SEATTLE PRIDE 2018

Our award-winning campaign pays homage to Pride's radical roots and contemporary heroes, highlighting the importance of intersectional allyship. The modular logo and versatile branding invite participants to claim Seattle Pride as their own. (Student project, proof of concept)

Timeframe
10 weeks

Roles
Co-creative director, designer, production
Branding, logo design, layout, photo editing, copywriting, guerilla marketing strategy, packaging, billboard design, print production, copywriting, visual and conceptual research

Skills
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Illustrator

CAMPAIGN STATEMENT

Each year at Seattle Pride, LGBTQIA+ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and allies) from all walks of life take refuge in a shared culture built on generations of struggle and celebration. This year, Pride honors its radical roots and extends its horizons. Pride 2018 highlights the allyship that strengthens the queer community: white folks fighting for racial justice, citizens protecting the undocumented, cisgender people showing up for their transgender siblings.

Our vibrant, gritty, in-your-face aesthetic pays homage to radical liberation movements that continue to shape Pride. Our logo takes inspiration from the pink triangle, an enduring symbol of Gay pride reclaimed from the Holocaust, and the Penrose Triangle, an Escher-like “impossible shape.” This symbol celebrates the common intersections of the queer community and the many dimensions of Pride today.

The campaign is purposely versatile and modular, inviting participants to claim the brand as their own. Our logo will be available to community groups, who can customize it with their own patterns. The slogan Pride Is pairs with a variety of movements represented in this year’s campaign. At the festival, participants can visit button-making stations to collage images of themselves, their families, and LGBTQIA+ heroes of past and present.

VISUAL INSPIRATION

Our visual inspiration draws upon early Gay Liberation movements of the 1960s. We researched the significance of the rainbow and the pink triangle, two pervasive images in international LGBTQ branding. This lead us to research impossible shapes and the Penrose triangle, which served as the inspiration for our logo. 

CONCEPTUAL INSPIRATION

Our concept is inspired by the intersectional activism of LGBTQIA2* people today. Queer people are everywhere, and are impacted by a multitude of issues. We are stronger when we stand together, and acknowledge the wholeness and diversity of our experiences, and leverage our privileges to show up for one another.  

MODULAR LOGO

The pink triangle is an important historical symbol. It originated in Nazi germany, used to identify and subsequently kill and torture those perceived as homosexual by the regime. It was later reclaimed by the Gay community as a symbol of pride and fearlessness, and appears in radical queer organizations and movements such as the HIV/AIDS organizing of ACT UP.

We brought new dimension to this historic symbol using the Penrose Triangle, an impossible shape which exists only when viewed from the right perspective. The logo represents our many converging paths, and the importance of sticking together while honoring difference in order to support each other. The logo is designed in such a way that it can be adapted by individuals and community groups using patterns that are significant to them. 

billboard series

We remember and honor the victims of the 2016 Pulse shooting, and all lives lost to hatred in our communities.

We recognize and celebrate the important role that youth play in building queer culture! We show up for queer youth by promoting safe, all-ages spaces that allow all of us to enjoy the festivities of Pride 2018.

STENCIL AND WHEATPASTING CAMPAIGN

In keeping with the street art traditions of Capitol Hill, images of LGBTQIA2* icons such as Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Audre Lorde and Harvey Milk will be provided to the public for wheatpasting. Logo stencils will also be disseminated to local artists and community members (along with removable spray-paint chalk, of course).

POSTERS

Our read as a scroll, naming a few of the many things that Pride Is, and always calling out the dates of Pride 2018.

PRINT ADVERTISING

BUTTON-MAKING STATIONS

At the festival, community members are invited to make buttons, collaging images of themselves and their loved ones along with images of LGBTQIA2* icons and various "Pride Is" phrases. We invite the community to claim the campaign as their own and define what Pride means to them. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

Our social media presence keeps the community engaged in the months leading up to Pride and the months following by promoting locals artists and events relevant to our communities through branded messaging. 

GUERILLA MARKETING

Throughout the city, branded newspaper boxes will be filled with free, branded Seattle Pride condoms and lubricant. A nod to ACT UP safe sex activism, this guerilla marketing campaign is in keeping with our community's history of public health organizing, vibrant sex positivity, and community accessibility.

PRIDE IN PRACTICE

We want to acknowledge that this campaign was conceptualized by two white queers drawing heavily from the organizing and scholarship of incredible communities who do intersectional work from the margins: queer and trans people of color, queers with disabilities,  cash-poor queers, Muslim queers, undocumented, immigrant and refugee queers, HIV positive queers, and countless others. This campaign is intended to support and amplify the labor that has gone into this organizing for generations.

A radical aesthetic is meaningless unless it is backed up with action and resources. What you see here is proof of concept; once actualized, the messaging, photography and overall representation will be chosen by a board of community members representing the many communities that make up the fabric of our collective LGBTQIA+ world. This community board will identify campaigns and organizations working at the intersections of queerness and economic justice, racial justice, immigration reform, anti-Islamophobia, disability rights, health and housing reform, and other critical social justice movements of our time. We intend to leverage this platform to redirect resources to those groups which are fighting for a deeper and more honest sense of equity in our communities.