00013 · Extra Bold
A feminist inclusive anti-racist nonbinary field guide for graphic designers
Extra Bold lays it all out. Billing itself as “a feminist inclusive anti-racist nonbinary field guide for graphic designers,” it’s a mix of theory and practicality, of introductions and deep dives, of essays and graphics, of humor and seriousness, of industry norms and outsider thinking. It’s a diverse delight.
I would recommend it to anyone getting a start in the all-encompassing fields of graphic design or DEI, though I’d guess experts would enjoy the sheer range of the book’s authors and content.
The book is divided into three sections: theory, history, and work.
The section on theory is broken into focused chapters—feminism, racism, intersectionality, queer, etc.—with “voices” chapters featuring various designer and their experiences.
Keeping in mind this is a book about graphic design, I enjoyed the deep thinking on the paradox that the design we are most accustomed to—and therefore is the most clear and accessible—is Eurocentric Western design theory.
Much of the content in the work section is surprisingly mainstream, a “here’s-how-to-get-through-the-system” field guide. Again, there are “voices” chapters which provide invaluable examples of how to live within or adjacent to the norms of the industry, and still maintain an independent identity, and sometimes sanity.
The history section was my favorite. The majority of the chapters are mini biographies of the well-known and lesser-known, with a focus on aspects of their identities that have been minimized. It tickled my fancy to learn that Walt Whitman used little swimming sperms as decorative motifs in the early title pages of Leaves of Grass. Whitman loved the publishing process. He actually hung out in the press room and revised the books as they came off the press, which is why there are multiple versions of each edition. He dialed back the queerness and eroticism of Leaves of Grass as his fame rose.
I feel one of the best pieces of design in the book is an “Emotional Labor Invoice” created by Anastasia Collins, from “Marginalized Folks, Inc.” to “Potential Ally, Privileged Folks, Ltd” with line items for things like:
Endured your micgroaggression(s);
Softened my reaction to spare your feelings; and
Explained something about oppression that you could’ve Googled.
The $1,500 total at the bottom gives weight to the idea that if you’re charging around $100 an hour for your work as a designer, dealing with other people’s bullshit is simply not worth it.
I feel a great companion book would focus more on current designers, with a compendium of graphic design examples showing the meeting of form and content in combinations that stretch the standards of the communications industry, or beautifully break them. The craft of typography and design is due for revolution.
