Black Designers I Enjoy Following & Supporting

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

37 Comments

1. This is a wonderful collection of great design. Thank you taking the time to use your position as a platform of positivity and support. Thanks for sharing and providing more eye candy from some very talented women.

   Reply

   1. Thanks Sarah! It’s my pleasure. xo

      Reply

2. I’m familiar with a few of these accounts but there are MANY new faces here for me. Thank you for bringing them to my attention, I’m thrilled to support some beautiful new follows!

   Reply

   1. Love hearing that, Stacy!

      Reply

3. Thank you, as always, for the inspiration and authenticity. Troubled and troubling times. Have a lovely, productive week.💜

   Reply

   1. Always happy to share design inspiration and the talented designers behind it :) I hope you have a lovely week to, Peggi (despite the troubling times). xo

      Reply

4. Thank you for this post. It is sincere and helpful. I will enjoy checking out each one of the designers you highlighted. I have been naive, and am just learning about internet algorithms, so I am happy to start changing mine. So many of us have a lot of learning to do.

   Reply

   1. Thank you, Jamie. I’m glad it came off as I had intended. We all have lots of learning to do… and that’s ok! We’ll put in the work and keep learning.

      Reply

5. So many beautiful designers. I am not familiar with any of these but would love to sit down and look through them. Thank you for sharing. Looking at beauty in design is one of the few things that is feeding my soul right now.
   I am sorry for the hurtful words. I have a lot to learn. We as a country have a lot to overcome.
   I follow Just Destiny at https://justdestinymag.com. Beautiful blog; sweet family!

   Reply

   1. Love hearing that. I’m with you, Danna… finding beauty in design is also feeding my soul this week. We all have lots to learn and overcome. Thank you for sharing Destiny with me- I just followed her :) xo

      Reply

6. Hi Sarah. Thanks for showcasing some great designers. Sorry you’ve taken any heat on this issue. One thing, you might consider it a compliment that you have readers who feel comfortable enough to engage with you on the tough subjects. Keep being you either way because you are right you’ll never please everyone. As for people telling you what to say I disagree. I’ve noticed there seems to be a script out there and I personally find that patronizing.

   Reply

   1. Thanks for the new perspective Liz! It’s a tricky place to be in, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I definitely don’t want to regurgitate a script and I will always speak from my heart. Lots of love! xo

      Reply

7. Thank you for sharing these amazing designers. Some of which weren’t on my radar up until now. I also thank you for speaking up. As a black woman and long time follower, I appreciate that you didn’t choose silence.

   Reply

   1. I’m glad to hear that, Traci! It’s my pleasure and I really appreciate your kind words. It has been tough to find my voice when I feel so inadequate, but I want to show up and show my support. Lots of love! xo

      Reply

8. There is so much beautiful design and inspiration here 😍 I’m totally smitten with Nicole White and that jaw dropping black and white kitchen. Wow! Love Erika Ward too, her kitchen reveal on the ORC last fall was stunning! Such wonderfully talented people you have highlighted here Sarah! I’ve just have to take a break from the backyard craziness, pour a very tall glass of wine and immerse myself in all the beauty and fabulousness 😊 Have a super fantastic week 😎

   Reply

   1. Nicole is amazing! We’ve been on a couple design trips together and she is SO hilarious and incredible in person. Her design skills are an added bonus to her awesome personality. Hah! I also love Erika Ward’s aesthetic. She has an incredible eye for design. Enjoy your very tall glass of wine after all that yard work :) I bet it’s looking amazing out there! xo

      Reply

9. Thank you Sarah! I appreciated the way you articulated your feelings in this important post. As white people, get so many mixed messages and sometimes stay silent due to fear of our own. Thank you for inspiring me to speak up!

   Reply

   1. Thanks Jennifer! I was feeling very anxious to hit the post button on this one, because I didn’t want it to read in the wrong way. I totally feel your fear. I’m trying to listen, learn, and know that in the process of speaking up and using my voice- I’ll make mistakes along the way. We all will because we’re human and we’re learning together. We just have to course correct and keeping moving forward. Hang in there! xo

      Reply

10. These are some beautiful designs. I wish you would include a little description of what kind of design each person does or what inspires you about their work. I really liked your descriptions in that post you did a while back about design blogs that you as a blogger follow, and it would be helpful to do that here since many of these names are new to your readers. It would also help this feel more authentic. (Not that it’s not authentic, I’m sure it is. It would just help reinforce that point you made at the beginning about these being great designers to follow because they’re amazing at what they do, not just because of their race.)

    Reply

    1. Hi Italy! Such a great point and feedback I’d love to elaborate on. Thank you so much for the suggestion, BTW! Each blog post has an SEO formula, so that it is more searchable and accessible. In an effort to fit as many designers into this post as possible, it became quite long. The SEO software doesn’t like super duper long posts, so you have to keep it under a word count minimum. I began writing the descriptions and tidbits about each designer and only made it to #12 before it flagged the post, so I ended up editing the descriptions out. I think a better solution for the future might be to break this post into two or three smaller posts and include the tidbits in those. Lesson learned on the super long list format… my apologies! I’ll try to keep lists at 10-12 so I can provide a description for each designer’s personality and aesthetic. Such an awesome point! I appreciate it :)

       Reply

11. Wow what a great list of designers Sarah. Thanks for the info.

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Leslie! xo

       Reply

12. Keep on being your authentic self. You are perfect as you are. By highlighting designers some of us may have never known about you are taking a sincere and appropriate response to current events. I don’t think anyone expects ( or should expect) you to use your design focused blog to speak about anything but design.

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much, Melanie! I really appreciate your kind words and support.

       Reply

13. Thanks for your honest post. I appreciate that you spoke up and highlighted these amazing designers.

    Reply

    1. Thank you! It is my pleasure and the least I can do. I’ll try to work on more of these roundups and lists that support Black Designers and Makers in the interior industry.

       Reply

14. Thank you for sharing this list and supporting these designers. I greatly enjoyed this post.

    Reply

    1. I’m so happy to hear that, Cacey! xo

       Reply

15. Fabulous post!

    Reply

    1. Thanks Brenda!

       Reply

16. Love this post. I’m your follower for many reasons but this post articulates the BEST reason. Thank you! And now I have more designers to follow! Yay!

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much for being here, Laura! So happy you were able to discover some amazing designers :) xo

       Reply

17. I can’t wait to sit down and jump into the meat of this post! I too have been doing self reflection and working to educate myself. In the process I realized that I need to diversify my fliers if I ever can hope to see another perspective and hear information I normally wouldn’t. So as always, this post is perfectly timed! I appreciate that you are using your platform to try; that’s all we can do as we move forward, and it won’t be perfect. You’re doing great Sarah! Don’t be discouraged by the negative. 😘

    Reply

    1. I love that, Lauren! My thoughts exactly. I can certainly do a better job! As always, I truly appreciate your support. I hope you’re having a good week, friend. xo

       Reply

18. Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for sharing examples of my work along with so many of my friends and colleagues. Your support is invaluable and much appreciated! – Keita Turner

    Reply

    1. It is my pleasure Keita! I will do better to support you, as well as other BIPOC friends and colleagues in the design industry. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. xo

       Reply

19. What a wonderful roundup of some super talented designers, Sarah! I was familiar with some, like Shavonda, Justina and Medina, but so many of the names are new to me. Shavonda I found via YHL and after her interview on their podcast started working at diversifying my Insta feed, but many of the ones I followed still weren’t showing up much. Ugh. Algorithms. But I definitely have more work to do, too.

    I agree with Italy’s suggestion of including a short description about how they in particular inspire you, but it sounds like you’re already going to do that in that future, so thank you in advance!

    I, too, took some time to listen, learn and start unlearning some long ingrained biases, that for the most part have been unconscious, but that doesn’t make them any less damaging. I wrote some of my thoughts on my blog on Friday and I plan to go into more depth and specifics on future posts, but unlike your fantastic blog, not many people read mine (LOL) so I really appreciate that so many of the bloggers and people I follow, especially industry leaders with larger audiences, are sharing designers/makers/artists/business owners, etc. who inspire them.

    In that vein, I had found Veronica Solomon via the Fall ORC you participated in and fell head over heals for her gorgeous, glam style. I’m glad to see that ORC has become more diverse in recent rounds, as well, because I learn about so many awesome designers through that platform.

    I’m so glad you didn’t listen to the haters and that you shared what felt right for you. We all have a lot of learning to do and we’ll make mistakes, for sure, but that’s *how* we learn. (In fact, I had to google BIPOC when I saw it here, so yea, I definitely have a lot to learn.) I hope others who may think we’re learning wrong or not fast enough, will take a deep breath and see if what they’re saying/doing is helpful criticism or if it’s just cruel.

    Thank you for sharing, Sarah. Always.

    Reply