The LGBT+ community is one often at the mercy to much hatred, homophobia and discrimination. The world looks towards visual culture to portray an honest and diverse representation of society; but often minorities and the LGBT+ community is overlooked.
‘The market-mediated depictions of gayness lack diversity and may serve to propagate the gay sartorial stereotype that has come to be aphoristically accepted as the public face of gayness’ (Ginder and Byun, 2015).
There is a distinct lack of LGBT+ representation in advertising, design, film, TV etc. and when featured its usually focused on the market of male, white, cis, affluent and young.
'With multiple studies into TV and magazine based gay representation showing the focus on celebrity, ‘perfection’, affluence, males, being white and even the use of straight celebrities for endorsement being 40x more likely than trans people of colour being featured.'
You matter! Because the industry needs to change! Representation is important in showing healthy role models for the queer younger generations discovering who they really are and looking towards visual culture for answers. It also serves the purpose of normalising gender fluidity and homosexuality to general society, more visibility equals greater acceptance.
For the why you matter page of the website I wrote a small description of why signing the manifesto and following its rules is important for the LGBT+ community. I included quotes from my essay to back up the points made.
Due to the large amount of type it seemed too overbearing and busy to use the typewriter animated effect for this page. Instead the page is just layed out simply for clarity and legibility and allows the user to scroll through and read.
I have used Avenir Heavy for the most part of the branding/web design so far as its bold, legible and stands out against the background well; but for the quotes I made the most of this fonts large selection of weight variants. I used light oblique to make it clear to the user these were quotes and notably important.
This video shows how the scroll will visually work for users of the website.
Previous signatures
The previous signatures page is an opportunity to showcase all the brilliant people, companies and brands that have shown their support for the campaign. Itll allow them to express their opinions on the topic and include links to their online presences. Once again the page will work on a simple scroll and the titles for each individual signature will use the Light oblique variation of the typeface to show their separation and higherchy of importance.
Merch store
I am hoping to produce some mock-ups/concepts for promotional merchandise, informed by the physical forms of activism researched in my dissertation (actup ncy, tshirts, badges, posters etc. physical activism). This page will act as the online store to buy all such items
How to advertise positively
Negative example
Although this example above has its positives...
- Large brand
- Normalising gay people
- Positive press
It also shows an example of the typical LGBT+ representation adverts use. Male, white, young, affluent; this representation is seen time and time again with no variation. Its damaging as it gives the rest of the LGBT+ population no visibility. It also creates an image of gay men that many cannot identify with. This advert is an example of a company simply hoping to capitalise on the market of affluent, young, gay men rather than to promote equality and acceptance. Those considered successful in targeting the LGBT+ community via visual culture are those who do so in an informed way. Considerate of diversity, community issues and the human rights principles within their establishments.
Positive example
This Sainsburys christmas advert is a perfect example of positive LGBT+ representation within an advertising campaign. The advert is not specifically targeting the community in order to capitalise on the market but instead is just inclusive in showing homosexual family set-ups among representation of a community.
It is inclusive of race minorities and features both a gay and lesbian couple both with children. It's positive in that society as a whole completely dis-regards the idea gay couples gay even have children when that is just not the reality.
The rules
For the page featuring the rules I have created a 'virtual publication' using the origional layout I designed before deciding a posterzine format was more appropriate for the physical design. This emmersive animated design will appeal towards the creative audience I am targeting.
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