Design for Identity with Jessica Bantom

Design for Identity with Jessica Bantom

As a designer, Jessica Bantom pays attention to details. Details matter particularly when it comes to connecting to different identities and how customers see themselves. Her newly released book, Design for Identity, aims at influencing design decisions that either bring people in or leave them out resulting in a loss of customers. After all, as Bruce Mau stated, it is not about the world of design, but about the design of the world we live in.

Jessica Bantom is a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) practitioner and workplace strategist whose mission is to enable individuals to take immediate actions that create meaningful outcomes for historically excluded people. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Marymount University, Bantom is a skilled management consultant with over 20 years of experience, a compelling speaker, and a certified facilitator and coach with a passion for helping people and organizations activate the values of DEIB to become more culturally competent and thrive in our increasingly global economy. Bantom is also active in the interior design industry as an interior design and color consultant and as an engaged advocate committed to promoting DEIB in the industry and in practice. You can learn more about Jessica and her upcoming book, Design for Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World, at JessicaBantom.com.

Despite an inexplicable aversion to diversity, the logic of diverse perspectives considering identity is essential when designing spaces and places for decisions that make sense to more people. Apart from the logic Jessica lays out in our conversation, diversity is essential when working with complexity because it provides the many lenses that we need to understand the situation, to really see the full picture. Without that, decision-makers cannot make effective decisions.

To quote Jessica:

“To design for identity means to design with respect for the depth and breadth of humanity. It means that in the process of designing we are conscious of the identities of the people we’re designing for, and we are conscious of interacting with them and getting their feedback directly so that we can, number one, identify what is culturally relevant to them, what is meaningful to them, and then also to make sure that as designers, our interpretation of that still resonates with them and respects them, and brings their voices in accurately into whatever we are designing. It’s especially important now because design organizations like many other organizations, especially since the summer of 2020, have been making these proclamations about “we support DEI”, or “we stand with so-and-so this week, and we stand with so-and-so next week”, but they’re not backing it up with any meaningful change. I wouldn’t say that there is a lack of intention or desire to change or to know more about what to do, but there is a lack of guidance I would say in terms of what to do.”

Listen in on our conversation to apply design lenses to decisions and spaces.