Amelie Lamont – Women of Interaction Design

Amelie Lamont

Written by Erin Malone

New York designer Amelie Lamont is an outspoken activist, design technologist, product designer and currently practices as a freelance content strategist and ux writer. She burst on the scene in 2016 after a piece she wrote on Medium, called, “Not A Black Chair”[1], called out Squarespace for racism, sexism, and discrimination she faced over the course of several years in her job. She detailed her experiences and publicly called out the company, including her co-workers and supervisors. Ultimately, she filed a lawsuit but had to drop it after the company filed a countersuit. While her experiences happened over several years from 2011-2015, she came out publicly in 2016 with great detail, using her writing talents to help others learn from her experiences. She says in a 2016 interview, “I’ve realized this is something that happens to so many people, especially women of color. Writing the article, as scary as it was for me, was good because it also encouraged two other women of color who worked at Squarespace to speak up, who confirmed the toxic environment.”[2]

Another output from one of her experiences, written in 2016 in response to some public behavior from a friend, is the “Guide to Allyship”[3] she wrote as a starting point to help white “allies” understand what an ally is, when they should be allies and when allyship is not appropriate. Additionally, Lamont has created “the People of Craft”, a showcase website of “creatives of color and their craft in design, advertising, tech, illustration, lettering, art, and more”[4].

Another project she has created, along with Catt Small and Jacky Alcine, has been keeping an ongoing database of companies that are inclusive and have safe work environments for people of color in tech—called Good for POC. The database seeks to be a resource for people of color working in tech to help them understand which companies should be avoided and which ones are productive work environments.

Active in the design community in New York, Lamont was on the board of the New York local chapter of the AIGA from 2017 to 2020 which also included working with the AIGA national office. In 2020 she resigned with a very public, outspoken article[5] about leaving AIGA due to its lack of commitment to Black Designers. She used her platform as a call to action to other BIPOC designers to leave the organization rather than enabling its continued white supremacism. She backs up her rationale with a history of the organization, recurring behavior of only recognizing Black designers posthumously, and their behavior of generally sidelining and minimizing the contributions of people of color. Her letter, detailing the issues and grievances, is not only a call for designers of color to leave the organization, but is a wake-up call to question the status quo for how AIGA as a national organization is run and how it should be equitably serving its members, all its members, regardless of color. Read more about these issues.

Lamont worked originally in customer care but shifted her focus to design and content strategy after her experience at Squarespace. She has worked as a writer, a content strategist, an editor as well as a product designer for a variety of companies including the New York Times. In 2021 she received her master’s degree from School of Visual Arts in Design Research, Writing and Criticism.

The People of Craft website showcases the art and design work of Black designers across the different modes of design.

Footnotes

[1] Amélie Lamont, “Not a Black Chair.,” Medium, June 13, 2021, https://amelielamont.medium.com/not-a-black-chair-8a8e7e2b9140.
[2] Model View Culture, “Interview with Amélie Lamont,” Model View Culture, May 16, 2016, https://modelviewculture.com/news/interview-with-amelie-lamont.
[3] Amelie Lamont, “The Guide to Allyship,” guidetoallyship.com, 2017, https://guidetoallyship.com.
[4] Amelie Lamont, “People of Craft,” Peopleofcraft.com, 2022, https://peopleofcraft.com/.
[5] Amélie Lamont, “I’m Leaving AIGA Behind. You Should, Too.,” Medium, July 3, 2020, https://amelielamont.medium.com/im-leaving-aiga-behind-you-should-too-f5fa5548bdf8.

Amelie Lamont Bibliography

Hamby, Soren, and Liz Steelman. “Why This Brooklyn-Based Leader Thinks Design Needs to Explore beyond the Binary.” www.invisionapp.com, July 15, 2020. https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/amelie-lamont-interview/.
Lamont, Amelie. “People of Craft.” Peopleofcraft.com, 2022. https://peopleofcraft.com/.
———. “The Guide to Allyship.” guidetoallyship.com, 2017. https://guidetoallyship.com.
Lamont, Amélie. “I’m Leaving AIGA Behind. You Should, Too.” Medium, July 3, 2020. https://amelielamont.medium.com/im-leaving-aiga-behind-you-should-too-f5fa5548bdf8.
———. “Not a Black Chair.” Medium, June 13, 2021. https://amelielamont.medium.com/not-a-black-chair-8a8e7e2b9140.
Model View Culture. “Interview with Amélie Lamont.” Model View Culture, May 16, 2016. https://modelviewculture.com/news/interview-with-amelie-lamont.