Sylvia Harris has been described as a public designer, her own words, and a citizen designer, but whatever you want to call it, Harris was dedicated to designing for the good of the people. She was committed to creating designs that helped people to navigate their world. Harris grew up in Richmond, Virginia where she experienced the desegregation of her school, which likely had a significant impact on her entire life.  As a Black designer who was educated and entrenched in modernist design practices, created by western and European “elite” designers, she sought to discover what the Black aesthetic in America was for herself, and she shared her findings with the world. Her work ranges from the redesign of the US Census in 2000, which succeeded in creating a design that resulted in a larger number of responses that were more complete and accurate, to the design for the ACLU’s initial brand design. Sylvia Harris is a designer who can teach us a lot about what it is to be a Black designer in America, where to possibly look for Black designers in graphic design history, as well as what it means to create design for good. 

TIMELINE

1953 – b Richmond, Virginia
1959 – State of Virginia is officially desegregated, the state continued to fight desegregation and was not fully desegregated until 1970
1971 - Entered Design school
1975 - Graduates from Virginia Commonwealth University where she was a student of Philip Meggs
1975 - Works for WGBH design department in Boston alongside, Chris Pullman, an AIGA Medalist 
1980 - Graduates from Yale with MFA in design
1980 - Founds 212 Associates with David Gibson & Juanita Dugale
1993 - Hired to redesign the Census (design released in 2000)
1994-1997 - Serves on AIGA board of directors
1994 - Leaves 212 to found her own company Sylvia Harris, LLC
1996 - Publishes What is it? Searching for the Black Aesthetic in American graphic design
2000 - Design census released
2011 - Rebrands her company to focus on “Citizen Research & Design”
2011 - Untimely death, complications due to heart failure she was 57
2014 - posthumously awarded AIGA Medal

REFERENCES

AIGA. (n.d.). 2014 AIGA Medalist: Sylvia Harris. AIGA. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.aiga.org/inspiration/talks/sylvia-harris-2014-aiga-medalist-sylvia-harris

Allbrittin, D. (2021, December 14). Richmond Schools today: RPS still fighting to improve segregation, 51 years after busing. ABC 8 News. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/richmond-schools-today-rps-still-fighting-to-improve-segregation-51-years-after-busing/

Daugherity, B. J. (n.d.). Desegregation in Public Schools – Encyclopedia Virginia. Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/desegregation-in-public-schools/#:%7E:text=Desegregation%20began%20in%20Virginia%20on,in%20the%20spring%20of%201956

Citizen Research & Design. (n.d.). About The Company | Citizen Research & Design. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20110806102912/http://citizenrd.com/about

Citizen Research & Design. (n.d.-b). U.S. Census 2000 | Citizen Research & Design. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20111007192600/http://citizenrd.com/projects/us-census-2000

Gibson, D. (n.d.). Sylvia Harris | SEGD. SEGD. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://segd.org/sylvia-harris

Harris, S. (1996). What It Is? Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design. The International Review of African American Art, 13(1), 38–38.

Helfand, J. (11–07-25). Remembering Sylvia Harris. Design Observer. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://designobserver.com/feature/remembering-sylvia-harris/29118

House, L. (n.d.). Sylvia Harris Biography. AIGA. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20111004035114/http://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-sylvia-harris/

Two Twelve. (2014, May 14). Sylvia Harris Receives 2014 AIGA Medal - Voice - Two Twelve. Two Twelve Voice. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from http://www.twotwelve.com/voice/sylvia-harris-receives-2014-aiga-medal.html