Same Sex Wedding Invitations and the Cultivation of Visual Identity

Abstract

This thesis project is a reflection upon the ways in which designed, visual manifestations of homosexual identity within wedding invitations might be used to represent and propagate such identities to people on both sides of the categorical divide. I chose to consider this particular design problem because of a perceived notion in regard to the agencies at work within it: marriage, homosexuality, and design are intersecting as never before, yet they are doing so disharmoniously. Each is at odds with the others' agendas . This observation might seem merely to imply a conjunction of bold critiques directed at three significant institutions of humanity, but this is not the case and it is important for this to be clearly articulated from the outset. My reservation with contemporary same-sex wedding practices that borrow from the so-called "white weddings" of heterosexual traditions is not simply that such traditions are borrowed. What is needed is a diverse, expressive set of traditions reflecting the sensibility of homosexual identities. Indeed, today this is sorely lacking.