GIVE US OUR FLOWERS PRIDE ZINE

As a member of BUCK’s LGBTQIA+ ERG, I was a part of the initiative to create a project for Pride to raise money for LGBTQIA+ charities and organizations. Our mission was simple, but daunting: create a zine that would focus on the LGBTQIA+ history that was not common knowledge, and specifically highlight people of color who have made our society a better place and fought for our rights around the world. Tell stories lost to history, and give the people who changed the world their flowers.

Photography by Vero Gómez & Zoé Schneider

The mission

We began gathering information on a number of POC LGBTQIA+ activists. Once the list was finalized, artists within the group, as well as BUCK at large, joined the team. We each chose an activist and began concepting an illustration for each spread of the zine. I chose Labi Siffre, the talented singer-songwriter who was one of the earliest musicians in America to be out as gay, and was also an activist: outspoken and unapologetic.

Process

Because the zine would be made via risograph printing, we needed to craft our designs in a particular way. Each artist was given 2 colors + black to create their illustrations. Risograph printers can print one color at a time, and each page is ran through the printer once per color. This meant we had to be careful with layering the colors in Photoshop to get the outcomes we wanted.

The color layers stacked on top of each other, showing how the printing was done.

Results

Give Us Our Flowers was sold on the BUCK Goods store and sold out of all physical copies. 100% of proceeds were given to The Stonewall Protests, The Triangle Project, and The Black Trans Art & Joy Fund.

Featured on

It’s Nice That
Secret Riso Club
PRINT Magazine

Credits (entire zine)

Production: Dara Ó Cairbre, Kim Stephens, Kitty Dillard, Melbie Balam

Design: Ayla Mortada, Vero Gómez, Zoé Schneider

Copywriting: Asia Hunt, Liz Vogstberger, Kevin Pires

Illustration: Amelia Giller, Angélica Fernandez, Ben Nichols, Dan Muangprasert, David Stumpf, Debora Cruchon, Fabrizio Lenci, Irmak Semiz, John Bajana, Julia Mattos, Kenni Huang, Kirin Robinson, Kuu Chen, Kyle Strope, Lauren Gaballo, Laurie Rollit, Manu Correa Soto, Meeta Panesar, Mercy Lomelin, Nicole Pappas, Sana Srinivasan, Shannon Rollins, Sung Hyun Kim

Thank you to the members of the BUCK LGBTQIA+ ERG of the time of the creation of the zine. You all helped me feel comfortable being myself at the workplace and together we fought to create initiatives like this, as well as healthcare for transgender individuals at BUCK. I look up to each of you as the most talented and strongest people I’ve met so far in my career. Thank you. <3