After the events of the past few days, it’s clear the community is beyond supportive of a small little grassroots movement trying to make FIRST safer for all involved. As many of you know, the #TransRightsFIRST movement aims to distribute ribbons to place on the bottom of badges at Worlds. However, this is just a small step to getting our message out.
What I am asking for now is ideas! I want to hear your best ideas for things ranging from similar simple protests, to ideas on how we can have a real impact in the community, to things as simple as fundraising ideas. When this was created, it was never meant for just one person to lead, and I know that I’ll always need the help of the community.
Any and all ideas are welcome, so get thinking! Feel free to post any and all ideas and improve upon each other’s in the replies below!!
Edit: this is repeatable on Canva using the “Canva Student Font” and searching “trans flag” under elements. The beach ball thing was further down but the concrete flag background was there right at the start of the results.
Ideally we’d have a branding guide so people can reuse assets the community makes and have some continuity for this “initiative”. Idk that what I have here is what everyone will like at all, just something to start from
I would highly recommend themeboarding and defining a brand identity before specific logos or assets are created. Our standard process is themes → design elements → test boards → final assets across about 3 months to create a cohesive brand identity.
Obviously a project of this nature has a defined color palette already, but you can always look into augmenting it with additional accents, then defining an overall “vibe” with your design elements.
Let me know if you guys want specific help with any brand development processes!
I think advocacy and advertising is a lot safer on social media then in person, so maybe ask teams to use #transyouthFIRST in all their social media posts?
I think writing a public guide for how to do this, that FRCFIRST Robotics Competition teams could use would be awesome! I was trying to write some guidance for this on frcZero.org but I’m not a marketing/design person by trade, just hobby. So having someone with a more thorough knowledgeable writing those guides would help us with this specific project but also teach teams how to do it correctly in general if the offer stands.
2976’s year 15 branding release has most of what i would mention in a guide like this, but more episodes of proguide will be on the way this summer that detail a little more.
There is some legal and ethical flexibility in terms of modifying someone’s trademark as a way of emphasizing a political or rhetorical point, but there are no clear rules for doing so, and it invites dispute. I would say that this is not a path to be taken lightly. To be fair, that document also contains a few unreasonable requests, but disapproving of modifications to the logo is quite defensible.
We are trying to convince FIRST HQ and sponsors that we are reasonable, professional and trying to abide by the rules while supporting people being put at risk by the rules and decisions of the league and venues and venue local legislations. Therefore we need to be squeaky clean and not do things that will upset HQ.
Definitely keep at it! I like the way you’re thinking and maybe if we are clever we can just make sure to incorporate a circle, square and triangle throughout the logo as an Homage to the FIRST logo
Edit: what gets me is they used 3 out of the 4 symbols of the PlayStation Controller layout… They left out X which is also called the Cross button on some older or regional translation games.
Further Edit: PS1 debut was December 1994 so technically FIRST was FIRST to pick those symbols, but close…
