Los Angeles LGBT Center: Forward for 50 by RPA

In 2019, the Los Angeles LGBT Center — which claims to be the largest LGBT organization in the world — is celebrating its 50th anniversary. To commemorate this momentous occasion, the Center worked with ad agency RPA to create a striking new logo that celebrates the relentless efforts of the community in the fight for equality by using images from multiple 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, the Center with RPA and Raconteur, a consultancy focused on a creative storytelling approach to marketing, 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 US, mainly in Los Angeles. A video, narrated by Patricia Arquette, tells the story of how the innovative logo was crafted.

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.

The font will be available for download on the Center’s website. Additionally, stencils created out of the font easily enable people to create present day signage of their own in celebration of the progress made over the past 50 years.