Category: First American Art Magazine

Eunique Yazzie: Design in the Community
by Neebinnaukzhik Southall
As appears in First American Art Magazine

EUNIQUE YAZZIE (NAVAJO) recently launched a creative service company called euniQue, LLC, in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lives with her son. She is Naaneesht’ezhi tachii’nii (Charcoal Streaked Division of the Red Running into Water Clan) born for Ma’ii deesh- giizhinii (Coyote Pass Clan). She grew up on and off the Navajo reservation.

When Yazzie was attending Chinle High School, her graphic design teacher, an older cousin, asked, “Have you given any thought on what you’re going to do for your profession or career?” Her teacher/cousin gave Eunique a pamphlet for a design school, which at the time was a dazzling example of fast-paced design work and cutting- edge technology. Her father, a talented sketch artist, commented that had such an option been available when he was younger, it would have been his path. Eunique enrolled in and graduated from Al Collins Graphic Design School.

At her first job at Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company, she handled the design and brand management for 43 dining and market establishments for Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and other clients. Later, at The Arizona Republic, she designed ads and eventually moved on to the parent company Republic Direct, where she created designs for major clients and developed prepress concepts. She has also worked with Red Note, Inc., National Urban Indian Family Coalition, the Visionary Business Magazine, and American Indian organizations at Arizona State.

A major project for her was rebranding the Phoenix Indian Center. “I love teaching people about the power of color, the power of design, especially when you are really trying to communicate to a certain population,” says Yazzie. She standardized the center’s typefaces; adjusted their logo; designed new business cards, letterhead, and envelopes; and most importantly, developed a new vibrant color palette to appeal to a broader audience, particularly youth. The colors correspond to particular departments and programs. “Prickly Pear Red,” an attractive hue, now represents the center.

Eunique also serves as the director of marketing for Palabras Librería Bookstore, an intercultural, nonprofit library, bookstore, and community space serving English and Spanish speakers. In addition to their logo, she recently created a mural for the children’s nook that incorporates a map of Phoenix and the Southwest, local flora, and interactive wooden pieces with numbers corresponding to 28 different Indigenous languages in the Southwest.

“I wanted everybody to see that we have this rich mix of culture in this area, and that English isn’t the primary language in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and California,” she says.

In Phoenix, she appreciates the cross-pollination of ideas she experiences when mingling and working with diverse groups of people. She regularly attends and participates in local art
and design events such as the Phoenix chapter of CreativeMornings and the annual Phoenix Design Week. She savors the opportunity to learn and teach as well as advocate for others. Yazzie encourages Native designers to not isolate themselves but rather engage with the larger design community. She would like to see more Natives at local design events.

“We need to be more present,” Eunique says. “We need to be in those spaces where we are not represented. We need to show people that we are here, that we have ideas, we have voices.”

Having experienced the difficulties of alternating from insider to outsider in various situations, Eunique stresses that designers cannot let insecurities or other people’s issues hold them back. “I am here for a purpose, just as much as the next person has a purpose.”

Collaboration is important, too. “We’re not all cut out to do it all,” says Yazzie. “If we are growing as a collective community rather than individuals, we are going to grow faster.”

Having lived on and off the reservation, she sees the need for individuals to take what they learn back to their communities. “There needs to be a cycle,” she says. Recently, her aforementioned cousin asked her to help judge a design competition at Chinle High School. “I drove away almost in tears because it was such an emotional coming-back story—reflecting on my whole path as a designer.”

I asked her how young Native students can prepare for a career in design. “Right now you should be teaching them the fundamentals of design,” says Yazzie. While technical skills are important, a focus on production is not enough. Conceptual thinking is foundational to good design. “It’s really the idea that makes you a standout designer,” emphasizes the artist.

Eunique would like to see young Native designers take pride in what they do because “we have lineages that are based in design. We as Native Americans understand art, not just on a personal level but a community level, because it’s part of our community—that’s what holds us together.” She credits the prevalence of Navajo graphic designers and her own successes in commercial art to Navajo art practices.

“I think that rug weaving plays a big picture in design … Rug weaving is very technical. My grandmother was a famous rug weaver. I would watch her and I would see how methodical she was about it. And it wasn’t that she was putting yarn together just to put yarn together. It had a purpose, and it was telling a story. Rugs are pretty much stories of locations. They’re stories of people, they’re stories of families, they’re stories of a really rich, embedded culture. There are specific names for them, and there are specific names for designs in them.”

Eunique shared a moment where this cultural practice allowed for communication between her and her grandmother, who was going to create Eunique a biil, or rug dress, for her high school graduation. “I had drawn out this design that I wanted. And she just looked at me and she shook her head.” Her grandmother spoke only Navajo, and Eunique could speak only English.

“I had my mom explain to her the design that I gave to her means something to me, and it means I want to be different. I don’t want to be the same as everyone, but I still want to have my rug dress. I still want to have that cultural part of me, but I also want to make it my own. And then she kind of smiled, and so she did it.” The rug dress was bright green, which Eunique wore with dyed green hair to match. “It was my expression of who I was, and I’m glad that she understood that and she was happy with it. We had a moment where we had an understanding of each other in that rug.

“If you have [weaving] in your family line, your grandmother was super smart, because there is a lot of math that goes into those rugs, there is a lot of counting, there are a lot of processes. Grandmothers, just knowing when to split a design so that it equally matches, not just in the number of lines that they’re putting down but the space in between each of their designs—just the technicality by memory is amazing. I am proud to come from that. It makes me really appreciate what I do.” When people ask why she likes design and where it comes from, Eunique says, “It’s in my blood. I know design because I saw it all around me.”

euniquecreative.com

There are plenty of die-hard fans to go around, too. Some proudly wear logos of their teams worked into beaded medallions. Like everyone else, Natives get into the rivalry. I know one sweet grandma from Cochiti Pueblo who yells at the TV when her teams are playing.

But most mainstream discussions about Native Americans and sports seem to revolve around negative depictions used in logos by non-Native teams. The effects of stereotypical and demeaning names, imagery, and chants have been widely debated. A less-considered aspect is how these names and images often fail from a design standpoint. What makes a good logo? Memorability, distinctiveness, simplicity, wide application, and relevancy. A good one isn’t trite, but for many sports logos that exist today, the same man may as well have posed
for all of them—with feathers in his braids or wearing a headdress, regardless of geographic region. And many teams have the same names: Warriors, Indians, Chiefs, and Braves (or worse!). Tomahawks and arrowheads abound. What I wouldn’t give to see a ball-headed war club! From a branding standpoint, these choices do not set these teams apart as distinctive or memorable. Hundreds of teams are guilty of this, mostly at the high school level, but even certain infamous professional teams lack unique branding. Native teams also fall into this trap.

Some conclude that all outsider references to Indigenous cultures are automatically wrong. Some refuse to acknowledge problems or make changes, conflating the bad with the good. Both ideas privilege ignorant choices as the only options. Referring to Native American cultures need not be problematic. I argue for greater incorporation of Native visuals in sports, not only for Native teams, but non-Native teams as well—in a knowledgeable, respectful, and design-savvy way, of course.

When it comes to incorporating cultural references to represent Native teams, the value is readily apparent. Many Native children begin playing sports at on-reservation schools. Virtually every tribe has at least one sports team. Sports can build self-esteem, confidence, perseverance, and even cultural pride.

From the young women’s Team Kivalliq hockey jerseys, which denote the inuksuk from the Nunavut flag, to a variety of team uniforms in the Little Native Hockey League in Ontario, to participants in basketball competitions across the continent, clear references are made to specific communities and cultures. Many jerseys include Indigenous patterns, borders, and other motifs. These teams serve as proud ambassadors of their communities.

In Native hands, even a Native mascot, if done right, can work as a representation of power and pride. The Iroquois Nationals logo, an eagle dancer, was designed by one of the founders, Oren Lyons (Onondaga Nation), a lacrosse player, painter, former commercial artist, traditional faithkeeper, and chief. Tracey Anthony (Mississauga-Delaware from Six Nations) has depicted strong Iroquois men in his designs, such as the Six Nations Rivermen logo. And Daryn Smith (Seneca) used the human form in his Seneca Warchiefs logo. All these emblems were created specifically for their communities. Certain uniforms strongly convey a sense of pride. The Iroquois teams often allude to the Iroquois flag. And why not? Lacrosse, an Indigenous game, is strongly rooted in their history.

A reimagining of the Chicago Blackhawks logo as a raptor instead of a person by Mike Ivall (Ojibwe) from 2007 recently resurfaced and made the rounds on social media, reaching millions of viewers. For many, it proved there are obvious alternatives when it comes to mascots. As for Mike, he is now a photographer with OHL Images and designs hockey jerseys.

RICO LANÁAT ́ WORL is a Tlingit-Athabascan designer and artist of the Lukaax.ádi (Sockeye) clan of the Raven moiety. He was born in Anchorage, grew up in Fairbanks, attended high school in Anchorage, and spent his summers in Juneau.

In July 2014, Rico opened a store- front in Juneau for Trickster Company. Named for the trickster Raven, his company carries Native Northwest Coast art and design products, many
of which are designed by Rico and his younger sister Crystal Worl. Trickster Company products are available all along the West Coast, as far away as Australia, and online.

Rico’s talents manifest in many forms: handmade jewelry in gold, silver, and other metals; laser-cut earrings; sunglasses; skateboard, longboard, and snowboard decks; playing cards, serigraphs, and art cards; apparel and more. Recently, two of his boards depicting the Raven and the Eagle exhibited in the Burke Museum’s Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired, and his four Chilkat Pattern Boards were displayed at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, now on loan to the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology. Alaska Governor Bill Walker and Lt. Governor Byron Mallott gave basketballs designed by Rico to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on their recent Alaskan visit.

How did Trickster Company come to be?

Trickster Company started about four years ago. The seed project was when I painted my own longboard. I wasn’t a huge boarder or anything, but I just wanted to represent my heritage in one of my day-to-day interests. Then I painted one for my cousin. And one for another cousin. The interest in the boards grew steadily. However, the problem with the paintings was that none of my customers were comfortable using them in the way I used my longboard, so I started manufacturing them. I designed skateboards not because I was big into boarding, but because I was big into designing as a means of representing. So, I continued designing various things that were a part of my life and I knew were part of other people’s lives.

The playing cards brought it up to the next level. I did a Kickstarter to fund the Trickster Company playing cards in 2013. It was about a five-month project designing the cards and then the campaign. It was very successful, reached the initial goal within days, and reached a stretch goal requiring double the funding for a second deck (the Tlingit Language Edition). We had about 500 backers and raised $17,000. It wasn’t a huge moneymaker, but it validated my work. It gave me a solid product base to work from and expand outward. It was also a huge deal to be able to go to a bank afterward and say, “Look at how many people were so interested in my product [that] they put money down before the product was made.”

At the same time all this happened, my sister was at the Institute of American Indian Arts. So, it was good timing after my sister graduated with her BFA in 2014 to open a brick-and-mortar shop here in downtown Juneau.

What has been foundational to your direction as a designer and an artist?

I would say learning formline design. The traditional design system of the Northwest Coast has always been the goal. I make these products as a student of formline. Each piece is a study. Whether it’s skate decks, card decks or jewelry, each piece is a bit of experimentation in the form and function of formline.

When did you start to design? Have you had formal training, or are you self-taught?

Art is integral to the culture. I couldn’t point out a moment when I suddenly started designing. I got more serious in 2003 when I started studying at the Native Arts Center at University of Alaska Fairbanks with Alvin Eli Amason [Sugpiaq]. That was a very eye-opening experience for me as an artist. I realized there was potential to actually make things that I envision into reality. I was at UAF for about a year before I left to get my anthropology degree from University of Pennsylvania. I’ve had bits of training here and there, but I am self-taught with the assistance of many experiences such as UAF, various work- shops, working with the collections at the Museum at U. Penn, working with various artists in my life, etc. Lots of tying small, educational experiences together to build upon.

What are your tools of the trade? When did you begin working digitally?

The foundational tool, no matter what the end product might be, is a Paper Mate SharpWriter #2. I love these mechanical pencils. A sketch, then a drawing, is the designer’s blueprint for production.

I began learning digital design in high school. A friend showed me Macromedia Flash (a now dying platform!). I made a lot of crude animations for fun with friends. When I worked for the Sealaska Heritage Institute,

I developed a series of interactive language learning games with Flash, as well as Photoshop. Then I learned Adobe Illustrator for various design projects. When I came home, I was still doing various small projects on my own using those same programs.

Chad Earles: Caddo Visual Communicator
by Neebinnaukzhik Southall
As appears in First American Art Magazine

DEBORAH VILLA (Mestiza) is the creative powerhouse behind The Santa Fe
New Mexican’s specialty magazines. As the creative director and senior editor, she produces publications for Santa Fe’s major art markets: the Santa Fe Indian Market, the International Folk Art Market/Santa Fe, and Spanish Market. Additionally, she puts together a variety of other magazines throughout the year, such as Bienvenidos, Winterlife, and Health & Wellness.

Remarkably, she is the only person on staff creating these magazines. “I design the magazine from scratch,” states Deborah. Tasks include selecting fonts, designing style sheets, determining advertising placement, and picking covers to be approved by the publisher. “You have to be detail- oriented to do design,” says Deborah. The ability to organize and manage time is also important. The grid is vital to establishing structure in her design process. “I started designing using a 12-column grid,” Deborah explains, further noting that more columns allow for greater design flexibility. Deborah emphasizes that the paper, the press, the publication, and the story must be taken into account when designing. “When you’re working with newsprint versus glossy, it’s all about readability.”

In addition to design, her work involves art direction, hiring photographers and illustrators, designers, editors, and writers. After many years of covering diverse subject matter in the various magazines, she has a good sense of who’s who and what’s going on in Santa Fe. In the last few years, she has hired editors and directed editorial content. For the market magazines, she attends the shows and takes reference photos for future articles and potential artists to cover. “I work a year in advance on all the magazines,” says Deborah. “I [send] photographers out to all the markets to get photos for next year.”

Deborah’s level of expertise and big-picture insight comes as the result of a rich history of creative work and a storied life. Her grandmother on her father’s side was a fullblooded Indigenous woman from Torreón, Mexico.

Deborah, a self-described “child of the sixties,” grew up in the Logan Heights barrio in San Diego, California, where her family has lived for many generations. As the Vietnam War raged on, Deborah watched as her brothers and members of her community were drawn into the conflict. “All the people in my neighborhood were sent to war,” reveals Deborah. The disparities within these circumstances affected her outlook and influenced her decision to work as a graphic designer.

After hitchhiking around the country and living in a commune, Deborah put herself through school, first attending Adams State College, where she studied ceramics and printmaking. She received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1978 to work as an artist in residence teaching in the schools and community of San Luis, Colorado. There, she taught ceramics and drawing. In her work she explored drawing on porcelain with a glaze pencil and silk-screen printing on tile. Over time, she became disillusioned with the dynamics within the fine art world and “rebelled against fine art.”

“I did not want to do one painting so that only one person could buy it,” explains Deborah, bothered by the idea of catering to the elite to be successful. Preferring to create art that could be for everyone, she turned to printmaking, which led her to graphic design.

Desiring to fulfill a childhood dream of attending art school, Deborah moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art University, where she graduated with a BFA in graphic design in the early 1980s. “I think the most valid thing I learned at school was typography,” says Deborah, noting that certain design techniques later became obsolete with the shift to computers. Every semester, she studied the history and nuances of type. “To me, it matters what fonts you use on different publications,” says Deborah. “You can tell an educated designer by their font choices.”

Inside and outside of school, San Francisco was an exciting place to be. “I was meeting people from all over the world,” says Deborah. Punk rock was in full swing, and the music and poster art of such bands as the Talking Heads had a major impression on her. She met and befriended Stanley Mouse, who notably designed posters and album covers for bands such as the Grateful Dead in the ‘60s. “When I was a teen I had his posters on my wall,” she reveals. With the drummer for Jefferson Airplane for a roommate, Deborah met a lot of musicians, including many she had admired in her younger years.

Music and design continued to intersect for Deborah as art director for Tower Records, where she designed advertising. “My office looked onto the San Francisco Bay.” Other work perks included “free tickets for everything” and backstage passes to shows. After Tower Records, she freelanced out of her apartment studio on Beach and Hyde Streets, producing work for nonprofit clients including Food First, Public Media Center, Mother Jones, and Greenpeace. Moving on, Deborah worked for Electronic Musician and Mix magazines for a few years in Berkeley.

MARK RUTLEDGE, A PROUD OJIBWE from the Little Grand Rapids First Nation in Manitoba, Canada, has worked in the design industry for over 15 years. He has designed for the Canadian government, NGOs/non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, the technology industry, Yukon tourism, and Native clients, including the Chiefs of Ontario, SPIRIT Magazine, and the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. He is an accredited member of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) and recently became the president of the GDC’s Arctic Chapter. He works at Outside the Cube in Whitehorse, Yukon, where he lives with his wife Tracy—a fellow designer he met in college—and their three children. Mark’s successful career results from an adventurous and at times tumultuous journey.

As a child Mark was caught in the “Sixties Scoop,” a tragic period extending from the 1960s to the 1980s in which the Canadian government stole thousands of Native children from their communities. The start of his life was brutal—at an abusive group foster home.

“We’re survivors,” asserts Mark. “We’re still here.”

Like many other Native children, Mark was adopted and raised by a white couple. Fortunately, these new parents were open-minded and never tried to hide his heritage or keep him from finding his Native family.

His adoptive family also nurtured his creativity, which he exhibited early on. When he was six or seven years old—while other children built snowmen—Mark built letterforms in the snow to form a statement. “I didn’t know it was typography,” he says of his early fascination. His first design course came in sixth grade. His mother, a schoolteacher, enrolled him in a night course for high schoolers. Surrounded by teenagers, Mark learned about commercial art, sign making, and lettering in particular.

After completing high school, Mark dreamed of going to the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. However, his guidance counselor told him he wasn’t good enough, and besides, art wasn’t a real career. As a result, Mark enrolled in Seneca College in Toronto, where he studied computer science and spent his first year programming. It wasn’t a good fit, and he performed poorly. It took him a week to muster up the courage to tell his dad he was failing. Rather than being angry, his dad suggested Mark take graphic design instead. Seneca College was actually one of the first programs in the area to offer a degree in design. Mark enrolled the next year, and his computer experience proved to beneficial. “I had an edge on the other kids because I knew how a computer worked,” explains Mark. While admitting he wasn’t good at something was difficult, he sees failure as a necessary step to improvement. “Everyone fails. How are you supposed to become successful if you don’t fail?”

When Mark first went to school, graphic design involved paste-ups (an arrangement of physically placed illustrations and text on paper), blue-lines (proofs printed in shades of blue), and film for printing. When the industry shifted, Mark went back to school to further immerse himself in digital, online, and interactive media. “You have to evolve with the field,” stresses Mark, and maintain a thirst for knowledge. “If you don’t know the tools, how else are you supposed to be a designer?” A solid foundation in the history of the field and knowledge of its influential designers is also vital.

He is inspired by great graphic designers, such as Massimo Vignelli, a renowned designer who sadly recently passed away. Mark had the fortune to meet him at a conference and loves his clean, modernist style. Also among his favorite designers are Victor Pascual (Navajo-Mayan), Ryan Red Corn (Osage), Dwayne Bird (Peguis First Nation), and Louie Gong (Nooksack), in how they utilize Native iconography with flair in their work.

Mark’s first design job out of school was at Aboriginal Voices, an early Native lifestyle magazine published by Cayuga actor Gary Farmer. As their only designer, for a year or two he laid out the magazine late into the night in a “swanky office” in an old building on Queen Street in the fashion district in the core of downtown Toronto. The location was happening and work atmosphere exciting. “I met all these famous Indians,” enthuses Mark, such as Cree musician Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as many Native actors.

Rumors spread that the magazine was folding, so Mark started job-hunting and received two offers—a fashion magazine and the student administration at Ryerson University. Despite loving fashion, he chose the latter. At Ryerson, he mingled with other young people, designed diverse communication material, and was in the hub of downtown Toronto.

Over time, Mark didn’t feel challenged enough, so in 1998 he sought work at a design studio to sharpen his skills. The studio, Hangar 13 Art & Design, was in Ottawa, Ontario. Back in “another old warehouse building,” he primarily designed for government agencies. He worked with a team of designers, and his setup was cutting-edge—working a Mac computer with two huge monitors for the first time. “I wanted to work at a boutique design studio, and here I am!” he thought.

OSAGE GRAPHIC DESIGNER Ryan Red Corn’s accomplishments are many and varied. He co-founded the design and marketing company Buffalo Nickel Creative (www.buffalonickelcreative.com), whose clients include Nike and NMAI; operates Red Corn Native Foods; shoots videos and performs for the Native comedy group, the 1491s (www.1491s.com); launched Demockratees, a successful line of edgy political t-shirts; and serves as the co-executive director of NVision, a Native youth media arts group. Recently, I had a chance to speak with Ryan and hear his perspectives as a designer working with Native communities.

Having Access

Ryan Red Corn’s creative foundations began early. With a mother studying graphic design and a father working in carpentry, he had many opportunities for hands-on learning at a very young age. He often accompanied his mother to classes, and at home, with access to the tools of the trade, he graphed letters and used darkroom equipment.

His father traded a drum set for a computer, and the family got CorelDRAW, which Ryan used extensively as a young teen. He also grew up with the visual aesthetics of his tribe, participating in ceremonies and having many artists in the family.

During high school, Red Corn took design classes at the Shawnee Mission District vocational school, and, in junior college, he majored in graphic design.

He transferred to the nearby University of Kansas, at the time listed among the top five places to learn graphic design. While at school, Ryan jokes he started “doing more freelance than homework.” In 2003, he graduated with a BFA in Visual Communications and has been designing since.

Realizing how important access has been to his own journey as a graphic designer, Ryan, who has two daughters, aged one and three, included his older daughter in his work. She sits on his lap while he is designing and editing. He often brings her to photo shoots and lets her hold his camera. He lets her take a few pictures, so the equipment does not intimidate her.

When his daughters grow up, Ryan says, “They can do whatever they want.” They may not turn out to be designers, photographers, or videographers, but they will have the confidence to use the technology if they so desire. Most importantly, he wants them to be able to use their imagination, to use their hands, and to tell stories.

Indigenization for Problem Solving

Noting how “everyone talks about decolonization,” Ryan Red Corn critiques what he feels is an inadequate approach to solving issues in Indian Country. At various Native American studies conferences, he noticed that discussions of decolonization often end up using the same languages, tools, and intellectual frameworks that were introduced by colonialism to try to academically solve problems.

To address issues, Native people have adopted bureaucratic solutions, such
as the grant process and compiling and assessing data (working from what Ryan calls a “resource allocation perspective”), which Ryan feels are ineffectual for social healing. For example, a community receives a grant for dealing with domestic violence or suicide. A few billboards are designed with disturbing imagery and a hotline. What are the psychological effects on the community members driving by those billboards?

Ryan sees these tactics form a negative narrative for the community’s identity. These tactics do not ultimately positively affect the people within that community or even address the problems.

Indigenization, by contrast, is a “radically different approach to the problem,” using Native cultural ways of thinking. Instead of dealing with pieces and the “remainder of the equation,” he suggests affecting the whole via “social maintenance.” This can mean holding ceremonies, making sure community gymnasiums stay open, or creating positive media. Noting how many kids use iPhones, Ryan strives to use his profession to “create as much digestible content as possible.”

Laughter as Medicine

In his 20s, Ryan’s work was charged with anger, but he shifted his approach and “started to dabble with comedy and humor in messaging.” In 2009, his friend Sterlin Harjo (Seminole- Muscogee Creek) and he were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the 9th Annual Native Cinema Showcase, where Sterlin showed his film Barking Water, featuring Ryan in a comic relief scene. During the screening, Ryan watched the crowd during his scene. The crowd roared with laughter, in stark contrast to the backdrop of the film festival, filled with all-too-common themes of death, addiction, and abuse. It demonstrated the “amount of power in Indian humor,” the power in laughter that is “much more powerful than the crying,” says Ryan, that is “absent from so many portions of the media.”

“Humor is a higher form of intelligence,” Ryan explains. Comedy has the unique potential to tackle social issues and grip people. Ryan compares using humor to deliver a message to the paring down of visual information to create an effective logo. People think that a “hard problem needs to be solved with a lot of lines and details,” and yet, it’s the simple answer that works best.

Taking Ownership of Our Spaces

For Hidden Voices, Coded Words, an Oklahoma code-talkers exhibit, none of the posters Ryan designed used English. For a Native conference, he put 20 ways to say “hello” in different Indigenous languages in the front of the program booklet.

When tribes commission him to design t-shirts, Ryan strongly encourages them to use their languages and minimize English. When these shirts and images are worn in the community, they are seen over and over and become part of the visual vocabulary of those people.

While creating work for his own community, Ryan incorporated the Osage alphabet into his designs. “Only a small amount of people can read [it], but it’s ours.” These design choices are an act of visual sovereignty. We have the power to make decisions about our spaces, to make them our own, rather than have them merely be an extension of someone else’s viewpoints. Many “don’t realize we have inherent power in that space,” says Ryan. Our own cultures can instead be front and center in our designed space, which is crucial given how surroundings affect our sense of self and reality.

Languages carry worldviews. “The language is the whole—the key to constructing that entire environment,” states Ryan. The Osage word for praying contains the idea of borrowing, with the expectation of giving something in return. Osage also has specific words for the precise relationships within a family tree. Considering the values embedded in language, not only is it important to preserve spoken language, but to preserve visual language as well. Images “continue to exist after people don’t know what they mean.”

Using Native Iconography

Native visual conventions are actual languages rather than simple decoration. Osage ribbonwork has a wealth of meaning within colors and designs. Responsibilities come with working with Native imagery—learning the meanings of symbols, securing permission for use when necessary, and being careful with small yet important details. The design piece should “look like it came from that community” and be in harmony with its aesthetics. While certain components can be put together in atypical ways, it’s important to do it in such a way so that the “community is willing not only to accept but proliferate” that design.

Working with Native visual culture required new ways of thinking and designing for Ryan, expanding his working vocabulary. “That process has created for me a new language–a new visual language,” says Red Corn. He credits Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi), whom he met as a kid, and Acee Blue Eagle (Pawnee-Muscogee-Wichita) as influences in their integration of particular Native visual conventions in their paintings.

Native Designers Needed

While it may sound counterintuitive of him as a business owner, Ryan would like to see more Natives become graphic designers. For one, Ryan describes himself as being “super competitive.” Seeing other Natives creating good work pushes him to do better. Secondly, without access to talented people, he is limited in expanding his own company. He doesn’t have much Native competition when vying for Native- related projects, but he wishes he did, since he’s often up against non-native designers lacking in cultural fluency. When more Native people are trained within their communities, clients aren’t limited to superficial results. The designers are empowered to use and even alter their visual vocabularies in relevant, organic ways, in keeping with their own communities’ decisions.