The Female Design Council, a leadership organization offering support to womxn designers, is offering up an exciting $2,500 grant opportunity to two black womxn designers.
It’s no secret that the design world needs more room for industry-leading designers who are women, but this rings especially true for Black womxn designers. According to AIGA’s 2019 Design Census for graphic designers alone, while about 61% of the industry’s designers are womxn (it should be noted this includes the 0.7% and below in the industry who are non-binary, trans, etc.), only 3% of working designers today are Black.
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For the Female Design Council, the need to support women POC designers became more clear than ever in 2020. “I decided to create the FDC grant series after digging in with our community during the height of the BLM reverberation,” Lora Appleton, founder of Female Design Council and New York based design gallery kinder MODERN told Core77. “I felt that providing direct financial support for the creative ideas of Black womxn, who are often underrepresented in design, was a great way to engage more WOC in our field.”
The Female Design Council Grants amounts to two $2,500 USD financial grants, and is open to Black womxn-led design studios or individuals in order to provide emerging designers with assistance in bringing a specific idea into prototyping and production.
Here are some of the eligibility requirements to consider:
– Open to designers aged 18+
– Designers must be working or residing within the United States
– Applicants must be able to receive taxable income in the United States regardless of their citizenship status
– Applications open September 24, 2020 and will close December 31, 2020
– You may not apply if you have received a grant in the last six months
According to FDC’s website, your application can be sent to [email protected] and must include:
– Project Title
– Project Category: furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles & rugs, wall works(mirrors, shelves)
– Description of Project
– A portfolio of 2-4 examples of your work
– A letter of purpose which states why the design grant is important to you now and how it will impact your work
– Outline of how funds will be used
– Supporting materials/ images
You can learn more about Female Design Council’s Grant on their website.
Source: core77