Diversify by Design latest initiative brings together Delta Dental and San Francisco State University

On October 19th, DxD launched the first  collaboration within its Intensives program, bringing together professional designers from Delta Dental and second-year students from San Francisco State University’s School of Design (HSI and AANAPISI) to address actual customer need. 

With the goal of transforming the design industry by recognizing and addressing the extraordinary racial disparities within the field, DxD focuses on five critical, interconnected aspects of the design ecosystem: youth exposure, education, experience, employment, and empowerment throughout — in an effort to break down racial inequities, building and expand opportunities for people of color in the profession.

DxD Intensives creates and supports collaborations between industry partners and design programs at institutions of higher learning that serve historically excluded students, and is just one of the initiatives DxD has developed to address the lack of diversity that spans the design industry. 

A significant challenge faced by many design programs serving Black and Brown students is a lack of industry partnership opportunities, creating critical gaps in tangible experience and limiting crucial networking, internship, and employment opportunities. This dynamic, in turn, impacts industry, whose systemic structures have historically supported hiring practices that have contributed to the lack of a diverse design talent pool and hindered efforts to diversify staff and create the inclusive environments that will ultimately attract and retain a diverse workforce.

DxD Intensive is beginning to bridge these gaps, offering the students industry experience that hones their critical thinking, teamwork, and collaboration skills; helps build their portfolios; and connects them to career designers, establishing those all-important initial threads of a network, while also giving industry the long overdue and much needed opportunity to embrace diverse perspectives and create inclusive environments. 

“DxD Intensive is an intentional shift in the systemic dynamics within industry.” says Delta Dental’s Head of User Experience,  Gordon Baty.  “Our goal is to create a pattern interrupt by providing industry partnerships that will give students the access, experience, and connections they need to secure a career in their chosen field. We can’t continue to ignore the barriers these students face and expect to achieve the diversity, let alone the equity, we’re all calling for in the design field.”

SFSU’s Director of Design Programs, Mari Hulick shared a similar sentiment, “DxD and Delta Dental are not only aware of the challenges that students coming from Minority Serving Institutions face along their design paths, they are also hyper aware that their business will be more sustainable, profitable, and vibrant by creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce. They’re taking the essential first steps to level the field with DxD Intensives.”

DxD is a coalition effort of Impact Collaborative, a woman-founded social impact consulting firm. For more information on DxD or DxD Intensives, email info@dxd.design.