User Defenders – UX Design & Personal Growth · Jason Ogle

Shining a Light on Black Designers with Tim Hykes

·1 hr 10 min·5 clips

Tim Hykes confronted his type teacher: 'You can't tell me there are no black type designers.'

Tim starts with a challenge. He remembers sitting in type class and rejecting the idea that design history had no black type designers worth naming. The episode sits with that moment instead of rushing past it, which helps it feel like a real conversation about visibility, confidence, and access. The question is plain: what happens when young black creatives never see designers who look like them in what they study, where they hope to work, or the examples people keep putting in front of them? Tim answers with lived details. He talks about kids who already draw, parents who may not realize design can be a real career, and children who need confidence spoken into them before doubt gets too comfortable. The money matters too. He points to UX roles in St. Louis and salaries around eighty five thousand a year to show that design can support a stable life. That keeps the hope from floating away. This is a call for parents and design communities to make the path visible enough that more people can actually walk it. Tim also names the pressure that builds when most examples are white. Black designers can start wondering whether they are as good as their white counterparts. The host gives that room. User Defenders keeps its defender energy, but the human stakes come first. Even the classroom story has some grace in it. Tim appreciates the teacher who went looking for a black type designer, while making clear that the search should not have been that hard. By the end, the superhero frame feels earned. Fighting for users also means fighting for the people who might become designers, especially when they have been left out of the picture.

As heard by us

Visibility, craft, and the work of making UX feel like a real career path.

The conversation centers Black designers, visibility, and the work of widening who gets seen in UX. Tim Hykes recalls pushing back on a type class that centered old dead white men and asking where the Black type designers were, while Jason Ogle keeps the exchange personal and…

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Why you'd press play

You want a candid case for why Black designers need more visibility.

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