CALLING ALL QUEER CREATIVES!!!

i don't see how being gay affects design work? thats like saying 'lets set up an amputee design community', surely its irrelevant?

although i'm open to persuasion otherwise...

In a lot of ways it doesn't. Work-for-hire is what it is, and you do your job the same way whether you're straight or queer. But that's also sort of the point. Queer content and queer aesthetics aren't usually desirable or appropriate for work geared to a mass market. Imagery can be rejected or self-censored because it looks too "gay." Maybe when I pitch a concept I feature a man, his beautiful wife, and their beautiful kids, rather than two fags and their cats, for obvious reasons. Making work marketable is something all designers have to do, but for queers that often requires knowingly colluding with heterosexist culture. This is not an experience many straight designers have or would even recognize.

There is definitely a particular experience of being a queer designer. And there is definitely queer content, queer aesthetics, queer politics, and queer theory that can be applied to design work, if that work is given a forum and a reason for being.

Discussion with other queer designers is of interest to me. And the challenge of creating a specifically 'queer' design project is of interest to me. Finding people who share that interest is the only way to initiate this type of collaborative project. . . .

you've won me round, sounds like it could make an interesting project.

i don't think you are going to have much trouble finding gay musicians or artists, keep us posted on the results though, interesting stuff.

see,
i think this is a kind of reverse-homophobia, if you'll alow me the grace of coining a phrase.

dont get me wrong i know what your saying about having to curb your style to sell it to a client but after all, as a designer - artist (maybe not so much artist but you get the idea) - whatever thats what your there for: to fulfill the requirments of a brief while putting your own stylish spin on things.

but also, im not against you setting up a forum for you work. but my thought would be that there is no need to segregate yourself from the rest of design.

yes, you may be gay but thats a personal preference and is reflected in your work. in the same way as some people like a certain kind of music and others prefer acrylics to oil paints.

not entirly sure where im going with this but... carry on

ohh yeah, back to the point: reverse-*isms.

go for it if you want (setting something up) and good luck to you but personally i would welcome your "queer aesthetics" into any mainstream design forum / gallery / links website etc.

more diversity, something different to take inspiration from or criticise.

and i think, in this day and age, why not have it mixed in with mainstream art / design / coulture / whatever...

I think every creative knowingly colludes with cultures they may not be entirely comfortable with as a means to an end. None of my (capitalist) clients would accept work created solely from my (anarchist) viewpoint. Hell, I wouldn't expect them to.

Larry is on the money again. we should set you up with a little agony aunt feature!

lol..

*Liaise With Larry*

very interesting. i think the [mis]appropriation of gay culture into the mainstream has always been and continues to be an interesting subject matter. all the more so right now perhaps - because the concept of metrosexuality seems finally to be an open acknowledgement by straight culture of the direct influence / theft of queer culture.

looking forward to the progress on this project...

Everyone who's metrosexual is gay... Not just that... Everyone who knows what's a metrosexual is gay :) I won't admit that I know what's a metrosexual because I'm straight :)

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