Last year, Herman Miller shared a set of actions we're taking to become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. One of those actions includes establishing a design collaborative to partner with design industry peers to provide underrepresented students with design education opportunities and exposure to the international design community. 

Today, we're excited to share the launch of the Diversity in Design (DID) Collaborative, an initial group of 20 companies that are joining us with a common goal of increasing diversity in the design industry. Together, we're forging systemic change through action. Learn more at diversityindesign.com.

Behind the Collaborative

DID was initially formed at Herman Miller and its family of brands, with Senior Vice President of Special Projects Mary Stevens and Caroline Baumann, former Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, co-leading the creation of the Collaborative, engaging key leaders and industries from across the world of design to form this initial group. An early group of Founding Advisors including D’Wayne Edwards, Founder, Pensole Design Academy, Lesley-Ann Noel, Associate Director for Design Thinking for and Social Impact, Tulane University, and Forest Young, Chief Creative Officer of Wolff Olins, helped to develop the Collaborative.

Behind the logo

The DID logo, designed by Advisor, Forest Young, is conceived as a data visualization of this particular moment in time and reflects the work to be done. His inspiration for the DID logo is, as he describes it, “a simple story of three squares and a circle. Our design profession is held captive by its relative homogeneity, interpreted here as a series of squares. It is only through the introduction of a circle, and its diversity of form, where the halves of the square and circle can meet to make letterforms legible. DID can be seen as prefiguring a new order. Differing opacity connotes uneven representation and serves to signal a perpetual ambition. In this sense, the mark is a charge: our profession will only become legible when diversity is re- lensed as a beacon of industry.”

Behind the illustrations

Black designers have long been major contributors to the design field—these are just a few of the practical inventions introduced to the world by Black designers. Through the power of DID, we’re excited to celebrate a history of excellence and illuminate career pathways for continued ingenuity. Art direction by Forest Young, design by Kelly O'Hara.

Behind the website

The DID website strategy, design, and development were done by Work & Co.

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