“Danielle McCoy: Black Power Is A Color”“
We think that it’s law and society that determine our behavior,” says Danielle McCoy (B.F.A., advertising, 2015), “but the cultural components that art provides influence us as well.”
McCoy, a designer at Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, has spoken alongside artist Hank Willis Thomas during a panel at the Portland Art Museum in 2019, and this summer showcased her work alongside fellow artists Christine Miller and Kareem Blair in the exhibition “Black Power Is A Color” at Blackfish Gallery. McCoy’s text-specific, screen-printed work, utilizing fonts from Tré Seals’ foundry Vocal Type, advances her professional acumen in a fine art context with social and political implications.
A native of Antigua, McCoy attended SCAD Atlanta, where her academic experience, as she says, “enabled me to be where I am today.”
Danielle McCoy:
People conflate marketing with advertising without realizing that advertising is the creative side of the profession. It’s where people who have studied design and writing come together to solve a business challenge and focus a message that relies on visuals for its effectiveness.
When you are in the process of solving clients’ business problems, everything is game. Everything is creative inventory. Advertising folks know so many disparate facts and go down so many rabbit holes for research.
Wieden+Kennedy is arguably the best agency in the world. How did I get here? It started when I participated in Out to Launch at SCAD Atlanta. I had a booth and a Wieden recruiter stopped by and engaged. Senior year, I applied to Wieden+Kennedy’s internship. I sent off the application, and a LinkedIn message to the recruiter, saying hey, I plucked up the courage to apply, hope you’re doing well. After my very last portfolio class at SCAD, I received a message from the recruiter, who was also one of W+K Studio’s Associate Studio Directors, saying, Hi, we’ve chosen you for an internship. I was like, Holy crap!
At SCAD, I minored in motion media design and in book arts. I learned to communicate in an advertising setting and apply that to fine art, and personal expression as well. An artists’ book project in professor Lisa Hart’s color theory class introduced me to book arts, and in book arts class with professor Cynthia Lollis, I began considering the fine arts something I could do seriously. A lot of my relationships from SCAD have lasted. I speak regularly with Dr. Imani Scott, my speech and communications professor.
I’m thinking a lot recently about Blackness. How can I use my skills to serve people who need to communicate a message? In the weeks leading up to the show, the Associated Press changed the AP style guide to capitalize Black. In a sketch book I wrote the words KNEEGROW. I was contemplating Colin Kaepernick kneeling, and Black bodies. The work relates to my love of language. In Antigua, there’s this almost over-pronunciation that we do. Black people regionally and locally have unique ways of saying things. All these thoughts were percolating, about where we come from, how we speak, and what we’ve gone through. I needed a way to express those thoughts. It came into new focus when I made the work for “Black Power Is A Color.”
I have to shout out my collaborators, Kareem and Christine. “Black Power Is A Color” ended up being so cohesive, even though for a good portion of the preparation, we didn’t know what each other was doing. There’s a really positive community of young creatives here in Portland. There’s certainly the politics of being a transplant and reconciling with the history of the city. So much gentrification and displacement and disenfranchisement has happened here. More conversations need to be had. We need to reconcile our differences, and come together.
Visit Danielle McCoy at her wonderful website.
By Peter Relic
