Rainbow flag designer commemorated with free font family

The iconic rainbow flag has been an instantly recognisable symbol of LGBTQ social movements since the 1970s. Sadly, its designer Gilbert Baker died on 31 March 2017, and to honour his memory NewFest and NYC Pride have partnered with Ogilvy & Mather and Fontself to create free fonts inspired by his work.

Gilbert currently comes in monochrome and colour versions [click the icon the enlarge]

The appropriately-named Gilbert started out as a font designed for striking headlines and protest banner slogans, and is now being built into an entire family of weights and styles, all of which will be available for free from Type With Pride.

More weights and styles will be released in the future

More weights and styles will be released in the future

The first fruits of this project are available now as early beta previews. There's a standard vector font, plus a stunning colour font in OpenType-SVG format, both released under a Creative Commons license (see details) that means you're welcome to use them in pretty much any way you like. Bear in mind though, that the colour font is currently only usable in Photoshop CC 2017.

You can download free art from Type With Pride as well

You can download free art from Type With Pride as well

Type With Pride has also created some free downloadable art intended to be printed and held high at pride events, protests and rallies; you can find them all over at the site. And to find out more about the Gilbert font, including how Fontself managed to turn Ogilvy & Mather's colour artwork into a full font in under a week, check out the development blog.

Related articles:

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Jim McCauley

Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.