Welcome to Queer Design Club
A New Space for LGBTQ+ Designers
Queer Design Club is a new project highlighting the work of LGBTQ+ designers in the field today and throughout history. We, co-founders John Hanawalt (JWH) and Rebecca “Becks” Brooker (BB), are proud to share what we’ve been working on now that it’s come out.
First thing’s first: what is Queer Design Club?
JWH: The cheeky answer is “whatever our members make of it!”
It’s a digital community for queer designers. A place where they can be totally open about the whole person behind the work. Ultimately, we want to help create relationships and opportunities using a few different approaches.
BB: We just launched our website, which will be home to a public directory of our members launching in June. We’ll feature their work and thoughts about being a queer creator. (Think something along the lines of Blacks, Latinxs, and Women who Design with a queer twist.)
We’ve also got a closed Slack group—our clubhouse—where members can get to know each other, share resources and job postings, ask advice, and support each other.
We also plan on showcasing our members’ work and other topics that matter to the community in a newsletter and our instagram and twitter accounts.
We’re really interested to hear how people’s identities inform their work and how their queerness and creativity fit together. Our community is so diverse — not just sex and gender, but also backgrounds and life experiences — we want to use QDC as a platform for amplifying these voices.
JWH: Although we’re calling ourselves a club, we want to be as inclusive as possible, so anyone who identifies as queer and designs can participate. And it’s a totally free project — no “club dues.”
What are your hopes and dreams for the club?
BB: Our goal for this is to increase opportunities for our members like jobs, freelance work, speaking engagements and all that jazz.
We’ve got our vision, but we’re keeping an open mind. I want our members to tell us what they want to take away from the project, whether it’s a job or a freelance opportunity or a solid group of friends they can lean on for support, advice and fun.
One bit of inspiration for this club came after I joined 100s Under 100. It became a huge support group for me in a lot of ways, not just work-related. It was great having a safe space to say whatever was really going on. I want QDC members to feel the same way.
JWH: I hope this grows beyond a professional resource into a real community. That’s why our directory doesn’t just ask members what they do and where their work is. We also give them a chance to talk about how being queer affects their work and what bits of queer visual culture inspires them.
I think queer people tend to think a lot about where they fit in. For me as a gay designer, that means figuring out where my work fits into a tradition of queer creativity.
So I hope the project boosts LGBTQ+ people professionally. But really, I just want to make sure everyone in this niche community feels like they belong and see themselves reflected in the industry.
Are allies allowed to join the club?
JWH: This is a tough one for us. Highlighting the work of non-queer designers doesn’t make sense for our mission. There are already a ton of platforms for that. So we won’t be featuring allies in the directory, but…
BB: We do welcome allies in our Slack group if they share the project goals of lifting up queer designers. (We have a channel for discussing how to be a good ally.)
We also have channels that are just for people who identify a certain way to have their space. To us, this feels like a good balance between being as inclusive as possible and centering queer people fully.
JWH: We’re not interested in policing people’s identities. So we’re not going to tell someone they’re not queer or they’re not a designer. You know for yourself if you belong in this club, and we’re going to welcome you!
How did it get started?
JWH: Becks and I met after we each started our own version of Queer Design Club. I’ve been curious about where the queer people in design are for a while. Not just who’s queer in the industry, but also, did any of the designers the industry looks up to identify as LGBTQ+? Or what design work haven’t I seen because its creators were queer?
Then one night I was at a talk about building communities. The talk together with the free talk booze convinced me it was time. I set up a Twitter account, and sent out a tweet that I was going to do something to connect queer designers. Becks saw it, slid into my DMs, and now we’re here!
BB: Growing up in Trinidad, being queer and being a graphic designer were two things I felt like I couldn’t be. Caribbean culture isn’t very open towards homsexuality. The representation wasn’t there, which made it harder when I decided to come out to my family. There were also limited options for design education.
It wasn’t until I moved to New York for college that I really started to explore both my sexuality and my interest in designing things. There weren’t many other queer designers in my program, so I was always seeking out people at this intersection.
I had the idea for a community a couple years ago. So when I saw John on Twitter and saw we had the same idea, we joined forces!
Where are you now?
JWH: This is our big coming out, but we’ve got a long way to go. We didn’t want to roll out with a fully-baked platform with no community input.
Next up is definitely getting the directory live. We’re collecting submissions now so we can launch with content but also so we adjust our vision for the directory to reflect what people actually want to share with us.
BB: Yeah! We also have an email newsletter in the works, with community generated content. The newsletter is going to be a bit of something for everyone.
JWH: In the future, who knows? Maybe the directory will allow members to build out their own profiles. Maybe we’ll create a job board. It really depends on what will serve the community best.
How can people get involved?
JWH: So many ways! We’ve designed the project so people can be as actively and publicly engaged as they want (or not).
BB: It’s just John and me right now, so we really want input from the community.
We’re also looking for members who want to contribute their perspectives: share their work, write about other queer creators who have inspired them, or just @ us with articles they think are interesting.
So spread the word! Submit your profile, tell your queer friends and colleagues, follow us on the socials, and have fun.
John is a gay designer who teaches, writes, and advocates for a more inclusive, just design industry and world. He’s an alum of Mule Design and has been working with LGBTQ+ causes since the beginning of his career. He has an English bulldog/pug mix who has more instagram followers than him.
Rebecca is a queer graphic designer from Trinidad and Tobago. She works as a designer at MediaMonks and as a partner at Planthouse Studio. In her free time, she’s usually practicing boxing, shitposting on Twitter, hosting dinner parties with friends and spending time with plants and nature.
