Every year around June, you see hundreds of businesses change their logos into rainbows (sometimes with a pinch of pink & blue for trans stuff too) as a way for them to « celebrate Pride ». More often than not, those businesses don’t mention actual queer and trans people in their social media posts, nor do they express meaningful support for queer and trans people all year round when it can’t be leveraged as a marketing tool.
The rainbow flag became a symbol of gay communities after Gilbert Baker created it in 1978. A lot of things have changed since 1978 though, including the co-optation of the rainbow as a way of pushing rainbow capitalism, particularly every year in June. For a lot of queer and trans people, seeing a see of rainbow logos is less a symbol of pride, and more a symbol of the continued ways that corporations and capitalism harm queer and trans people, particularly those who are most marginalized.
At Ivy + Dean, we didn’t change our logo for Pride month, and we most likely won’t in future years either. When we designed our logo, with thanks to our pals at Arcas, we did so with queer and trans people in mind… and we did it without a rainbow.
We purposefully chose the colour for our logo, as a way to pay homage to the activism and history of queer organizing, referencing the Lavender Scare and the symbol of lavender as queer resistance. Above all though, we chose purple because we envision a world where queer and trans people are treated and loved like royalty, and recognized as the elegant and regal leaders that they are.
Our logo and our company is queer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and we do not think we have to be in head to toe rainbow for only one month of the year in order to reflect our deep connections to queer and trans community.
Jacq is the CEO & Principal Consultant at i+d. With over 10 years of experience in the non-profit sector, they’re love thinking up creative ways to challenge the norms while still getting things done.
You can usually find Jacq drinking Diet Pepsi and watching something great on Netflix when they’re not working.
