This is America

Labels, whether correctly or incorrectly attached to people, identities, groups, ideas or objects are the way we as a society can begin to understand, categorize and contextualize the world around us.

Indeed, the term “American design” is a label attached to the cohort of American designers producing work today, and how they express themselves, their ideas and their work. While individuals may have a personal view on what American design is, it is a global culture that collectively labels what American design is, what it looks like, feels like, how it’s made, who makes it, who buys and uses it.

Moving away from stereotypes around American design and of American designers, those that tie and contextualize our work to an overarching canon, style, vernacular or person, whether they be mid-century design, “Americana” the traditional American home, the American maker movement or even the historical narrative of American fine woodworking in furniture and what that woodworker looks like.

This is America is an opportunity for us as part of a diverse nation of designers, communicators and curators to rechart the territories, labels and previous conceptions of American design by showcasing our reflections and views of what American design is today.

What we have discovered is an enormously diverse set of viewpoints and cultural references from designers as they express the idea of America through the lenses of cultural diversity, decolonization, climate migration, post-pandemic life, consumerism, materiality, technology and craftsmanship.