The name Ruth E. Carter might not immediately ring a bell, but you know her work. For three decades, the Oscar-winning and boundary-breaking costume designer has been curating the fashion world of many films integral to representation of the Black experience.

These include much of director Spike Lee’s oeuvre — movies such as “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” — as well as Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad,” Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” “Love & Basketball” and the “Black Panther” franchise. Notably, all of these projects offer diverse portrayals of different Black or African experiences across history, contemporary life and fantasy, rather than treating them as monolithic.

“Our history didn’t start with slavery,” Carter told CNN over the phone. “So how do we manage what we have as a general knowledge and implement that into cultural films or modern films?”

Carter’s life’s work serves to answer this question, and is the subject of her new book, “The Art of Ruth E. Carter: Costuming Black History and the Afrofuture, from Do the Right Thing to Black Panther.” In addition to Carter’s stories on the making of certain films, the book features sketches, mood boards, movie stills and behind-the-scenes photos.

A history enthusiast since her college years — she studied special education at Hampton University, a historically Black university in Virginia — Carter’s vast knowledge of Black and African cultures has deeply influenced her work.

“The details of what you read and what you see in photographs or in paintings and art history tell a rich story about beginnings,” Carter said. “As a costume designer, I feel I have the responsibility to actually be not only a storyteller, but a bit of a historian, because I know that when I go to the movies, I’m not only entertained, but I’m informed. I hope that costumes and my costumes make people curious and want to learn more about the subjects that we’re putting out there.”

When Carter signs on as costume designer for a film project, her process begins with marrying the script with a visual story. This often involves paying homage to the real-life cultures represented in the narrative.

“If you really want some antiques, you got to go to these places,” Carter said of seeking authentic pieces for inspiration. “In ‘Black Panther,’ I had a shopper who went all over the African continent.”

“I really needed to see the authentic pieces,” she added. “That way, when we recreated those things, we would have a better, more authentic point of view.”

On other occasions, a trip to the mall suffices. During the filming of Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” in the late 1980s, Carter needed some custom jewelry. One character in the movie was to wear rings emblazoned with the words “love” and “hate,” per Lee’s script, but her first attempt at sourcing the bling — from a private jeweler — turned out nothing like what Black youth were wearing in the Brooklyn neighborhoods where the film was set.

Lee’s suggestion that Carter go to a store in Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn got them the authentic pieces they needed.

When it comes to paying homage to history, Carter is very detail-oriented. She dug into a biography of Malcolm X to source details of his wardrobe for Lee’s 1992 biographical drama, down to the exact color of the civil rights activist’s first zoot suit — powder blue. (Zoot suits, which featured a “larger-than-life silhouette” as Carter describes it, were a popular trend in menswear in 1940s New York, where Malcolm X spent part of his young adulthood.)

The life of Martin Luther King Jr. has been “so well documented” that Carter had an abundance of photographic inspiration for the costumes in “Selma,” the 2014 historical drama film about Alabama voting rights marches King led in 1965. With this, she was able to faithfully recreate the functional looks of the civil rights movement era — down to the trench coats with pockets Black people kept their hands in to convey nonviolence, the orange vests worn to stay safe while marching through streets and the patent leather shoes little girls wore to show off their Sunday best, Carter said.

Images from Carter’s personal collection of Ebony magazines dating back to the 1960s lived with her in her wardrobe trailer for the film, so “when we’re shooting the scene, I (could) … move people around and say, ‘I dressed you for the front of the line,’” she said.

The copious research process Carter used for period films would prove invaluable for her work on the futuristic world of “Black Panther,” as well.

A number of African tribes provided inspiration for the fashions seen in Wakanda, the fictional country in the movie franchise; Carter learned of the tribes’ ancient sartorial traditions through history books and photo essays of collections and worked to honor them across the characters’ wardrobes.

Carter wanted the costumes of the Dora Milaje — Wakanda’s female special forces — to include distinctive African detailing. Their bodysuits were beaded “in the tradition of the Nigerian Yoruba diviners’ belts,” Carter wrote in her book, noting that she also “added something special to identify each wearer” — such as a crystal, piece of jade or animal representing each Dora’s tribe — all of which “are symbols of protection and personal sacrifice.”

The Dora Milaje’s costumes also feature raised prints that evoke scarification, a type of body decoration most widely practiced in Africa. (It involves the production of permanent raised scars in decorative patterns intended to beautify or indicate group identity or one’s life stage.)

And when dressing the Talokanil — inhabitants of Talokan, the underwater kingdom in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — Carter worked to honor Maya culture, through pieces such as the large lionfish-inspired headdress and shoulder piece created with feathers and worn by Namora (Mabel Cadena).

The Maya Vase Database — an “extensive archive of Maya knowledge, resources, history and art,” according to the book — and experts in Maya archaeology and culture were critical resources, Carter said.

“It’s honoring what these Indigenous tribes did to display their cultural pride and using the same source and some of the same shapes and creating something else,” Carter said.

Technology was key to making the wardrobe appear simultaneously ancient and futuristic — a fitting approach given that Wakanda is also exceptionally advanced in its technology.

The crown of Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) was 3D-printed, and the Black Panther suit in the first film had raised prints of what Carter called the “Okavango triangle,” named after the Okavango River in southern Africa. These prominent shapes were printed onto a special fabric called Eurojersey via computerized machines, according to the book.

In Africa, “the triangle is like a sacred geometry,” Carter said. “You see it in so much of the African art history. And the meaning of the triangle in certain societies represents the family: the father, the mother and the child.”

Carter is currently working on costume design for the 2024 film “Blade,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie centered on a Black half-vampire, half-human character — to be portrayed by Mahershala Ali — first introduced in a 1973 comic. Wesley Snipes was the first to play Blade in the eponymous late ‘90s trilogy.

A contractual agreement prevents Carter from sharing any details about the film’s wardrobe, but she looks forward to staying rooted in Black culture, she said.

“I also like the idea of human stories … how we connect to each other in our communities,” Carter said.

And Carter is conscious of her own position in breaking boundaries in Black culture.

“I’m also looking forward to kind of going back into the independent sector and maybe producing a project about my family or another book about something more of a deep dive into my journey.”

“The Art of Ruth E. Carter: Costuming Black History and the Afrofuture, from Do the Right Thing to Black Panther” is available now.