THE ADVENTURE SERIES: A BIT BIASED
As mentioned in the Week 10 lecture (named ‘#designisoverparty’) I was talking about the rainbow pride flag and said that I will make a post about it and a couple of other things that I know. This is that post.
Last year I did a lot of research on LGBTQIA+ things for my persuasive speech and for my VISCOMM project. As part of the VISCOMM project, I bought a book called ‘Queer x Design’ which talks about the evolution of LGBTQIA+ history through design. Although it was delivered after the completion of my research, I still was happy to have the book with me throughout the process as a guide.
Fig 1. The front cover of the ‘Queer x Design’ book by Andy Campbell. All images from this post are from this book.
There are a couple of things I’m gonna talk about that are from the book. The first thing I will talk about is the origins of the iconic rainbow pride flag by Gilbert Baker.
Baker was asked by Harvey Milk to design a new flag for a Gay Freedom Day celebration as current designs utilised the inverted pink triangle, which has an association with Nazi Germany as they used the triangle as a mark of Homosexuality in their concentration camps.
Fig 2. An example of the pink triangle. This design was used during the 1980′s to highlight the relationship between homosexuality and AIDS and the need for then president of America Ronald Reagan to speak up. Design by the Silence = Death Collective.
The original concept for the flag included eight colours, which were all symbolic and were hand-dyed, sewn, and then displayed during that years festivities. Baker wanted to create a symbol of gay rights that was global. He had achieved that goal, but it didn’t come with some troubles.
Harvey Milk, who helped commission the creation of the flag, was shot by Dan White, which galvanised LGBTQ communities and highlighted the need for LGBTQIA+ rights in America to protect the community. This violence is still present today, especially in the Transgender community.
The flag would be displayed at the next years parade to reinforce that need for LGBTQIA+ rights. The flag did go through some changes however, as Baker was told it was impossible to recreate the pink fabric. To balance the stripes on the flag, he dropped the turquoise colour for symmetry, which resulted in the rainbow pride flag we see today.
Baker did recreate his original flag design in 2016, after having to relearn how to sew due to a stroke that effected his left side. This is the image of the flag:
Fig 3. The recreation of the Rainbow Pride flag by Gilbert Baker.
The flag has become such a well known symbol in the queer community and is a symbol organisation use either to display their loyalty and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people or as a way to sell merchandise. I’ve seen the Pride flag around RMIT as well (at RUSU and the Job Shop), making queer people feel welcomed at RMIT.
The second thing I am going to talk about is something that is very close to my heart. This is the Bisexual Flag.
Although the rainbow pride flag is synonymous with the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, there are major subsections of that community, including Bisexual. The flag, created by Michael Page, is simple yet it has a lot of power and story to it.
Ted Kaye laid out 5 principles of flag design: keep it simple, use meaningful symbolism, limit to two to three basic colour, not lettering or seals, and be distinctive. The bisexual flag does all these things.
The flag was modelled after the already existing symbol of the pink and blue triangles intersecting, which represent the attraction to two genders (the book calls the ‘biangles’). The colours are symbolic, as pink is associated with females and blue associated with males so the magenta represents bisexuality, as it is the blend of the two colours.
Fig 6. The bisexual flag and triangles.
I modelled my VISCOMM poster of these symbols. What’s great is that only my queer friends discovered the hidden meaning behind the poster and what it represents. It was also a discussion point for others who don’t know what the colours mean.
These flags and symbols came from activism and the idea of creating a symbol for a community that can not only represent them, but be used as a tool for activism. I think these flag are a great example of what can be done when you choose to design something that is not used for selling products, but as something someone can use as an identity marker. I personally fly these flags, I have pins with these colour on them, which makes myself know and makes myself present. This is a symbol of who we are.
Why design? For acceptance. For activism. For liberation.
PS. Did you see the pun in the title 😝
