He even blocked an early attempt by an advocacy group to trademark the flag. Its origins are also in stark contrast to the pink star first used by Nazis, for example.īaker never applied for copyright for his design, in the hopes that it would not be owned by anyone and so could be used by everyone. It’s not hard to see why – it’s a joyful design for a historically marginalised community. Since its debut in San Francisco, the flag has exploded in popularity across the globe. The evolution of the Pride flag Courtesy of Shutterstock Baker died in 2017, long after his flag had become the most famous symbol of LGBT rights and celebration.
This six-tone design is now the most common version of the flag. Baker cut the pink and turquoise from the design, and swapped the basic blue in for indigo. Hot pink, turquoise and indigo fabric was hard to come by. While the flags were initially handsewn by Baker and his friends, mass production presented a few difficulties. “To me, it was the only thing that could really express our diversity, beauty and our joy.” When the design debuted at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Parade in June 1978, there were only two of them.
“I almost instantly thought of using the rainbow,” Baker has said of his inspiration. Gilbert’s original meanings for the colours are as follows hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. While the rainbow pattern has instant aesthetic appeal, and likely its own connotations for people, Gilbert had specific meanings for the shades – even if they are fairly abstract concepts. He assembled the fabric into a striped design with eight colours. Along with friends, he mixed huge bins of water with natural dye and salt – creating the brightly-coloured cotton stripes. While the pink triangle – which had originally been used in Nazi Germany to identity gay men – was being reclaimed to memorialise persecuted gay men, Baker saw the opportunity to create a new symbol.Īs he explained to the Museum of Modern Art in New York when the design was added to its collection, “We needed something beautiful – something from us, and the rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in the sense of our race, our gender, all of those things.”īaker created the flag at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco – deliberately choosing the location as a meaningful “birthplace” for the design. He had been prompted by LGBT campaigner Harvey Milk to come up with a symbol for the gay community. Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and drag performer, designed the Pride flag in 1978. Who designed the Pride flag? Marchers carrying placards in honour of Gilbert Baker. On the 50th anniversary of UK Pride, we take a look back at the flag’s graphic design history, colourful development, and iterations across the decades. But since its debut, it’s proven a popular, enduring, and highly adaptable piece of design. The rainbow flag was first designed in the late ’70s – almost a decade after the Stonewall riots, which subsequent Pride marches commemorate. The LGBT community has not always had the striped symbol however. As Pride kicks off this month, it’s hard to picture a time when celebrations were not draped in rainbow flags.