APSU’s Walker featured in 'Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race'

(Posted March 30, 2021)
Austin Peay State University’s David Jon Walker is one of 12 graphic design educators of color included in a new book titled “Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race.”
A series of events – including one next week – is helping to bring the book’s educators to the public eye.
Walker – an assistant professor of design in the Department of Art + Design – will be on virtual panels to have an open discussion centering the voices of Black, Brown + Latinx design students and educators.
Upcoming virtual events featuring Walker include:
- “Poster House – Conversations on Design & Race: Getting Back to Our Roots” at 5:30 p.m. CST April 7.
- “Type Directors Club – Exploring Language, Politics and Typography” at noon CST April 22.
“Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators” by Kelly Walters is a collection of deeply personal interviews with graphic design educators from colleges and universities across the United States and Canada.
The interviews center “their childhood experiences, their undergraduate and graduate studies, and their career paths in academia and practice,” according to the publisher, Princeton Architectural Press.
AIGA Eye on Design also featured Walker on March 24 in an article about his path into design and his experiences working at a historically Black university and at Austin Peay.
In the article, Walker discusses doublespeak and code-switching.
“I talk to my own children about being able to transition between our communities without losing their sense of self, but I’ve always wondered, ‘What is my level of authenticity?’” he told AIGA Eye on Design. “We live in this duality. I guess the authenticity just comes from knowing who you are, and what you are, and the possibilities of navigating almost any space.”
To learn more about Walker, visit his University profile page.
To learn more about the Department of Art + Design, visit https://www.apsu.edu/art-design/.
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