... “vernacular design” is essentially used to categorize designs that do not fit within the standards of good Euro-American design—namely, designs that are not produced by individuals who were formally trained in Western educational institutions.
Why must we categorize designs produced by self-taught designers versus “formally” trained ones? Why does design from a different culture culture, and that of other postcolonial and diasporic contexts, have to be labeled “vernacular” rather than just being understood as graphic design?
...the Latin origin of the term vernacular: vernāculus, defined as “belonging to the household, domestic, native” and derived from verna “slave born in the household” added the suffix “ar” (meaning artists and repertoire). Although the term “vernāculus” itself is used to simply reflect something native to a country, such as its language, flora, animals, architecture, art, etc, it could be argued that its etymology cannot be separated from its intrinsic links to the violent history of framing women in Euro-patriarchal cultures to be tied to the household; to domestic work.
The categorization and quantification of “vernacular” v.s. “professional graphic design” is reductive, and only undermines the deep cultural history of the many design languages exhibited and existing in postcolonial nations. The widespread and misguided use of the term further perpetuates the colonizing notion that other graphic design languages must be categorized to enforce and assert the power of the Eurocentric Canon.
