Rebecca Brooker spoke to It’s Nice That about Queer Design Club, “a community where LGBTQ+ designers can celebrate their contributions to the design industry, share their work, and connect with each other”:
For the longest time, I’ve been searching for queer people of colour who were interested in design, like me. Growing up in the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, I didn’t know a lot of graphic designers or have many queer friends during my teens. When I moved to New York to study design at St. John’s University, I began wondering where I would find friends or colleagues that understood my perspective. I followed some queer designers on Instagram and Twitter, and knew a handful from school and my internship – but I didn’t feel like I really knew them or could connect with them personally.
Looking past my own bubble and into the creative industry, it felt and looked overwhelming white, cis, and straight. Thumbing through my canonical design history books, I often only saw white men’s names and faces being credited as the giants of graphic design. I wondered if design had a place for me, for others like me, for others not like me, and if I had fooled myself up to this point. I searched online for information, clubs, groups, or places I could meet other LGBTQIA+ designers, but it felt disconnected and like conversations were being had in silos. It wasn’t until I came across the Blacks Who Design website that I was first inspired to create a similar space.
Queer Design Club has a directory, a Slack channel, and a summit (this year’s summit is on 7th July so buy your tickets now!) and it seems like a great place for queer designers to collaborate and join together.
Related to creativity: Creativity is not a luxury