Pride Flag Emojis Expanded with New Campaign

The Gilbert Baker Foundation has partnered with Ogilvy New York on a new campaign to bring a more extensive array of Pride flag emojis to your keyboard.

The “Emojis of Pride” campaign is appealing to the Unicode Consortium, the governing body that approves or denies emojis for use, to include a broader assortment of Pride flags. Since the creation of the original rainbow Pride Flag by Gilbert Baker, dozens of other Pride flags have been created, either adding more inclusivity to the rainbow flag, or unique flags that represent that multitude of other queer identities. Gilbert Baker, who passed in 2017, was a strong proponent for the development of these flags, encouraging people to fight for their representation.

The Gilbert Baker Foundation launched a petition to the Unicode Consortium to add 27 more Pride flags to the emoji index. The current emoji keyboard only has two Pride flags: the original rainbow flag and the trans flag. In a press release, they state: “Everyone across the colorful queer spectrum will be able to add their names to the petition, showcasing Gilbert Baker’s ultimate intention for unity within the LGBTQ+ community.”

While the petition is considered, the Foundation released their own keyboard of flag emojis free to download on the App Store. The keyboard add-on has a slider to choose from a huge assortment of Pride flags that, with any luck, will be officially coded into the emoji index as a result of the campaign.

Ogilvy New York has collaborated with the Gilbert Baker Foundation in the past on the award-winning “Type with Pride” campaign. To honor the memory of Baker, the organizations teamed up in 2017 to release a new type face inspired by the rainbow flag. “The Gilbert font was originally designed for striking headlines and statements that could live on banners for rallies and protests, and it is now currently being built out into a whole family of weights and styles,” the campaigns website states. The font is free to download for anyone!

Ogilvy New York and the Gilbert Baker Foundation hope that their new joint project will be just as successful. “While The Gilbert Baker Foundation was founded to celebrate the original rainbow flag, we believe that other queer pride flags have tremendous significance,” Charley Beal, President of the Foundation, shares. “We believe there is room in the sky for all of these flags, and we encourage everyone to fly the flag that speaks to their soul. At the Gilbert Baker Foundation, we are proud that they were all born of the rainbow flag.”