Depicting Diversity - Resources for Learning and Awareness
This blog is part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion series. #DEI #DiversityEquityandInclusion
When it comes to depicting diversity in design the first step is understanding, learning and listening to people from the backgrounds we are looking to represent.
We’re sharing a handy list of resources which we reference that have been created to help move away from bias and stereotypical representations:
What the creative industry needs to know about neurodivergence
Lived experience of neurodiversity by Ellie Middleton, whos’ also written a book UNMASKED: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism & Neurodivergence
The Gender Spectrum Collection: “a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés.”
We also try and look to illustrators from various communities who channel their lived experience into their illustrations and design projects. Here are some we are loving right now:
An Animation by Hanna Norberg-Williams about living in neurotypical world with neurodivergence.
Mia Seine who celebrates diversity by sharing real narratives about marginalised people, through their vibrant illustrations.
We’ve come across some really insightful articles about diversity in the creative industries, such as this: introduction to accessible illustration by Hatiye Garip
We will continue to keep this list updated, and welcome other resources and suggestions.
Please connect with us on LinkedIn to share learning and perspectives.
Applying our learnings:
As we’ve spoken about in our previous blog post “sometimes the opportunity to directly apply our learning or depict someone from a diverse background, marginalised group or intersectional identity doesn’t immediately arise. So we seek to create these representations in our own personal projects.”
Observation and research are key to accurately depicting people. We spent a lot of time looking at photos, and refining our technique for illustrating diverse facial features.
We wanted to create a set of more realistic and diverse character illustrations, to put some of our learning into practice. We went through a long process of sourcing photos for reference to facial features, hair types, skin tones and expressions of identity through things like clothing and accessories. Getting the nuances right, and the representation of people accurate was important to the whole process.
A small selection of some of the character illustrations we have been working on, with more being added to the set with time.
Here we have shared some of the characters we illustrated, with some process moodboards to give insight into our progression and learning. This project, which was intended as a learning and practice driven project, over an output driven project, was a really valuable learning journey for us and is ongoing. The process challenged us to take inspiration from real people, but also add our own details and take on the illustration.
It has also brought up interesting questions about where we source images from, and to what extent can we “copy from” photos of real people as well as the use of AI in representation.
Is there something which you’d like to see represented more? Get in touch we’d love to hear from you!