You've Always Belonged

You've Always Belonged

You've Always Belonged is an imagined campaign project, spanning print, digital, and environmental mediums. It holds space for and aims to educate BIPOC Queer youth all around the world who have known what it’s like to feel isolated in their intersectional identities by seeking to highlight Queer & Trans BIPOC (QTBIPOC) history and remind folks that there are spaces where they belong, in all their BIPOC queer joy, and that there always have been.


Photo/Content Sources:

It's Nice That

Chantal Regnault

Google Arts & Culture: Ballroom History

Van Vouge Jam: Vogue History

Madre Mezcal

YEAR


Fall 2024

THE WORK


Art Direction, Publication, Web, Print Collateral, Merch, EGD

Research

The You've Always Belonged hero poster image, Chantal Regnault: Modavia LaBeija, Octavia Saint Lauren, and Carmen Xtravaganza, House of LaBeija Ball (Copyright © Chantal Regnault, 1989) was chosen to show that QTBIPOC folk have existed throughout history, in this case specifically by celebrating their establishment of the ballroom scene. I was also inspired by the fact that historically, queer design has featured humanist typefaces, often actually handwritten. I picked Salo Bold, a serif chock full of bold personality, as the campaign's display typeface to pay homage to that. In ballroom culture, there are "houses", where a pioneering "house mother" opens her home to accept folks who have been otherwise exiled by their blood-families. These folks then become part of the house/found family and use their house name. "The House of Labeija", of pioneering mother Crystal LaBeija, is featured in the campaign's main image. I referenced this concept in my design through the small white house inside the "O" in "Belonged".

The You've Always Belonged hero poster image, Chantal Regnault: Modavia LaBeija, Octavia Saint Lauren, and Carmen Xtravaganza, House of LaBeija Ball (Copyright © Chantal Regnault, 1989) was chosen to show that QTBIPOC folk have existed throughout history, in this case specifically by celebrating their establishment of the ballroom scene. I was also inspired by the fact that historically, queer design has featured humanist typefaces, often actually handwritten. I picked Salo Bold, a serif chock full of bold personality, as the campaign's display typeface to pay homage to that. In ballroom culture, there are "houses", where a pioneering "house mother" opens her home to accept folks who have been otherwise exiled by their blood-families. These folks then become part of the house/found family and use their house name. "The House of Labeija", of pioneering mother Crystal LaBeija, is featured in the campaign's main image. I referenced this concept in my design through the small white house inside the "O" in "Belonged".

Previous Project:

Punk Never Dyed