The colors black and brown were added to the Progress Pride Flag to represent people of color (POC). The flag showed the traditional six rainbow colors in horizontal stripes, with a black and a brown stripe atop them. It was introduced at a City Hall ceremony in June of 2017. The Philadelphia Pride Flag was designed by the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs and was done in partnership with advertising agency Tierney. Black and Brown Represents People of Color Both of these flags inspired the design of the new pride flag. The trans flag, created in 1999, is pink, baby blue, and white. The Philadelphia Pride Flag had black and brown vertical stripes added. Specifically, the Philadelphia Pride Flag from 2017 and the trans flag. The Progress Pride Flag was created with the inspiration of other pride flags. Like blue, purple is considered a calming color, but rather than being associated only with calm, the color purple connects us to the spiritual realm. Purple is often thought of as a regal, royal color that, on its own, denotes pride. The last color, purple, represents spirit. The color blue is often used for nighttime consumer products to represent bedtime and calmness. Blue is known as a relaxing color that soothes the soul. Little is more important than the ability to feel calm and serene. The blue in the original pride flag was for serenity. Nature is a healing place, and the color green is associated with prosperity and growth. There’s a lot of green in nature, which is what this color on the original pride flag is meant to convey. The color yellow is said to stimulate new ideas and thoughts. The color yellow functions as the flag’s radiant and bright center. If you guessed that yellow represented sunlight, you would be correct. Fun and celebration are both healing activities. As a color, orange is believed to be a fun and celebratory color. And, passion is ideally where life originates from. Red also represents passion among many cultures. This makes sense if you think about how blood is red and how often blood is thought of as a vital life force of the body. Let’s take a look at what each of the rainbow colors represents. The pride flag colors each hold a different meaning, and each color represents an important value of the LGBTQIA+ community. For example, specific pride flags such as the bisexual and pansexual pride flags were also created. However, different variations were created throughout that time. This flag was a mainstay for several decades before the redesign. The six-color rainbow design was the one that was adopted by queer culture at large and was used to denote LGBTQIA+ pride. Though not exactly the original flag, which Gilbert Baker created a year prior, this version included hot pink, turquoise, indigo, and violet. The previous pride flag, which was the hallmark symbol of LGBTQIA+ pride from the late 1970s until the early 2000s, and is still popular, was composed of six horizontal lines: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
This article will answer these questions to help you understand what the new flag currently looks like and where this design is headed. What do the colors of the new pride flag mean? Why does the new design have some of the colors placed in a different shape rather than in a line like before? How are people responding to this new design?
This new flag is called the Progress Pride Flag, and digital designer Daniel Quasar created it in 2018. Previously, you may have noticed that the LGBTQIA+ pride flag displayed every June for Pride month was a simple red to purple rainbow, but a new and slightly different flag has been flying in its place in the last few years.