Guest Curator: Bobby Joe Smith III

Archives have become an intriguing and unexpected part of my art and design practice. I am interested in how people use archives to hold onto, care for, and elevate what is believed best or true of ourselves. Despite this virtuous intent, many archives I have come across are troubled by what has been captured or excluded from their collection. The older or more ambitious the archive, the deeper the trouble. By their nature (or perhaps by ours), archives are haunted by artifacts in their possession that evidence our troubled past, contentious present, and precarious future. While I enjoy reveling in what is best in us, I am called to the troubled parts. I follow the trouble because that is where I often find my people—Black and Indigenous ancestors haunting, cursing, uttering inconvenient counter-narratives to settler-colonial myths.

As an open archive stewarded by the people, wonder, beauty, and inspiration are easy to find in The People’s Graphic Design Archive. I went in search of those things and, to my benefit, found trouble as well. The strength of an archive is not just in the preservation or accumulation of objects, but also in the pathways and spaces it allows for relationships to form. Via keyword searches, meanderings through curated collections, and serendipitous juxtapositions, distant utterances became full-throated discussions.

I assembled this collection of design artifacts (see lists below) because they raised questions that stimulated growth rather than answers. What happens when you bring into conversation an influential 18th-century news article depicting the vile and inhumane conditions of slave ships next to a 20th-century ad by Black designers by Bradford and Archie Boston selling their services with “FOR SALE” signs around their necks like slaves on the auction block? What differences in worldview do we have to contend with when we bring into the same room a button with Lakota leader Sitting Bull’s portrait that reads “The Earth Does Not Belong to Man—Man Belongs to the Earth” and a poster circa 1911 proclaiming “Indian Land For Sale” in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming—the very lands Sitting Bull and many others gave their lives to protect? Placed side by side, complex and layered discourses unfold. I encourage others to spend time getting lost in The People’s Graphic Design Archive, to listen for the conversations that emerge, and to not be afraid to follow the trouble.

What is missing from graphic design history? (Specific people, movements, time periods, etc.)

Given the narrow geographic and cultural focus of the traditional graphic design canon, we can assume that most work is missing from graphic design history. This is evidenced by the ever expanding contributions by designers from around the world sharing the great works of design from their communities that have been overlooked, ignored, undervalued, or miscategorized. The margins and the periphery are much larger and more dynamic than the metropole—to the point where what constitutes the center needs to be reconsidered.

What do you want to add to The Archive?

I want to add more work by contemporary designers. I was surprised and honored when I found someone had submitted some of my work to The People’s Graphic Design Archive. It made me want to add the stunning and compelling work of my friends—work that has shaped me as a person and designer. Let’s give flowers to the people who inspire us while they are still alive to enjoy them. Also, adding the work of my peers would allow me to improve the quality of the submission by providing valuable information/context, because I could speak directly to the source if needed.

Bobby Joe Smith III’s Collection from The People’s Graphic Design Archive

for Native works
(Short List)
Rebecca Blackwater Quilt
Indian land for sale: get a home of your own poster
Man Belongs to the Earth Button
Minnehaha Pale, Minnehaha Special Advertisement
14th Annual No Thanks, No Giving! Benefit Event poster

(Full List)
Rebecca Blackwater Quilt
Indian land for sale: get a home of your own poster
Man Belongs to the Earth Button
People’s Run for Leonard Peltier
Minnehaha Pale, Minnehaha Special Advertisement
14th Annual No Thanks, No Giving! Benefit Event poster
Cover of Good Times, vol. 2, no. 31

(Full List)
Description of a Slave Ship
“For Sale,” Poster
I Am A Man
Nappy Book
Group of 30 different Black Panther and Black Power Pinbacks
Black Light Series #10: Flag For the Moon: Die Nigger
Power to the People
7UP Ad In Honor of Martin Luther King
A series of statistical charts illustrating the condition of the descendants of former African slaves now in residence in the United States of America
The Black Panther Newspaper
“Genocide Series No. 1: Noddin’ Our Liberation Away!“
Black is Beautiful by Emmett McBain
Black is Beautiful by José V. Johnson
Cover of OZ Magazine, no. 28, School Kids Issue(London)
Newcomb’s Minstrels
Elect Mrs. Fannie Lou Hammer
Group of 8 Angela Davis pinbacks

Bobby Joe Smith III, He/Him
Graphic designer, media artist, and educator.
Los Angeles, CA, United States
on instagram as @bobbyjoesmithiii