New Cross-Industry Collaborative Aims to Increase Diversity in Design

New Cross-Industry Collaborative Aims to Increase Diversity in Design

Diversity in Design Collaborative (DID) is a group of companies united by a common belief in both design's power as an agent of change and in the critical role that diversity plays in creating strong, impactful businesses and innovations.

DID includes prominent member companies across design fields - including Herman Miller Group, Knoll, Adobe, Dropbox, Gap, Inc, Pentagram, Wolf Ollins, fuseproject, 2x4, Work & Co, and more - joining forces to improve the representation of Black creatives in design by increasing design career opportunities and focusing on the education pipeline to create long term and lasting change.

"At Herman Miller, design is core to who we are - we believe in its power to solve problems and make the world a better place. But the alarming data about diversity and representation in the industry has served as an urgent call to action for us to do better," said Andi Owen, President and CEO of Herman Miller Group. "In our early stages of research on how to best address the underrepresentation of Black designers, it was immediately clear that we could not make substantial and lasting change alone. I'm excited for the launch of the DID Collaborative and eager to work alongside our fellow members to create meaningful change."

DID was initially formed at Herman Miller Group, 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.

"Design is an agent of positive change. Good design requires successful collaboration. The members of DID, all companies with design at their core, are dedicated to making the systemic change necessary to transform the industry for good, moving the needle on the stark less than 5% that represents brown and black people in our industry," Baumann stated. "We, a Collaborative of authentically committed leaders united by design, are coming together to make that change together."

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