While there are many paths to equality, I identified a crucial need for a link between Gen Z voters and their local government in Johnson City, TN to promote an increase in LGBTQ+ equality efforts within the city. The city currently does not have an established Human Rights Commission and efforts to establish one in the past had failed. This left citizens, especially young voters and minority communities, feeling as if their voices were not being heard leading to discouragement and decreased confidence in their ability to affect change. I hypothesized that establishing a Human Rights Commission in Johnson City would provide LGBTQ+ and other minority communities a bridge to better participate in their local government in turn increasing community confidence, inspiring young voters, and taking the first step towards increasing LGBTQ+ equality efforts in Johnson City.
I conducted research which led me to discover that Johnson City was one of the 25% of cities in the U.S. to score below a 52 on the Human Rights Campaign's "Municipal Equality Index". This annual index provides insight into how cities are preforming in their LGBTQ+ equality efforts. Out of 100 possible points Johnson City scored a 12. This unacceptable performance led me to conduct further research into the disparities LGBTQ+ people face living in Johnson City as well as actions the local community could take to improve equality efforts. The challenge was to design a system to educate, advocate, and inspire Johnson City Gen Z voters to establish a Human Rights Commission.
To solve these issues and overcome the challenge laid before me, I designed the Get Real Campaign that would educate, advocate, and inspire the Gen Z voter base to establish a Human Rights Commission in Johnson City, TN. The campaign was designed to achieve three main goals: educate the voter base on the lack of support for the LGBTQ+ community, advocate for the establishment of a Human Rights Commission, and to promote action through the signing of a petition, voting, and local government participation. I achieved these campaign goals through the design of a mural to connect with my audience, pamphlets and brochures to inform about the goals and inspiration for the campaign, t-shirts, buttons, and stickers to amplify the campaign's message, an interactive quiz to educate users about the disparities the LGBTQ+ community faces in Johnson City, and a website to act as the hub for the campaign. Each entry point into the campaign leads to a call to action pointed at signing a petition to establish a Human Rights Commission in Johnson City.
I designed this campaign after learning from other successful campaigns such as The Red Flag Campaign conducted by the Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance, Black Lives Matter, and Count Us In conducted by the Human Rights Campaign. I found inspiration for my designs through historical queer design such as the Silence=Death Poster, t-shirts from the Lavender Menace, and queer messaging/campaigning through button design. These inspirations and months of research informed my design for an effective and impactful campaign.
In order to be well acquainted with the problem I was attempting to solve, I conducted months of research exploring numerous papers, surveys, reports, and studies that identified and quantified the issues LGBTQ+ people face in communities across the U.S. including small rural Appalachian towns. I also researched different solutions to these problems and how other organizations like the Human Rights Campaign are combating these disparities. I educated myself on the implications many of these issues and concerns have on the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ individuals especially queer youth. My visual designs where informed by the historical queer designs I discovered in the book Queer x Design by Andy Campbell particularly the Silence=Death poster and influences from the Lavender Menace. I looked to other campaigns for ideas on system design and structural organization for my campaign.
The final outcome of my project resulted in the creation of a mock booth for the campaign that would be present at various festivals, conferences, and events in and around Johnson City. The mock booth display was installed at the Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, TN. It was well received with many people asking to purchase the merchandise I had designed, gaining actual signatures to establish a Human Rights Commission (the primary goal of the campaign), and having a representative for the city encourage me to continue this project as a legitimate campaign. Overall, the installation was a success, and the designs were clearly effective in achieving the primary goals I set for the campaign.
Link to Project Mock Site:
