Black and white lgbtq graphic design
2019 marks an important anniversary, both in the Joined States and around the world: it’s 50 years since the “Stonewall Riots”, a moment which came to symbolize the liveliness of the ongoing campaign for LGBT+ equality.
So, monitoring on from our series of posts about blueprint history, we’re taking this opportunity to look at the impact of that event on the plan language of the LGBT+ rights movement as it progressed over the past five decades. Let’s begin with a reminder of what the movement is about, and why it remains as essential today as it was in 1969.
1969: The Stonewall Riots
It might seem like ancient history in countries where relative tolerance of LGBT+ identities is now frequent, but back in the 1960s things were very different. Most jurisdictions still criminalized and pathologized minority sexual orientations and gender identities. The associated social stigma was extreme, principal to high rates of mental illness and homelessness—problems that persist today.
In Manhattan, police regularly raided establishments established to be popular with the LGBT+ community. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village was raided so often that bar staff had devised special methods of hiding
In January 1988, artists devoted to AIDS activism formed the Gran Fury collective as the “unofficial propaganda ministry and guerilla [sic] graphic designers” of Execute UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.[1] Taking their name from the Plymouth car model of choice for the NYPD, Gran Fury members began producing agitprop art with the overarching goal of actualizing a better planet for queer people and people with AIDS. Most of the collective’s campaigns were exhibited beyond traditional art spaces through flyers, billboards, and posters. Aimed at the “[hu]man on the avenue rather than the art world,” their output often recycled images and texts to reach wider audiences.[2] Any profits generated from their campaigns went endorse into ACT UP and sponsored further art projects.
ACT UP was founded in March 1987 by Larry Kramer, Didier Lestrade, and Vito Russo at the LGBT Center on 13th Street. Still active with numerous international chapters, the organization sought to publicize the AIDS crisis, get AIDS-combatting and life-saving drugs into bodies, and end the crisis. The organization framed AIDS as a political problem, not just a medical one, and brought about a staggering shift i
Alan Bell
Alan Bell, an African American graphic designer who had published Gaysweek for three years in Recent York City during the late 1970s, was urged to start a news periodical for black lesbians and gay men by black LGBT AIDS activists such as Phill Wilson. But at first he resisted renewing a engagement to professional publishing. Bell had, however, founded Jet Jack, a black same-sex attracted men’s safer sex club, in Los Angeles. It was not long before the dearth of faithful information in print about African American LGBTs and about the HIV crisis among them evoked his efforts to fill an unmet need. Eventually he concluded that the instinctive next step from the eight-page newsletter he create himself producing monthly for members of Black Jack was expansion, and BLK was born. Bell arrange out to establish BLK as a regular, predominantly hard news alternative to the infotainment-oriented publications that intermittently appeared in America’s black gay communities.
Bell chose the magazine’s name to adhere to a tradition among national African American publications of employing racially indicative titles (e.g., Ebony, Jet, Onyx, Sepia). Initially pronounced as is the word “black,” use of the init
Design and the gender non-conforming community
Throughout history, layout has played a crucial role in pushing LGBTQIA+ agendas and bringing the stories of underserved communities to the surface.
Following the Stonewall riots in 1969, campaign groups had very little resources and so jet and white campaign language was used alongside simple crafted illustrations to cheer action and produce bold statements. For example, in the 1990s, the OutRage! campaign group used black and light posters to mock popular news headlines that shunned queer people.
Design has always played an significant role within campaign for the LGBTQIA+ community. It has been bold and controversial (out of necessity), in particular the use of the pink triangle in Campaigns against Section 28. This triangle was a symbol worn by queer detainees in Nazi prison camps and was reclaimed during the Aids pandemic through the campaign “Silence = death”.
The emergence of the rainbow flag in later years contrasts the monochromatic earlier depictions of queer design. It demonstrates the diversity within the gender non-conforming community and is now globally established as the identity flag - a universal symbol of belonging and people pride.
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The Progress Pride flag was developed in 2018 by non-binary American artist and designer Daniel Quasar (who uses xe/xyr pronouns). Based on the iconic rainbow flag from 1978, the redesign celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ collective and calls for a more inclusive society. In 2020, the V&A acquired a bespoke applique version of the Progress Event flag that can be seen on display in the Design 1900 – Now gallery.
'Progress' is a reinterpretation of multiple iterations of the pride flag. The original 'rainbow flag' was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 to celebrate members of the gay and lesbian political movement. It comprised eight coloured stripes stacked on top of each other to evoke a rainbow, a symbol of desire. Baker assigned a specific meaning to each colour: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity and violet for spirit. A year later the pink and turquoise stripes were dropped owing to a shortage of pink fabric at the time and legibility concerns, resulting in the six-colour rainbow flag most commonly used in the first decades of the 21st century.
Baker's flag was embra