Case Study: Creative Reaction Lab empowers Black and Latinx designers and scales equity-centered design with Adobe Creative Cloud

How Antionette Carroll started a movement for equity design, inspiring a new generation of designers and artists

Creative Reaction Lab, founded in 2014 by Antionette Carroll in St. Louis, is a nonprofit that mobilizes young Black and Latinx designers to tackle racial inequities and social injustice. Born out of the Ferguson uprising and a recognition that designers of color are vastly underrepresented (only about 3% of designers are Black), the organization set out to make design a deliberate tool for equity and community-led problem solving.

Creative Reaction Lab developed the Equity-Centered Community Design (ECCD) framework and runs apprenticeships, fellowships, design challenges (like Artwork for Equity), and scholarship funds to train “Redesigners for Justice.” Its open-source ECCD guide has been downloaded 5,250+ times and shared nearly 50,000 times; during COVID-19 the Youth Creative Leadership Fund distributed $24,500 to 241 young people of color. Partnerships with Adobe and others have expanded access to tools and opportunities, producing community projects in transit and food access and a growing pipeline of diverse creative leaders.

Creative Reaction Lab

Antionette Carroll

Founder, President, and CEO