On 31 March 2017, Gilbert Baker the creator of the iconic Rainbow Flag sadly passed away. Mr. Baker was an LGBTQ activist and artist, and was known for helping friends create banners for protests and marches.

To honor the memory of Gilbert Baker, NewFest & NYC Pride created a free font named ‘Gilbert’; the font celebrates the iconic Rainbow Flag and also gives the LGBTQ community a new tool to create banners, posters and signs.

Because the Rainbow flag is at the heart of the design the font is available for free in two versions, a standard vector font and a color font (in OpenType-SVG format). Hundreds of Posters intended for marches, rallies and Pride events are also available for free download at www.typewithpride.com.

Now the LGBTQ community can wave their flag with words of love, words of hope and words of pride.

The font honors the memory of Gilbert Baker and uses his iconic Rainbow Flag design as the inspiration and foundation of the fonts design language. Because the font was created in the 70s it took inspiration from 70s typography. We partnered with Fontself (the innovators of the colored font file type) to create one of the worlds first colored fonts.

Fontself activated their followers and the design community using design press, social channels and networks such as Instagram, Béhance, Dribbble. The LGBTQ community was activated using traditional PR and was encouraged to download the fonts and free art for use at upcoming Pride events. The project was launched with www.typewithpride.com, which was also as a home for the free fonts and art and we teased the project in New York (the home of NewFest) with fly-postings.

Within the first week and with zero media buy Type with Pride earned approximately 84 million media/ social impressions. The project was featured on the Béhance front page with 39,453 views and 2,878 appreciations and had over 10,000 downloads from the website. 

Our goal was to honor Gilbert Baker and his iconic Rainbow Flag design, the project has been celebrated and supported by both LGBTQ and design communities globally. 

Some of the media that featured Type with Pride include Mashable, FastCompany, AIGA, Design Taxi, Yahoo, It’s Nice That, SBS, Bustle, SF Gate, KQED, Cool Hunting, Creativity, Ad Age, The Drum, Digital Arts, LGBTI News, LGBTQ Nation, Club De Criacao, Creative Pool, Étapes, Typeroom and more. 

The font is available to everyone as a free download and is becoming a utility for both design and LGBTQ communities with people using the font by creating and posting quotes online and creating unique art.