Design is not monochrome: LGBTQ+ designers comprise a spectrum of gender identities and sexualities. To prove this point last year, 1,000 queer designers took the Count and made themselves known. These designers shared hard facts about their personal lives, and personal anecdotes about the successes and challenges they face in their professional lives.
This year’s Count has been edited and refined to be as inclusive as possible, with special attention paid to writing questions in a way that doesn’t exclude freelancers and students.
We also aimed to capture participants’ circumstances in a world affected by the events of 2020: a new section asking about the impact of the pandemic has been added, and we’ve included a question asking designers about their intersectional identities, as well.
We want to hear about your place in the rainbow, and we hope that you will help us to continue to have queer people in the design community seen, heard, and respected.
Share your email to be notified when the Count results go live! Don’t worry, we won’t share your email with anyone.
Use your platform! Share the Count via social media (and tag us!) to increase participation. Remember: more contributions means better results.
We’ll post a read-out detailing high-level takeaways once we've analyzed the results. Share your email to know when it’s released.
The 2019 Queer Design Count had over 1,000 designers contribute. As a community, we saw a range of experiences — and disparities in how our communities were treated — including:
of LGBTQ+ designers reported having to point out design decisions
that excluded queer people to their colleagues.
of respondents of color reported making less $25,000 annually
compared to 15% of white respondents.
as many Trans designers make less than $35,000 USD compared to cis designers.
2019’s Count spotlighted some of the unique problems LGBTQ+ folk face in the workplace, and reinforced how certain members of our community — bi, pan, and trans people of color in particular — continue to need our support to overcome challenges and barriers.
This year’s Count continues its contribution to the conversation — but we need your help. Please take the Count and be heard.
Special thanks to the QDC Board for its many contributions to the Count. Shout out to design researchers Dan Singer and Justin Wuetcher for their generous insights and feedback. A special thank you to John and Laurie Voss for the Count’s foundational aspects. A big thank you to Yvonne Qiao and Yakim for their early user feedback.
Additional credits to AIGA’s 2019 Design Census, Sara Clayton, and to Mere Abrams of healthline.com.
Every good survey has them!
Who made the Queer Design Count?
The Count is the work of the Queer Design Club, a community of LGBTQ+ designers. QDC has both a directory of designers on our website and a Slack community that members can join. (Membership is free! Join us!) All of the contributors identify as LGBT+/queer and all have a relationship to the design profession.
Will my submission be kept private?
Your submissions will be private; the Count does not ask for any personally identifying information. All questions but the first are optional.
We do not ask for your name, your email or mobile number, nor the names of current or past employers or clients. All of the information you submit is kept in a secure environment. You can read about our chosen platform’s commitment to participant privacy here.
To re-emphasize an earlier point: only a single question on the Count — the first — is mandatory. You choose what information you want to share.
I do not know if my job qualifies as “design”. Should I take the count?
We do not police the label “designer”. If you practice design in any capacity, believe you are a designer, or have a relationship to the design profession that has brought you here and kept your attention thus far, you’re welcome to take the count.
I don’t know if I identify as LGBTQ+/queer. Should I take the count?
First: in a matter-of-fact sense, Questioning folk are absolutely part of our community and should take the Count.
Second: if your question revolves more around whether you’re LGBTQ+ enough (or, to borrow a phrase, “gay enough”) to take the count: that is also something we don’t police. To help you think it through, we will share what is written in question one: being LGBTQ+ or queer means that you are not 100% cisgender and heterosexual.
What will you do with the data?
The data from the Count will be analyzed by a data scientist. We will draw conclusions from the data, make graphs and charts to illustrate phenomena, trends, and relationships, and we will write a read-out so that a broader audience can more fully and easily understand LGBTQ+ designers’ experiences.
In the future, it is possible that a third party — such as a nonprofit, an advocacy group, or a university — may wish to obtain the data so that they can compare our results to results from research that they are doing to draw further insights. We want to remind you that the Count is anonymous. It does not ask for identifying information. Any professional that we share the data with will not know your identity from the data.
I have a question not answered above, who should I reach out to?
Please reach out to us at queerdesignclub@gmail.com
Thank you for participating and sharing.
