GAY-I.G.A. How Gay Is Design?

tempting as that sounds gav..... i think i will give it a miss.....

surely a touch homophobic...

 

I tend to agree iGAV, but I feel that Homosexuals shouldn't be labelled as a "relevant niche" in our society. IMHO, they are society, not a separate entitiy. I understand that it is splitting hairs, but I think you understand what I mean.

That aside, it is also good to see popular culture embracing homosexuals as a relevant part of society... hopefully this mentality extends beyond the marketability aspect.

 

Its more than just a relevant niche or embracing homosexuals as a relevant part of society. Its a cultural aspect that associated with assigning a focus or preference to style and design. What's cool or more, what's classy has become a large part of the culture that crosses over to the mainstream more and more.

I don't want to use stereo types, I'm not about that, but the best analogy would be music (weird, I know, but I've been drinking ). Regardless of the style or personal taste you can appreciate good music. The same goes for design.


D

 

i feel this whole marketing to your audience think is way out of hand. design your product the way you feel is BEST, and let your audience develop itself. if you design a product FOR a specific audience, you are only limiting its' appeal, as well as stereotyping your product.

let us assume your are developing a product geared towards homosexuals, do you aim for the feminine ones, or the manly ones? openly gay, or still taking it in the closet? people are people, you cannot say i'm going to market this product to asians, africans, americans (please don't say there is no such thing as an american...i was born here, i'm american, suck my...to all of my african, asian, whatever americans...if you were born here guess what...you aren't african, asian, italian, whatever, you are american...) and catch more than 50% of them in your marketing ploy.

 

You made some good points but you have to design a product for a specific audience in mind, if you don't then your product will have a good general appeal but no one will buy it. Some things have a universal appeal but you can't simply say that you shouldn't design for a target audience. Thats what advertising is about? For instance an Audi RS6, its not appealing to everyone because it might have bucket seats. By putting things in to the design that would appeal to a certain audience you put other people off, thereby limiting your audience.

Somethings should be universal but others need to appeal to specific target audiences, no?

 

I have got to say that more of my gay friends (myself included!) have Apples's than PC's. Talk about good taste. I am not saying Apple users are 'gayer' than PC users.....

 

tell me how incidental product features like bucket seats have anything to do with this.

i don't see how anything needs to appeal to homosexuals, unless of couse your product was created solely for that purpose and couldn't realisticly be marketed to any other demographic. the only reason for purposely doing such a thing needlessly would be political stirring, expecting that you'd gain more gay supporters of your "cause" to make up for what you'd lose overall, which is weasely. it is leveraging social issues for your own personal gain.

(ok, let's see how many people take this wrong.) while we're at it, why does the entire population need to bend over backwards for a minority? do not get me wrong, my implication is not to ignore them. it's more like, ok, you're gay, that's great, can we get on with things please? we're not trying to oppress you, we're not shoving you off to the side and out of public view, we're not doing much of anything (at all actually, which isn't good either). so, why the parade? what's with the continuing "infiltration" tactics, particularly of popular media? being gay has become a "thing"; the label is no longer a label for purposes of clarification, it's some distinguished title that is sought after. i swear, by blowing things up like this, minorities (of all sorts) are only intensifying the situation. i'm not saying to stop speaking freely, hell no, i'm saying just put things in perspective once in a while.

 

yes and no - it still addresses the gay and lesbian community as a separate entity worthy of special consideration. what i'm getting at is, they are people, as are we all. act like people, and be treated as people. the fact that a question and answer session like this is necessitated is an oddity to me.

 

people, in general, act self important, put out, like the world owes them something, and moreso when they actually have a reason, justified or no.

i can't speak about this event specifically, because i don't know much about it or its history. but i do find this event strange, not because it's attempting to explain things, which is good, but because this issue needs explaining to begin with.

one might ask, why is there now a gay network from viacom? this is the special consideration i am speaking of. there is a newtork for hispanics, telemundo, which delivers spanish content for people who enjoy watching shows in their native language. great idea, fine, couldn't be happier. but i think you'll agree, consideration for a largely ignored (in the us) language demographic is quite a different issue than programming for people who, regardless of any other personal preferences, race, language, etc, happen to enjoy the company of the same sex. when put that way it sounds silly.

 

i think this sounds like something for the activist elite rather than design elite. It's all clearly bent around activism.

Let's replace the word 'design' with 'marketing' here, because design is simply marketing, but much earlier in the production of something. I think it's certainly possible to market *and* design for the gay community.

Given time, the division will end. There won't be a focus on 'gay' anything. But that's maybe, 50 years off. Until then, it's a hot subject, and forces polarization-- Gays are denied civil rights, so they rally together and strongly identify as gay, which creates a pretty decent marketing niche. Certainly a gay-themed network (I know one of the people that helped create it, which is cool) can be successful, they are in other countries. It can serve for both entertainment programming involving gay characters and plots to activist information, but it's appeal isn't forever. Once the gay rights battle ends, the entire 'gay' universe will quietly fade into the crowd.

as for "why are all designers gay"... my thought:
gays -> all obsessive compulsive (well, okay, most of them)
obsessive compulsives -> make good designers
gays -> make good designers

paul

 

I'm a graphic designer, and I'm not gay ................... not that there's anything wrong with that

 

Couldn't resist

There is nothing wrong with what:
a) That your a designer
b) That your not gay
c) Being gay
d) Being a designer and not being gay
e) Being a designer and being gay
f) all of the above

maybe i'm just a little punchy today.

 

Guess you didn't catch the Seinfeld reference.... that's what it was meant to be

 

you should have modified that joke for your specific targeted audience.

 

As long as anyone or anything is in the minority, it will always be a "separate entity worthy of special consideration." That's just the way it works.

 

There was recently a fun article in Fortune (print edition, 25 August) about how media has been changing (basically, you can no longer get the eyes and ears of 3/4 of the population simply by taking out ad spots on a few networks). The gist is that one big campaign is becoming less effective in reaching an audience, and that tailoring for smaller market segments rather than mass marketing is gradually taking over.

The idea isn't so much that products necessarily have to be designed with one particular market segment in mind, but that it helps to simultaneously run lots of little campaigns for different segments, so show the product in a relevant light.

Since there is still a degree of social segregation going on, it does make sense for marketers to consider tailoring messages for those subgroups.

 

"Special consideration" might be putting this stuff into a loftier light than it deserves. Varying marketing messages to open up a larger number of wallets is what it's really about =)

 

Seinfeld? I thought it was from Friends!

 

I swear it was Seinfeld.

"This sweater makes me look gay .... not that there's anything wrong with that." And George and everyone nodded.

It wasn't meant to be an anti-gay remark, sorry if people took it the wrong way.

 

I get it now. I guess Seinfeld has been off the air (well sort of, not counting rerun sindication (sp?)) for too long now.

 

Have to agree - All my gay mates and myself have macs......at first is was cause there gorgous......but now i love it for what it is! (way better than a PC)