Design history has a problem. Native American and Indigenous peoples have been making decisions about form, function, communication and meaning for millennia―and the canon has looked right through them. Mythmakers and marketing teams have long used graphic design to tell stories about Native Americans, First Nations, Métis, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous peoples rather than with them, creating reductive and harmful representations of a living, vibrant and varied group of people.
Yet Native graphic art has a rich history that shows that its practitioners are innovators who have created dynamic, subversive and optimistic work. Modern graphic expressions such as posters, digital fonts and even stenciled cars intertwine with traditional Indigenous pottery, weavings and paintings. Through examples spanning nearly two centuries and representing over 80 tribes and nations, Designed to Be Red reveals and celebrates design histories that have always existed alongside, despite and in resistance to dominant colonial narratives, illustrating the full spectrum of Native life.
Artists include: Neal Ambrose-Smith (Flathead Salish, Métis and Cree), Crystal Worl (Tlingit/Deg Hit’an Athabascan), Terran Last Gun (Piikani), Marie Watt (Turtle Clan, Seneca Nation of Indians, Haudenosaunee Confederacy), Melissa Cody (Diné).


Edited by Brian Johnson
DelMonico Books
Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN 9781636812113