Reverberations: Lineages in Design History

Polymode
2025

The show's branding was produced as a large-scale vinyl backdrop for our Mega Mix video, printed on silver metallic vinyl to create a striking visual echo and enhance its optical impact.
This Mega Mix of BIPOC Design History (2025) offers a window into the insights, conversations, and many cultural design lineages shared in BIPOC Design History. The video presents highlights of the courses that the exhibition is inspired by.
As you enter, the didactics showcase our curatorial statement and a black version of the show graphic, rotated to evoke motion and sonic energy.
Through an assemblage of historical and contemporary works, visitors are invited into a thematically organized experience tracing reverberations in design over the centuries, landscapes, and traditions they flow out of and into.
The design system created was used in many applications including, outdoor signage, checklist, catalogue, social media and website.

The exhibition Reverberations: Lineages in Design History opened on March 4th at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York. The exhibition transformed the gallery into an expansive educational space, reimagining design history to feature Indigenous, Black, and People of Color designers and cultural figures. In amplifying these many stories, Reverberations countered the narrative of design tradition as a single dominant line and sought to undo erasures by reconnecting and rippling out to those who have been silenced, misrepresented, and miscategorized. The featured artworks reflected rich cultural ancestries that reverberate across epochs into futurity. With over fifty artists and designers, the show’s reverberations brought forward and celebrated many voices that have gone unheard.

Reverberations was curated by Brian Johnson and Silas Munro with the advice of curatorial advisors Randa Hadi, Lisa Maione, and Ramon Tejada. The exhibition was inspired by BIPOC Design History, a series of courses facilitated by the design studio Polymode.

The design for Reverberations visualizes what it means to honor lineages in design history through visual vibrations that travel across time and space. The use of color captures the multiplicity of courses at BIPOC Design History, weaving together the cultural backgrounds, identities, and histories into a cohesive community quilt. The change in typographic frequency enhances the non-monolithic approach to the exhibition; a responsive typographic wave that has fractal qualities. The inspiration for the exhibition identity comes from sound, causing a reflection of sound waves that bounce off of walls. Polymode Sans is paired with Thesaurus, each offering a unique characteristic where Polymode Sans speaks in variable, expressive variations and Thesaurus acts as a quiet didactic.

Curator and Creative Director
Brian Johnson
Curator and Creative Director
Silas Munro
Art Director and Curatorial Advisor
Randa Hadi
Curatorial Advisor
Ramon Tejada
Curatorial Advisor
Lisa Maione
Project Manager
Kris Nuzzi
Designer
Edgar Casarin
Designer
Sadeem Yacoub
Designer
Emma Thompson
Designer
Sundhya Anthony
Installation Photos
Courtesy Ford Foundation Gallery and Sebastian Bach
Director, Ford Foundation Gallery
Lisa Kim
Exhibition Coordinator, Ford Foundation Gallery
Jamie Kulhanek
Gallery Assistant, Ford Foundation Gallery
Mary Escalante
Installation
David Hernaiz
Installation
Zdravko Toic
Project link