In 2019, the Los Angeles LGBT Center became the first LGBT organization in the world to celebrate its 50th anniversary. To commemorate this momentous occasion, we created a poster campaign featuring photography from the last half century, along with typography and a special logo that celebrates the relentless efforts of the community in the fight for equality by using letters and symbols from dozens of protest signs to create a singular symbol.
To both pay tribute to the movement’s past and convey the momentum that’s being carried into the future, we created a logo out of 292 images from collections at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries. Images included some from Chuck Stallard, a photographer whose largest body of work covers the war against HIV/AIDS as seen from the battlefronts of street demonstrations; Pat Rocco, an activist who documented the LGBTQ rights movement in film and photographs; and the Center’s archive. All the images were taken from protests from the past 50 years from several different mobilizations around the U.S., mainly in Los Angeles.
More than 125 letters or symbols were chosen from different protest signs to make up the logo. The new “Forward for 50” logo directly speaks to the Center’s 50-year commitment to moving in just one direction – toward progress, by honoring the decades of struggle that have paved the way to freedoms and acceptance.
We created a typeface out of those same letters and symbols, and used it – along with archival photography – to create a poster campaign that speaks to both the past and present of the Center and what it stands for.
Launched for Pride Month 2019, the campaign raised awareness for the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s historic anniversary. It also serves as a powerful reminder that while tremendous progress has been made in the fight for equality, it’s a fight that’s far from over.
