you have this social anxiety, what does it look like? To, to navigate social anxiety and just this quote unquote, because it may not inability is a big word. So I don't want to say inability because you have the ability. You may not feel comfortable. But I I'll just to quote their question, how do you overcome social anxiety and the inability to advertise yourself as a designer?

Omari Souza: Yeah, I think there there are a number of different ways.

Omari Souza: I don't necessarily think you have to be at every party or every networking event in order to promote yourself. It could be a matter of getting your internships, working the positions that you have and trying to do so effectively, building relationships with people that are, in rooms that you are not so that they can speak for you when you're not in those spaces.

Omari Souza: IBM has a, a mentorship system. Where they classify the different types of mentors. You can have, one being an ad hoc mentor who's someone who has skills that you don't. And, but they repair. So you guys work with one another in order to help develop one another, almost like somebody that you would play sports with, to.

Omari Souza: So the both of you can grow. You have a coach who simply, a mentor that helps you, in your performance, so that you can be more effective on the job that you have. Then you have the sponsor, the person that speaks for you when you're not in the room. That may be an executive, a creative director, somebody with clout or more clout, more so than you have.

Omari Souza: They're a bit further along in their career. And I think in those instances you need all three. You need the people that have skill sets that you don't have, or look at problem solving differently than you do. That way you can learn from them. And if you build relationships, let's say you have three in each, and you build these relationships and you maintain them.

Omari Souza: It's a lot different than having to go to all of these different spaces and meet all of these different people, especially if they can simply point to you and say, okay, this is somebody I think you need to know. This is a space I think you need to be. But ultimately, you don't necessarily have to think about it from the standpoint of advertising yourself.

Omari Souza: You have to think about it in terms of getting your name out there. So what kind of work can you produce that gets your name out there? What type of solution can you come up with that gets people to stop and go, I didn't think about it that way. And in many ways, if you are building a list of mentors that will help you in the way that I listed in your producing work, in the way that I've mentioned as well, people will begin talking about it.

Omari Souza: And sometimes that's all you really need, especially if you're finding your own niche.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. And I know that we also have lots of working design professionals on the call. So if you have feedback for these students on this call, feel free to drop in the chat. And maybe you can come off of Mute or Murray might need like a water break. So give him a little time to, you know, get, back into the swing of things.

Alaysia Brown: Again. Would love to hear from other, design professionals on the call. So thank you for that question, Kiani. I really appreciate it. And also, I noticed that you're on the console in the chat. If you have a follow up, feel free to drop it there. We received another question, submitted during registration that says what strategies can be used to push the boundaries of design while ensuring your work remains practical and commercially viable?

Alaysia Brown: And this is a question from Nicole at FSU.

Omari Souza: Can you repeat the question one more time?

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. So Nicole is asking what strategies can be used to push the boundaries of design while ensuring your work remains practical and commercially viable?

Alaysia Brown:

Omari Souza: So I think,

Omari Souza: I'm sorry. I like the question. I think,

Omari Souza: I would say you push and innovate design by trying to find new applications for new intersections of it, and the reality is, it might not be commercially viable at the time that you do it. If you think of every, period in art history, the new introduction of a practice is often met with resistance from the old way of doing things.

Omari Souza: So if you are innovating and if you are innovating enough, it should cause disruptions to whatever system that's currently there. I remember when I graduated from grad school and I started teaching, I had colleagues that felt that design research and design research methodologies were just a fad. And they didn't necessarily believe that it was going to stick.

Omari Souza: And it did, and they resisted it being taught in the classroom, for, for as long as they could. But it ended up not only becoming commercially viable. So to include in practice, it ended up becoming a huge design field. That's, that's in design currently. So I say that to say, if you are attempting to innovate, don't necessarily think about innovation.

Omari Souza: If you are attempting to innovate and you firmly believe that this innovation will further design, furthering design doesn't always mean that it's going to be a lucrative pursuit. Now, if you want to be lucrative, you can maintain the status quo. But going against the grain, comes with, having to convince audiences that what you're doing is correct.

Omari Souza: Having to prove to them that what you're doing would be beneficial to what they're currently doing or easier than what they're currently doing, or would fit seamlessly into their work, culture and things of that nature. And it might not, but just because it doesn't fit in their work culture or their way of processing it, it doesn't mean that what you're doing doesn't have value.

Omari Souza: It might mean that the value isn't going to be seen for some time, and it might not even be seen during your lifetime, but you should still do it, and you should still innovated so that the practice evolves.

Alaysia Brown: Omari, that is real talk, and a lot of real talk is not necessarily what you want to hear, but it is the truth. And I love that response that, you know, you may be pushing the boundaries and it may be exactly what the world needs, but that doesn't mean it's going to be lucrative in this moment. And so I love that, you know, you shared the real on that because a lot of the times people want it all and they want it all now.

Alaysia Brown: And that is just not the case a lot of the time. So I really do appreciate that very said. Adam, where are your points? I'm pushing. Boundaries are really good for students to hear. Absolutely. And speaking of students, we have a student that came on camera, Janine, I'm happy to see you up here. And Janine asks the question, actually, Janine, did you want to come off of, mute to ask the questions?

Alaysia Brown: Omari okay, I.

Guest: Can do that. Hello? I'm Janine, I'm currently a senior at Florida A&M University as a graphic designer. And my question is it was more pertaining towards the Red bull situation that she had brought up and also the diversity that she had when it comes to pushing out a product. So I'm on TikTok and there was, a black owned company, that produced, a vegan version of a pop tart and it's called the Pop Tart because it's black owned pastries.

Guest: And when people started buying it, they say, oh, wow, these are really good. But when I saw the the packaging, it said ghetto gastro. And one of the biggest things was when I saw the reviews and all the comments about the ghetto gastro, a lot of people were like, why does it say ghetto if you're a black owned country?

Guest: Because there is like kind of a a negative connotation with the word ghetto in the black community. And I see a lot of older people not liking the idea of it saying ghetto, but then you have a lot of the younger generation saying, oh yeah, I, I think ghetto gastro is really cool of an idea. So I want to know, like, where did you think the design and the marketing went wrong when it came to that black owned business and producing out, this, this pastry brand?

Omari Souza: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I think they went wrong. I think you can have different, products for different audiences. I don't think that blackness or expression of blackness is a monolith, so I feel that and I think in the same way that there are a number of groups and identity groups that will take something that is perceived as being a stereotype or perceived as a negative, and attempt to flip it to be a positive as a way of self-empowerment.

Omari Souza: And I think this could be an example of that. You take the, the idea of being ghetto, you take the idea of, the negative, imagery that comes with it, and now you use that, that label in order to create jobs, opportunities and, and and a retail experience. Now, that's not to say that it won't, ruffle some feathers.

Omari Souza: It's not to say that people will feel 100% comfortable with it. I think I myself felt, where the first time I heard the name of the, of the brand, but at the same point in time, I don't think it's harming anybody. I think it would have been, much different if it was somebody outside of the, of the group that made, that the title did that and packaged it in that way.

Omari Souza: Similarly, if I, as a cisgender male, decided to make a pastry for someone within the LGBTQ community and used, a negative phrase for that community, it would it would look a particular way, me being an outsider, trying to promote something for that community that has, negative historical connotations, versus someone from that community doing it and then retelling it to their, their own audiences.

Omari Souza: I think I don't, I don't, I don't particularly feel like it's a failure on their end to name it that. But I do think there'll be people that will choose not to purchase it, because of that name. And that's, that's, that's the right to choose, not to.

Alaysia Brown: Janine, thank you so much for asking that question. I really appreciate it. And it's great seeing a student's face up here. So thank you for attending. We have another fam use student question. So if you are if you're in the building I don't want to make this a fam u versus FSU thing. But as you if you're in the building, we need some questions from you because fam U is dominating this chat right now with these questions.

Alaysia Brown: But again absolutely great to have both schools here. So thank you again for coming. Jacob asked the question. The question says, and Jacob, as a family student, are there any emerging niches in graphic design that students should look into? I always wanted to work in sports product design.

Omari Souza: There are always emerging trends and niches, from one year to the next. I think what's important is less about what's emerging and more about what you are passionate about. So if you think about some of the new technological advances that are happening with industry, especially the inclusion of AI, some of the new pieces of software that you can leverage to create different things.

Omari Souza: How are you using these items? In order to solve problems in areas that you feel most connected to, most passionate about? And if you're using, new cutting edge technology, if you're using, if you're using cutting edge technology, and if you're looking at it through the lens of what you are passionate about and trying to find a solution for the problems that you are seeing that others might not, you now are carving your own mind.

Omari Souza: But if you're looking at what becomes the emerging trend for for that year, what you're actually doing is attempting to follow the crowd and it becomes a lot harder for you to fight through the noise, to be seen when you're fighting through the crowd, than it would beat car for your own path. Because when people think about the issue, if you're the only one on that path, it it becomes a fewer list of names that they can pull from, to, to, to speak to a particular issue.

Alaysia Brown: Gotcha. Awesome. Thank you for that. And thank you for that question, Jacob. Awesome. Well, we have a question from Justin Floyd. Justin, you were one of the first people off camera. It's great to have you here. Thank you for coming. What's your question for Omari?

Omari Souza: Yeah. Oh, my.

Guest: Yes, ma'am. My question.

Omari Souza: Is.

Guest: How do you include your authenticity to.

Omari Souza: Connect with the audience when it comes to designing? How do I improve my authenticity yet and include an increase?

Omari Souza: I've always been a little stubborn. So being authentic has been easy for me because I've been stubborn.

Omari Souza: I think the easiest way to do it is just by being prepared to be challenged. That's that's the thing about it, right? If you are presenting in front of an audience, and you want to be your authentic self, let's say your authentic self requires you to wear particular clothing or an outfit in the space at that type of clothing or outfit isn't necessarily, you know, traditionally approved.

Omari Souza: You may be challenged on that. And if you're challenged on it, you have to be prepared to give substantive answers for why you should be allowed to wear the outfit that you want to wear. If it's speaking a particular way or on a particular subject, you have to be knowledgeable enough to then articulate, you know, the problems, the solutions, all of these other things.

Omari Souza: Because people will push back on it. Oftentimes whenever I meet someone who isn't being authentic to themselves, it's often a sign of lack of confidence and being, bringing their full selves, to, to whatever scenario that they're in. And sometimes that could be alleviated by being prepared. Someone asked, Kobe Bryant while he was still living, how he was able to play with as much confidence.

Omari Souza: And his response was, I know that I did everything needed to prepare for this moment. So there's there's nothing that can happen that I won't be prepared for with a road win, whether it's a win loss, a draw, I did everything in practice that I knew I needed to prepare myself. So being authentically you is being self-reflective.

Omari Souza: Figuring out where you feel that you are weakest in terms of defending defense of this authenticity. And how you can then make the argument for why, you should carry yourself a particular way. Hey, thank you so much. I really do appreciate it online. Any sign.

Alaysia Brown: Ups? Awesome. And Jaden Jenkins, I have not forgotten about you. I see your question in the chat that you asked 15 minutes ago. Sorry about that, but I got you now. Jaden, you act hi for student here as well. I'd like to ask, what are methods you make for yourself to motivate yourself to continue to focus on designing and developing upon their.

Omari Souza: So,

Omari Souza: I think I sit in the things that make me curious. A lot of the work that I do deals in the intersection of race and practice. So I spend a lot of time, probably a lot more time not designing and more time studying. So, I'll read fiction, nonfiction books that deal with the same subject matter that I'm interested in.

Omari Souza: I'll read sociology books, psychology books that deal with the same subject matter that I'm interested in. I'm often reading, watching documentaries and engaging in order to find opportunities to interject my design skills. And think about how can design solve these particular problems. There was a framework I learned in grad school. I am investigating X through Y method in order to understand and facilitate z, and the X always, becomes your topic.

Omari Souza: Your Y is your methodology and the Z is the outcome. So if we think back to car accidents, I could say I'm investigating, car accidents, through design research methodologies in order to understand and facilitate a lowering of fatalities, for women. As a designer, I also have to think of this problem from my lens. And I don't design the vehicle.

Omari Souza: I can't construct brake pads or transmissions or anything like that. That goes into the mechanics of the vehicle. But there are interfaces in the car. When you think of speedometers, when you think of the GPS system and all of these other things that are designed, that people do engage with on the inside of the vehicle. I now have a basis to kind of build my curiosity from an, a space for investigation.

Omari Souza: So how if I improved these interactions on the, on the interior of the vehicle, how does this impact, my initial thought process of lowering, casualties or fatalities in car crashes, even if that's a matter of limiting how frequently a driver has to take their eyes off the road in order to get the information that might be on their dashboard.

Omari Souza: So I guess to answer the question in the short way is, revisiting what makes you passionate, consistently learning more about the subject that you're passionate about, and consistently thinking about that subject in a in a curious way, as it relates to your design skill set, how can my abilities help me solve the problems that this issue that I am passionate about, continues to cause?

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. And I cannot believe we have nine minutes left. I'm like, I have a trillion more questions. We can't go anywhere in nine minutes. But I get it, I get it. Y'all have lives. So nine minutes left. Omari, I've been wanting to bring this up and the students have been asking the best questions. And so it completely slipped my mind.

Alaysia Brown: But I've got to get this in because I love your take on it. Your upcoming book. You have an upcoming book that is upcoming. Please tell us more about it. And also I'd love to hear your perspective on, the role of writing in building a lasting legacy compared to a traditional portfolio.

Omari Souza: Yeah. I mean, I could start with that, that one first, the latter question, and then go into the former, I think writing, mind you, I was a terrible writer. I questionably would argue I'm still probably terrible now, but, I've gotten a lot better over time. But I think, As designers, the things that we create typically have a short lifespan, right?

Omari Souza: If you're designing for a major corporation, you might design a campaign, you might design a logo, you might design a billboard ad, which lives as long as that company until the next season when the company decides to come up with something that needs to be promoted, to which your billboard ad is replaced and your marketing campaign is replaced with something new.

Omari Souza: Right. And you're the logo was updated. Whether it's a decade or two decades down the road. Counter to that, though, whenever you publish something in writing, oftentimes what you've published and what you've shared becomes a part of a larger design discussion and becomes reference, a reference point for someone down the line. So even after you pass, someone may read an article that you brought up, I, for example, bump into people that tell me that they've read, my first book and, essays from my first book in order to help their research initiatives.

Omari Souza: Or they've read my, my graduate thesis, to help them understand, pieces from that subject matter. And, you know, I don't have projects that I've worked on that have a similar lifespan. And in many ways, when we're talking about diversity in design, one of the areas that we lacked the most diversity is by way of thought leadership in terms of publish artifacts and materials.

Omari Souza: So when we think about, the design canon, and we're thinking about the period of time that we're in currently if we don't have, people of color adding to, the, the, the zeitgeist, the ideas that are being, pushed out there, then our voices will be ignored. When it comes to crafting. What this, this this, extended canon looks like, when I did my first book, The Anthology of Blackness, in collaboration with Teressa Moses, and the contributing authors that contributed to it, I believe we came across the stat that only 2% of book proposals that are placed out there get selected, and out of that 2%,

Omari Souza: only 1% of those authors happened to be black. So if you think of 1% of 2%, think about how small you know, that that number is, comparatively, the I'm, I think for many designers, it's just as important for you to be able to, draft a 5000 word essay as it would be for you to Karen type.

Omari Souza: So it's something that I would strongly recommend. Now for the former question, in terms of, my book, I have a book called, Designing Against Racism that's, going to be published that's being published by Princeton Architectural Press. Now, Canonical Press, and it's supposed to be released in October. The book is inspired by the practice of Zora Neale Hurston as an anthropologist.

Omari Souza: And her study of, her interview, conjure Lewis, the last, living slave that was brought to the United States. And the telling of the story, she used a lot of methods, in her investigation and her interviews that at the time weren't considered, academically sound. And went against the grain, similar to the question that was asked earlier.

Omari Souza: It went against the grain. It provided innovative solutions. But because it wasn't what academia felt should have been done, her book was shelved and it wasn't published until 60 years after she died. But my my book takes some of those practices and, argues that not only should we do them in terms of our investigations, but it should also utilize them in design methods, because it was all predicated on how do you work with a marginalized audience without further marginalizing them?

Omari Souza: How do you tell their story, in an authentic way without, stripping it of, of, of their character. So she, she did things like, she only called him by his given name. If he gave an interview question, she would type it out, the way that he said it versus attempting to, perfect his grammar in the in the way that he was articulating things, told stories of his culture in the same respect that you would any of the, classically influential cultures, Greece, Rome, Egypt.

Omari Souza: And just paid a level of respect and dignity to him as a person and spent a considerable amount of time in that community in order to build trust and exchange and to understand in ways that a lot of practitioners of design today do not do.

Alaysia Brown: I love that book, and I cannot wait to read your book. Inspired by that book. I'm super excited. We have three minutes left. Janine, I want to get your last question in. We gotta do a 60s situation with your question. Janine. Hello.

Guest: I do have I have a two part question, but it's mostly pertaining to time management. Okay, so as a student, I have a really difficult time with time management when it comes to, my schoolwork as a curricular work that I'm doing outside of my courses. I also have freelance work. I am an illustrator, I work, I do, personal commissions for people.

Guest: And I'm also starting a job outside, and it's kind of very hard to find a workaround of how to get every single thing done within a short amount of time. And I can say for myself, too, what's something that's also preventing me from getting stuff done as well is because I'm a perfectionist. So a lot of the work that should be done already if are being halted because of my perfectionism as well.

Guest: So I'm constantly back, back logging all the stuff I need to get done. So what would you say as a designer? What would be the best advice for fixing or going working around that situation of time management? And then also having perfectionism at the same time?

Omari Souza:

Omari Souza: So it depends. I think,

Omari Souza: When I was an undergrad, and even when I went to graduate school, I was in a similar situation as yourself. My undergrad and what's called the Institute of Art was an extremely expensive institution. And that was the first generation of my family to go to college. We didn't have much money, so I had to work three jobs, to pay my rent, to buy my supplies for class and to feed myself right at a job for each, each of those things.

Omari Souza: And I did that for the five years that I worked there. And the reality of the situation is there weren't enough hours in the day, for me to do everything. Well. So my my grades at school weren't the strongest. I think I had. I think I graduated with A25 or A26. My performances at those three jobs and weren't the strongest.

Omari Souza: But at that time period, the focus was surviving and getting the degree. That was that was the priority. Sometimes when you're in the survival, when you're in survival mode, time management isn't necessarily an option. And that was the case for me. I could say divide your divide your time, divided based on classes. But if you were in the same situation that I was in, where sometimes if somebody had an extra chip that you could pick up, would be the difference between whether or not you ate Saturday night or not.

Omari Souza: You have to do what you have to do in order to survive. That becomes a lot easier as you become more settled into your career. And as you begin to make a name for yourself, because you can begin the process of saying no to things. But if you were in the situation that I'm in, I, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie, Romeo Must Die with a li and Jet li.

Guest: I haven't it's.

Omari Souza: Not like I always make reference to this, to to this movie. Not because I thought it was a good movie. It wasn't is a cult classic, but it wasn't a good movie. But there was a scene in the movie where Jet Li and his brother were stranded at sea, and they had a basketball, and Jet Li's brother held onto him, and he held onto this basketball, and they basically hugged this thing tightly, hoping to float ashore.

Omari Souza: When I was in undergrad, it was a lot of basketball holding, and I knew if I let that boy go, I was going to drown. So I couldn't think about, anything else other than how I was going to get ashore. So if you're having difficulty managing your time, it could be a reflection of your need to survive.

Omari Souza: And it will become easier to manage your time once some of those basic survival needs are met.

Alaysia Brown: That's a word, Omari. That is a word. It is. I'm so happy that we ended on that note. Janine, thank you for asking that question. Omari, this has been so good. This is our first AMA of the year, and you knocked it out of the park. The students, you all knocked it out of the park. Thank you for being in attendance.

Alaysia Brown: So all the design professionals that are here, thank you for your time. We know that y'all are busy. All of the questions, all good things happened within this hour and I'm so excited. I just dropped, the link to register for our next Ask Me Anything Division Director of Graphic Communications at Famu and Nash Gill will be speaking.

Alaysia Brown: So definitely register to attend that. I expect it to be another amazing conversation. To all of the students on follow Diversify by Design on Instagram. We have a ton of speakers that will be with us this spring. Amazing people. That's how you can find out! Follow us on LinkedIn. Follow us on Instagram. That's how you can keep up with the work that we're doing.

Alaysia Brown: And Omari will be joining us at the second half of this year, so keep an eye out. He'll be talking more about the work in his book. It'll be very similar to this. The energy will be the exact same. So we'd love to have you there. Subscribe to our newsletter. Just visit our website. Again, I cannot thank you all enough for being in attendance.

Alaysia Brown: Best of luck to you this semester, students. Y'all got this. Y'all got this. Y'all got this. Keep going. And again, just thank you for being in attendance tonight. Definitely register for, our next AMA and we hope to see you later. Thank you all so much for being in attendance. Omari. Thank you so much.

Omari Souza: We invite I really appreciate it.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely all. Rachel, have a good evening.

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