‘Homosexual,’ a medical term associated with mental illness and synonymous with pedophilia, was often the only word available for describing queer people of any kind (excluding slurs). In the gay dark ages (sometime before Kinsey’s research revealed how many of us there actually are), the sparse information available about the gay community was pure defamation. Today, the terms associated with the acronym ‘LGBTQ’ are common knowledge, but this wasn’t always the case. Throughout history labels, and the symbols that represent them, have meant a great deal to the LGBT community-sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but either way you’ll want to take that history into account before crafting your own queer design. That said, labels can serve a purpose, especially when it comes to shaping identity. It’d be nice if we could drop all labels and live without lumping people into categories. While far from the definitive style guide, we’ve compiled a cross-section of LGBT graphic design to illustrate that the queer aesthetic is every bit as diverse as the community itself.
Aside from the good old rainbow flag, used over and over, there hasn’t been much of a consensus about how to approach logo design and branding with an LGBTQ audience in mind.
In relative history, LGBT establishments have only been out of the closet so long. Whether you’re a queer-minded artist, a business owner hoping to attract LGBT customers or an entrepreneur looking for new ways to connect with your already substantial LGBT audience, it’s hard to know where to start when it comes to graphic design.