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Did you miss our conversation with Jon Key? Register here to watch the recording of this thought-provoking of the PRINT Book Club.
“The [design] canon is exclusionary,” as Jon Key says, so the impetus for his research for Black, Queer, & Untold came from what “echoed from the silence.” Key admits that as a queer, Black designer, the book was born as a selfish project—to see what he could bring up for himself.
I can’t tell you my future, so I’ll tell you my past.
Jon Key
And, oh what treasures he surfaced! Key tells the story through his search for lost, forgotten, and ignored artifacts of Black, queer design history, a process he calls both personal and pedagogical. “This represents me and it’s also something I can learn from.”
Our discussion with Key wound from the depth of his research to a discussion of some of the people and objects he uncovered during the four years of writing and compiling this book. Key talked about his search for the origin of the word “gay,” to the first Black gay design he ever saw. Key also touched on his personal history, as a child in an art-encouraged household (even if it came with a little “glitter trauma”) and his initial want to go to Georgetown to study psychology.
Being a designer is a visual expression of [psychology] in many ways. Working with clients, digging into ‘why.’
Jon Key
And, of course, we also discussed Key’s partner in life and work, Wael Morcos, and the work they do at their award-winning Brooklyn studio, Morcos Key.
Register here to watch the recording and buy your copy of Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers.
Header: screenshot from PRINT Book Club with Jon Key (top left), Steven Heller (top right), and Debbie Millman (bottom).
The post ‘Echoes From the Silence,’ Book Club Recap with Jon Key appeared first on PRINT Magazine.