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Open Secret: Gay Hook Up Bands
This was our first project in Mark Owens' Information Design elective at CalArts in the spring of 2008. We had to design a set of at least 6 icons. The icon is information design at it's most condensed. How does one communicate an idea or set of related ideas in only positive and negative graphic form?
At the onset of this project I was doing my initial thesis research at CalArts. One argument I was considering pursuing (but didn't, though it became a subset of my content) was this question: Is there such a thing as "gay" graphic design? Was it a matter of target audience or the sexual orientation of the designer or both? Neither? Well this was both. These icons became part of a system of graphic codes that gay men can use to identify sexual kinks.
The graphic forms for each kink were single icons that were then woven together to form simple patterns. This patterns were printed on day-glo tyvek wristbands (the kind clubs use to determine drinking age or vip status). The color system is derived from 1970s hanky code, but the pictographs of the icons are all original.
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