Love More

Marriage equality is an issue that is important to me, but people tend to focus solely on equality between same sex couples. For this project, I wanted to be more inclusive in my design and advocate for marriage equality between more unconventional relationships, specifically polyamorous ones.

Polyamorous relationships and relationships involving more than one partner are often overlooked in major activism campaigns or are demonized for going against the conventions of “normal” marriage. While it is not illegal to have multiple romantic/sexual partners, many states have laws against marrying more than one person. Estimates show that about 4 to 5 percent of the U.S. population practices polyamory so, because they are the minority, they are often overlooked or, if a group does advocate for them, they tend to take a backseat to other types of relationships. Healthy relationships between more than two people are just as valid as any “normal” relationship, and I would like to use my designs to try and aid in normalizing this idea to the public.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was how to go about reteaching the definition of polyamory to audiences. When polyamory is mentioned in the news or in articles, it usually has a negative connotation attached to it, so figuring out how to dispel this unsavory association while trying to normalize the idea of polyamorous relationships to the public was a challenge. I wanted to use my designs and solutions to make the subject more approachable, so those who are curious would not feel too intimidated to ask questions.

My target audience was adults and young adults, between 18-30, since I felt this issue would be most relevant to them. I would like to normalize the idea to the entire population, but I chose to focus on adults/young adults since I fall within this age group. I am a fan of wearables, so I knew I wanted to center a lot of my designs around this idea. Shirts, buttons, hats, and tote bags can be used to advertise the campaign and show support. I also designed business cards with a QR code that would, in theory, link to the campaign’s website so the user could learn more about the cause. Parade graphics were also designed in order to publicly showcase the campaign at different pride events.