This living history was first documented as a zine distributed at the inaugural Black Zine Fair in 2024 and just like us, it’s grown. For 2025, we’re expanding it into a web story to document not just what we do, but how we got here. Because every step of our journey—every challenge, reimagining, and recommitment—has shaped the cooperative we are today.

If you’ve got questions, ideas, or reflections, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

A Brief History of Àrokò

Àrokò Cooperative is a multidisciplinary creative community reimagining design as a social practice. We are artists, technologists, strategists, and storytellers building toward Black Liberation, communal care, and the flourishing of all beings.

Our work explores design as a tool for transformation, one rooted in ancestral wisdom and dedicated to ecological and social well-being.

We believe Black Liberation is a public good. And our mission is to pollinate the world with systems, stories, and objects that nurture life, dignity, and joy.

Where We’ve Been

June 2020 – December 2020: From Uprising to Collective Action

Àrokò’s origin story begins with a call from designer and writer Van Newman in the summer of 2020. At the time, Van was hosting Rise to Design, a virtual space for designers launched just as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.

That June, following the global wave of abolitionist uprisings, Rise to Design evolved into Design to Divest: a space for learning, organizing, and acting. We mobilized over 350 designers at our first meeting on June 5, and by peak momentum, our Slack community had grown to more than 600.

Our early structure was cyclical. Each cycle began with a shared inquiry—like how to support COVID safety in under-resourced communities or how to honor the radical roots of Juneteenth. We gathered resources, launched design challenges, and activated collective action through toolkits, visuals, and care-based media.

This was a digital classroom, a political home, and for many of us, the first time we experienced radical community as Black designers.

“Black people deserve to dream up radical futures and new realities right now.”— June 5, 2020, our first meeting

We soon hit the limits of what social media could offer. Our work needed a life beyond Instagram. As Van noted in the New York Times:

“Learning doesn’t end on Instagram. It’s literally the beginning of the beginning.”

December 2020 – September 2022: Growing Beyond the Grid

The next two years were experimental and generative. We hosted a speaker series featuring visionaries like Julian Alexander and Emanuel H. Brown, began drafting our first zine (Cosmic Slop), and started imagining Àrokò as more than a moment—as an ongoing offering.

We piloted toolkits and educational hubs with our friends at Where Are the Black Designers?, ran intimate workshops for Black creatives, and partnered with organizations like the Eames Institute.

But trying to build a movement in our spare time—while also juggling full-time jobs, caregiving, and survival—stretched us thin. Some initiatives stalled. Others never made it past the whiteboard. Still, we learned to collaborate with grace, to pace ourselves, and to recommit with care.

Out of this came our manifesto: How to Design to Divest (which can be viewed here and purchased here)—a reflection on the design principles we practice and preach. Writing it marked a turning point. And in July 2022, we renamed ourselves: Àrokò Cooperative.

September 2022 – January 2024: Burnout & Recalibration

The excitement of launching the manifesto couldn’t insulate us from the realities of burnout. By late 2022, our initial grants had run dry. We took on consulting work to stay afloat, but the trade-offs were clear: less time for collective dreaming, more time managing deliverables.

Meetings grew sparse. Agendas were bumped. The fire dimmed. We talked about pausing. About what sustainability could really look like.

We don’t romanticize this period. But we do honor it. Because building something new—especially something that dares to imagine freedom—is never linear. And slowing down was part of our becoming.

January 2024 – August 2024: Building a Cooperative Future

By early 2024, a new sense of urgency stirred. We decided: it was time to build Àrokò as a real business. Not one rooted in hustle culture—but in collective care, sustainable revenue, and creative sovereignty.

We officially incorporated as a California Association. Drafted our bylaws (again and again). Defined equitable splits for shared work. Committed to a long-view: slow, intentional, and wildly ambitious.

We’re planting seeds for physical cooperative spaces. We’re shaping a publishing platform and launching educational offerings. The goal? Recurring income for our members—and a thriving ecosystem for liberatory design.

September 2024 – Now: Year Five & Forward

2025 marks five years in operation.

Today, our work spans publishing, education, and creative strategy. If you want to collaborate, teach with us, or write for our publications, we’re open to connection.

We are not just designing for liberation—we are designing with it.

How We’ve Evolved—In Our Own Words

Over the years, our self-description has grown alongside us:

• June 2020: “We are a task force of designers...building towards the divestment of capitalism and white supremacist structures.”
• April 2022: “We are a Black-led collective...designing equitable futures by divesting from inequitable institutions.”
• April 2024: “A multidisciplinary organization focused on futures grounded in the care and well-being of Earth and its inhabitants.”
• April 2025: “A multidisciplinary creative community reimagining art and design as a social practice—grounded in care, collaboration, and the well-being of the Earth and its people.”

Our current framing rests on three tenets:

Collect. Collaborate. Create. We gather ancestral knowledge, co-create with our communities, and bring new futures to life through design, storytelling, and education.

A Living Project. A Communal Offering.

Àrokò Cooperative is more than an organization. It’s a vision. A refusal to design for systems that erase us and a commitment to design toward the ones that hold us.

To our past steering committee members—Van Newman, Annika Hansteen-Izora, Ariana Garland, Jade Murphy, Jonai Gibson-Selix, Koby Arthur, Qadir El, Matthew Walker, and Quinlin Messenger—thank you. Your vision still shapes this work.

We’ll be here—designing new realities.