Sports Bra, Seamless, and Innovation Designer | Target
Jasmine Kent is an Industrial & Apparel Designer with a passion for innovation that targets sports and celebrates Black culture.
Jasmine is an Innovation Designer at Target, designing Sports Bras and Seamless Apparel for Target's newest athletic brand, All InMotion. She also leads their Apparel Innovation Team, focusing on research and development, managing project ideation, prototyping, and partnership.
With a background in Industrial Design, Visual Communication, and Architecture, Jasmine is no stranger to bringing unique perspectives to her designs. Prior to her current role, Jasmine worked as an Assistant Designer for Women's Training, focusing onSports Bras, an Associate Designer for Men and Women’s Run apparel, and an Associate Designer for Men's Performance at Under Armour. In her Women's Training role, she co-designed the Infinity Bra, a Sports Bra backed by biomechanics research.She also served as Assistant Creative Director for Under Armour’s 2022 Black History Month Capsule, with designs prominently featured in campaigns with Morgan State University and worn by Stephen Curry and Natasha Hastings.
Furthering her passion for diversity and inclusion in the world of design, in 2016 Jasmine co-launched the Hue Design Summit, anannual retreat for Black designers and developers of color. Jasmine currently serves as the Summit’s Community Strategist, creating outreach initiatives to connect the community with engaging speakers, workshop leaders, corporate partners, and influential Black designers.
In 2020, Jasmine received an Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) 20/20 Recognition, an honor given to select individuals who have advanced the industrial design profession through information, education, community, and advocacy. She has served as a guest speaker for various engagements such as the Black Designers Ignite conference, Design Discourse: A LensRound Table, Barrier x Women in Industrial Design, UC Berkeley Design Field Notes, Depaul Design Talks, and State of BlackDesign. Jasmine is an active member of the IDSA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and a former member of the Board ofDirectors at AdvancedDesign.
Jasmine graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2013, receiving her B.S. in Architecture while also competing as a track& fi eld athlete. She went on to receive a Master of Industrial Design degree from North Carolina State University in 2018.
Outside of design, Jasmine is the proud mother of an intelligent and creative four year old, Amina McNair, and works as a birthDoula and host of the podcast “Motherhood in Progress,” advocating for Black maternal health and empowering birth experiences.
Jasmine Kent, IDSA is an associate apparel designer at Under Armour and community strategist at Hue Collective, the planning committee behind the annual Hue Design Summit: an un-conference for Black designers and developers to cultivate community. This year, the 4th annual Hue Design Summit was hosted virtually for the first time and had over 100 attendees join in from around the world. (Disclosure: IDSA was one of the sponsors for the 2020 event.)
“Our speaker roster was packed with talent, starting with our keynote: Cheryl D. Miller, acclaimed Graphic Designer, who set the tone of purpose, passion, and elevation through sharing her journey and personal archive, which is now an esteemed collection at the Stanford Library,” Jasmine says. “Other speakers were Oluwaseyi Sosanya, founder and CEO of Gravity Sketch; Nick Phillips and Sergio Marquina, co-founders of Studio 2133; Regine Gilbert, author of “Inclusive Design for a Digital World;” Eso Tolson, freelance type expert; Delia Grenville, Director of Global Supply Chain at Intel Corp; and Yani DaCosta, Art Director and At-Large-Representative for the Graphic Arts Guild.” More information on the virtual event can be found at HueDesignSummit.com.
“Our attendees recapped the Summit saying they felt inspired, educated, and excited to move forward in their careers,” she says. “We are looking forward to our 5th Summit in 2021 to be even bigger, better, and more impactful for our community!”
Jasmine also participated in the Lens round table discussion “Black Designers on Race and Design” with Kevin Bethune and Spencer Nugent, moderated by Hector Silva, Executive Director of Advanced Design. “This talk was the launching pad that boosted my online presence and led to the many other speaking engagements I have done since,” Jasmine says. “I will always call out racial inequality while still advancing myself, my skill set, and ultimately, my purpose.”
She has since spoken at the Black Designers Ignite virtual event in August 2020 and been involved with IDSA’s DEIC. Her goal is to “increase black female representation in the Industrial Design field, increase diversity at industrial design firms, and gain more professional growth opportunities through my involvement. I don’t want diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging to be a fad. I want it to be a lifestyle.”
In 2020 especially, Jasmine says she has been encouraged by the resilience of the Black community: “I am in awe that my ancestors had to dedicate their lives to fighting for freedom and equality that they would not get to see in their generation. It makes me wonder what types of lives, hobbies, and businesses they would have gotten to create if they didn’t have to fight to just be alive. I see now that I have the opportunity to do that with my life and that just living and excelling in my black skin is a form of protest. So I’m motivated and inspired by my ancestors to create a life that is fulfilling, creative, exciting, and purposeful.”
