{"id":123029,"date":"2025-11-05T11:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/123029\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:08:15","slug":"new-edition-of-meggs-history-of-graphic-design-reforms-the-canon-print-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/123029\/","title":{"rendered":"New Edition of ‘Meggs’ History of Graphic Design’ Reforms the Canon \u2013 PRINT Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I received a mysterious email. A permissions specialist wanted to license my 1991 poster, \u201cDefying Odds, Expanding Opportunities: The African American Challenge,\u201d (below right) designed for my client, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, for use in the forthcoming 7th Edition of Meggs\u2019 History of Graphic Design<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I scanned the image, forwarded my permission form, and crossed my fingers. No way, was my image and any commentary about my work going to appear in the next Meggs\u2019, I thought. By July, I received a confirmation from the book\u2019s co-editor, Sandra Maxa.<\/p>\n

I had no idea how the editors would position my work, but I was excited to see the new edition. Before attending the AIGA Design Conference, I received my copy, and I read it in awe of the new perspectives and the topical organization. Under the topic \u201cMobilizing for Racial Equality,\u201d I found my poster, positioned alongside Black design history icons: Eugene Winslow, Emory Douglas, Dorothy E. Hayes, and the sub-listing of Bill Howell, Dorothy Akuburo, William Wacasey, Alex Walker, and Joyce Hopkins. I am beyond honored to see my name listed with our community\u2019s Black graphic design trailblazers.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cDefying Odds, Expanding Opportunities: The African American Challenge,\u201d the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
poster by Cheryl D. Miller (1991)
\n\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cMobilizing for Racial Equality,\u201d featuring work by Herb Lulalin, Corita Kent, Eugene Winslow, Emory Douglas, and Cheryl. D. Miller, Meggs\u2019 7th Edition, pages 444-448<\/p>\n

But as I thumbed through the pages, the topic of \u201cEditorial Design\u201d offered another surprise: Ebony and Jet Magazine are now canonized in Meggs\u2019 History of Graphic Design. \u201cWell, sah,\u201d as my Island mother would say. \u201cThese magazines highlighted the Black experience at a time when most magazines focused on white readers documenting a range of topics, including the civil rights movement of the 1960s and pop culture,\u201d wrote the authors.<\/p>\n

With excitement, I looked over the index to discover 25 Black designers in the 7th Edition. That\u2019s a 750% increase in visibility of Black graphic designers from merely three references in the previous six editions.<\/p>\n

I have been an extremely harsh critic of Meggs\u2019 History in the past, as it rendered the timeline of our graphic design history. As a lecturer at the Howard University School of Fine Arts, I teach my signature course, \u201cDecolonizing Graphic Design: A Black Perspective,\u201d and have written an accompanying history textbook<\/a> in response to the countless oversights of cultures and heritages not recorded in the canon. I couldn\u2019t wait for Meggs\u2019 to do what I knew needed to be made available to young designers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The 7th Edition is a reformation \u2014 dismantling the core barriers that have kept many of us from realizing our full potential in this field. It will make a transformative difference for years to come. The next generation of designers will find themselves in the history of graphic design and propel the industry forward.<\/p>\n

Black graphic designers have been hiding in plain sight for centuries. They had no intention of hiding. The design industry simply made little attempt to help them feel seen.<\/p>\n

Jada Jones, Howard University undergraduate<\/p>\n

I asked Maxa about the restructuring of the historical timeline and how this shift might affect educators whose weekly lectures have long relied on the linear storytelling approach that has traditionally defined Meggs\u2019 History.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo create a new edition that is relevant to students today, we used a more direct writing style and stronger representation of designers from different backgrounds,\u201d she said. \u201cWe also advocated for restructuring the new edition around themes instead of chronology to avoid implying a hierarchy that comes with presenting something as \u2018the first.’\u201d Maxa continued, \u201cIncluding diverse voices and practices of graphic design is integral to situating the work of graphic designers today with cultural and social contexts of the past and inviting broader participation and interpretation from readers to construct a shared history of graphic design.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard you! We read a lot of reviews and talked to numerous people about what they would like to see in a new edition of\u00a0Meggs\u2019 History of Graphic Design,\u201d said Maxa. The Black graphic design representation in the 7th Edition is\u00a0unmatched as a discussion of the design canon.\u00a0Years of countless clarion calls from our Black graphic design community have finally been heard \u2014 for a more fair, equitable, and just representation of all practicing designers, past and present.<\/p>\n

The canon is not neutral. It is not simply a record of what happened. It is a selective story that gives power to some voices and silences others.<\/p>\n

Aditya Gupta, Howard University MFA program<\/p>\n

At the AIGA conference, I was pleased that Debra Johnson, co-owner of Shop at MATTER<\/a>, featured the new Meggs\u2019 in the pop-up store. I asked Johnson how sales of the latest edition were going. Candidly, she informed me: not well. \u201cMany are saying it\u2019s too white,\u201d Johnson admitted, \u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve carried Meggs\u2019 in our bookstore. Meggs\u2019 long reputation as a premier graphic design history textbook coincides with its reputation as being a white, Eurocentric textbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that the 7th Edition has expanded and reformed the canon of our collective histories, Meggs\u2019 must tell a new branding story!<\/p>\n

AIGA also coincided with my midterm grading, which further underscored the point above; each paper spoke to a crucial need to diversify the design history we teach.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Left: Timeline from Meggs\u2019 7th Edition, page 2; Right: Detail of Blombos Cave patterns (South Africa) and Lascaux paintings (France)<\/p>\n

The Lascaux Cave \u201cbull and horse\u201d artifact has dominated our understanding of the origins of writing and graphic communication. Meggs\u2019 and every other history of graphic design underrepresents the graphic communication, writing, and symbols originating in Africa. The new Meggs\u2019 History of Graphic Design course corrects! In the first chapter, \u201cTimeline,\u201d the book gives a lucid and a fair representation of both Africa (c. 75,000 BCE Silcrete flake stones at Blombos Cave, South Africa) and then Southern France (c. 15,000-10,000 BCE cave painting at Lascaux) as the beginning origins of graphic communication, writing, and symbols, offering the origin of our history in clear view.<\/p>\n

This lack of visibility is problematic not only because it disregards the historical context that many people live in, but it also limits the ways in which we can truly communicate with each other.<\/p>\n

Kamel Worgs, Howard University MFA program<\/p>\n

Maxa, along with co-editor Mark Sanders, candidly shared with me their heartfelt goal to include a more diverse history within the new edition of Meggs\u2019 History of Graphic Design. \u201cWe sought parallel, converging, and divergent designers and works that bolster the spine of graphic design history presented over the previous editions,\u201d she said. The book\u2019s acknowledgments list includes Bobby Martin, Jerome Harris, and Brockett Horne as especially helpful in advising on Black graphic design history. Maxa continues, \u201cOur hope in doing this is that readers, new and old, find meaningful role models, contrasting opinions, and unexpected connections that illustrate how the past is important to their present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to thank the numerous graphic designers, researchers, archivists, journalists, advocates, students, and teachers who add to the scholarship and history of graphic design every day,\u201d Maxa added. \u201cWe spent hundreds of hours reading your books, articles, interviews, exhibition catalogs, and papers, and are grateful for and inspired by your work to expand the field of design.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 7th Edition of Meggs\u2019 is a new beginning; it offers hope. Mission accomplished, Meggs\u2019 team! I plan to incorporate it alongside my own course textbook. I am confident my design scholars will be inspired to find their voice and feel included in the design conversation.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cheryl D. Miller is recognized for her outsized influence within the graphic design profession to end the marginalization of BIPOC designers through her civil rights activism, industry expos\u00e9 trade writing, research rigor, and archival vision. Miller is a national leader of minority rights, gender, race, diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion advocacy in graphic design. She is the founder of the former Cheryl D. Miller Design, Inc., NYC, a social impact design firm. A designer, author, educator, theologian, and decolonizing design historian, Miller is the author of HERE: Where the Black Graphic Designers Are<\/a> (2024) and Decolonizing Design from a Black Perspective<\/a> (2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, I received a mysterious email. A permissions specialist wanted to license my 1991 poster, \u201cDefying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-123029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}