Cheryl D. Miller, D.H.L., D.F.A., is a lecturer at the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She is an acclaimed designer, author, historian, and theologian whose lifelong work has redefined the cultural narrative of design. Recipient of the AIGA MEDAL and the 2025 Steven Heller Award for Cultural Commentary, she stands as one of the most influential voices illuminating how design shapes identity, equity, and belonging.
Best known for her 1987 essay “Black Designers: Missing in Action,” Miller exposed systemic exclusion in the profession and inspired generations to rethink design education. Through her firm, Cheryl D. Miller Design, Inc. (NYC), she pioneered social impact communications for Fortune 500 clients and national organizations during the post–Civil Rights era, ensuring representation and visibility through design.
Her seminal works — HERE: Where the Black Designers Are (Princeton Architectural Press, 2024) and Decolonizing Graphic Design: A Black Perspective (Kendall Hunt, 2025) — form the foundation of a new design historiography that challenges the Eurocentric canon and elevates global narratives of cultural contribution. In 2025, Miller’s inclusion in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design and dedication in The Graphic Artists Guild Pricing & Ethical Guidelines marked a historic moment of canonical recognition — transforming her from critic of the canon to one of its architects.
Her archives, the Cheryl D. Miller Collection at Stanford University, and Cooper Union as well as countless museums document her decades-long leadership at the intersection of design, theology, race, and social transformation.
A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Pratt Institute, and Union Theological Seminary as well as foundation studies at Rhode Island School of Design, with honorary doctorates from MICA, RISD, PRATT, and VCFA, Dr. Miller continues to write, lecture, and advise globally. Her teaching and scholarship now transcend the language of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” advancing instead a new design ethos grounded in cultural impact, belonging, restoration, and global heritage leadership.
Miller’s vision and determination have, in the words of the acclaimed African art historian and scholar, Leslie King Hammond, Ph.D., “obliterated a fault line in the canon.”
Graphic Design
Vermont College of Fine Arts
2021
Theology/Theological Studies
Union Theological Seminary
Communications Design
Pratt Institute
1985
Graphic Design
Maryland Institute College of Art
Specialty Areas: Communication & Publication Design, Digital Branding & Visual Storytelling, Design Justice and Equity Advocacy Communications, Decolonizing Design History and Theory; Graphic Design History, Design Writing: Trade, Scholarly, and Memoir, Design Course Development, Mentor/Portfolio Coaching
Read: Fast Company | Cheryl D. Miller brings generations of Black stories to graphic design history
Read: PRINT Magazine | ‘Be Better than the History I’ve Traveled,’ a Chat with Cheryl D. Miller
Read: Sightlines Magazine | How Cheryl D. Miller confronts white supremacy in graphic design
Read: Fast Company | ‘They’ve stolen our history’: Why one designer has been fighting for inclusion for 50 years
Decolonizing Graphic Design from a Black Perspective
Decolonizing Graphic Design from a Black Perspective is not a book solely about Black Graphic Design history. Instead, it is a manifesto advocating for expanding the traditional design history canon to include diverse narratives. While sharing the rich history of graphic design within our community, it also introduces an African American viewpoint as a complementary lens.
This work invites readers to consider multiple perspectives in understanding design history. It urges an honest and inclusive approach that moves beyond the standard narrative. By including African American design experiences, this book challenges readers to rethink how the field’s history is taught and understood. Embracing diverse graphic design histories will guide us toward a more inclusive future for the industry.
HERE: Where the Black Designers Are
Celebrated designer, writer, activist, and educator Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller's memoir of a life in advocacy and her journey to answer the question "Where are the Black designers?”
Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is one of the design field's most respected figures. She is legendary for her decades of scholarship and activism and is known as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: Where did they originate? Where have they been? Why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons?
Holmes-Miller traces her development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history. She narrates her experiences as a design student at Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Pratt, leading up to her oft-cited Pratt thesis examining barriers to success for Black designers. Holmes-Miller describes the work of her eponymous studio for noted clients that included NASA, Time Inc., and the nascent Black Entertainment Television, as well as the story of her later critiques of the industry in the design press, most notably in Print magazine. Miller also recounts the parallel history of collective efforts by fellow scholars and advocates over the past fifty years to identify and celebrate Black designers.
Enhanced with a foreword by Crystal Williams, president of Rhode Island School of Design, award-winning poet, and noted advocate for equity and justice in the fields of art and education, HERE is part memoir, part investigation, and part urgent call for justice and recognition for Black designers, making it an invaluable resource for graphic design professionals, teachers, and students.
Black Designers: Missing in Action (1987) in PRINT Magazine
Black Designers: Still Missing in Action (2016) in PRINT Magazine
The author of a 30-year-old Print article on diversity, Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller, surveys the industry in our summer 2016 issue to see who is designing the solution to a problem that continues to this day. Here, we share her first Print article—the one that started the conversation.
Black Coral: A Daughter’s Apology
A new 2008 Presidential Administration moves to Washington, D.C. and a 16th Street family estate home needs clearing for sale. Author, C.D. Holmes-Miller discovers her family basement's Green Box files of vital records. Resolved that death had finally concluded a bitter sweet, emotionally distraught mother-daughter relationship, the files speak truth. Shocking folder discoveries explain why she had no day to day family relations other than her parents. She finds more than truth but her MIA families of a lifetime. Her mother from the grave seems to explain it all. Too little, too late, she empathetically bonds to her racially mysterious, post WWI Filipino Amerasian, West Indian abandoned mother. The histories of World War I, the Danish West African Middle Passage and the American Post Emancipation, the Negro Great Migration are the historical footprints to this family's arcana. Heaven's file cabinet, cascades documents of truth.
Cheryl D. Miller is the 2021 Design Visionary National Design Award winner. Presented each year by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the National Design Awards honor innovation and impact and recognize the power of design to change the world.
