BLACK, QUEER, AND UNTOLD: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers, a beautiful object that's very informative

BLACK, QUEER, AND UNTOLD: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers
JON KEY
Levine Querido (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who GOT him. So he started asking himself, What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer? A Queer graphic designer? Someone from the South? Could his identity be communicated through a poster or a book? How could identity be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male?

In Black, Queer, & Untold , acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key answers these questions and manifests the book he and so many others wish they had when they were coming up. He pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before and provides them an enduring, reverential stage—and in doing so, gifts us a book that immediately takes its place among the creative arts canon.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A man whose way to view the world is through the lens of visual design is a rare soul, one of a tiny brotherhood who embrace this view.

Now imagine knowing this about yourself, then running into a wall erected to exclude you because you're Black. Overcoming that hurdle, if you do, only now to realize you still must jump the huge hurdles placed in both directions for you because you're Queer.

That's Jon Key's life. In putting his experiences as a Black, Queer, creative man into context, he's offered us beautiful images, lovely descriptive words for them that are both evocative and analytical, and details about them, their creators, and the milieu in which they were created.

No matter where you go, there we are.

An example of the page design.

Text from the period, nineteenth century America; illustration of Mary.

What Author Key does with this beautfully designed and carefully considered book is show and tell us, from our variety of privileges, how far we have—and have not—come as a society.

I cannot imagine this performer's act would be possible to present in the 21st century. Loss, or gain?

I don't know if these images will convey to you the visual and cultural richness of the read. As expected for a book by a very visual author, it is a beautiful object. I'm also deeply glad I now know so much more about Queer, and Black Queer, life through the US's history of multiple oppressions.

A book to have on your shelves for inspiration, edification, and uplift.