Bringing diversity to the Bank One brochures in the mid 1990s, Phoenix, Arizona


After Valley National Bank became Bank One in 1992, one of the things that had to be done was to redesign the brochures, and the job went to my department, Marketing.

Of course I wasn't involved with any decision-making, I just worked as a graphic designer, and my boss assigned me the task of finding some appropriate stock photos. Back in those days we just had binders, and I sat in a corner for quite a while, flipping pages, looking through them. But the assignment was to find photos that represented the diversity of the people who were Bank One of Arizona customers, and back then there just wasn't much like that in stock photos. So I failed, and had to go to my boss and tell her so.

Then it occured to me that there was a solution. The stock photos didn't have anything like female executives, but I was looking at one right there. And there were no persons of color in the stock photos, even though the building had plenty of them - 35 stories of them! And I suggested that we hire a professional photographer, and use ordinary people who worked in the building as models. This wasn't strictly part of my job, but I wanted to do it.

Looking back, it was far from subtle when I made the list. We needed females in other than subordinate roles, we needed black people, we needed asians, we needed Native Americans. And so I put a bunch of my business cards in my pocket and got on the elevator. I walked up to people and asked them if they would like to be a model for the cover of a brochure. And with the help of some of the best local photographers in town, it happened.


This was the mid-1990s, and in Arizona, so I had to stay within guidelines. No interracial couples were allowed, and of course no gay couples. If I needed a white Anglo-Saxon, I used myself, and my girlfriend at the time. The Hispanic couple that we used were actually married (although those aren't their kids), but many of the couples were just matched up by me. I had one lady who was unhappy with the husband that I had selected for her for the photoshoot, and said that she would prefer me. It was flattering, but I'm white, and she was Japanese, and it wasn't allowed.

The photographer and I would scout out the locations, and I would supply the stuff, like in the pic at the top of this post, which is supposed to be an interior designer making recommendations for a home remodel. I would make suggestions of what the models would wear, and I'd work with what they showed up in.

Of course, nowadays this is all taken for granted, but back then it wasn't. And it's part of what makes me proud to be part of the Marketing Group of Bank One in the 1990s.

By the way, all of the models signed a release form and got a dollar (which I took out of my pocket). I stored the release forms for years and years, and my best guess is that they're still somewhere in my garage.

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