Pride Through Community, Urgency and Design
In early June 2025, Liverpool was facing the very real possibility of a year without Pride.
Following the cancellation of Pride in Liverpool, the loss wasn’t just of an ‘event’, but an incredibly important platform at a time when LGBTQ+ communities were already feeling, and continue to feel, under pressure. Within days, our friends at Sahir asked the simple but important and urgent question: could Pride still happen?
With just seven weeks to respond, Sahir made the decision to step in and coordinate Liverpool’s Pride 2025, as Pride, after all, isn’t just a celebration, but a centre of visibility and a place of belonging.
Creating a Pride That Belonged to Liverpool
Nonconform were brought in at the earliest stages to help shape how this Pride would look, feel and, importantly, speak to the city.
From the outset, it was clear this could not be a replica of past events. This Pride needed its own identity; one that reflected the situation the community found itself in, facing the real dilemma of not having a central Pride celebration in place.
It needed to feel authentically community driven.
We developed the full event brand, from naming and visual identity through to tone of voice and design principles, creating a system that could flex across digital, print, signage and city-wide promotion at speed.
What was the main identity change? The apostrophe. This was Liverpool’s Pride, owned by the community.
Visual Narrative Under Pressure
The visual language needed to work hard, fast and across multiple audiences, with accessibility and warmth at the heart of every decision.
The design itself was intentionally focused around protest, with the identity being influenced by hand-painted protest placards; bold and expressive in style, which reflect Pride’s origins being acts of visibility and resistance, not just a celebration.
The bright colours come directly from Sahir’s existing colour palette, which in turn is inspired by the original Pride flag design by Gilbert Baker; helping place Liverpool’s Pride 2025 within queer history, as well as reflecting Sahir’s ongoing work across the Liverpool City Region.
Accessibility was built into the design from the start, with the colour contrast, legibility, hierarchy and consistency all being considered across formats to make sure all Pride communications worked for as many people as possible.
This helped ensure Liverpool’s Pride was not only visible and bold, but also clear, usable and welcoming across different access needs and audiences.
Nonconform created the core visual narrative for Pride 2025, supporting Sahir to:
- Launch a recognisable, community-first event identity
- Roll out Pride communications across social, digital and physical spaces
- Design and build the Pride 2025 section of the Sahir website, giving the event a clear public home
- Ensure Pride was visible across the Liverpool City Region – as quickly as possible
The result was a brand that felt confident in its own identity, separate from any previous event or organisation, and something the community could genuinely get behind.
Design in Service of Community Impact
Liverpool’s Pride 2025 wasn’t just about a single event at the end of July, but a connected programme delivered across the city; including Meet Before You March, the March itself, Access Pride, Thrive With Us, the Arena Celebration and the Vigil. Each strand needed to feel part of the same story, while honouring very different experiences and access needs.
Our role was to make sure that the visual held that journey together, allowing Pride to feel cohesive, connected and welcoming across different audiences.
Pride, Sahir and the Liverpool City Region
For Sahir, stepping in to deliver Pride didn’t feel like a shift away from their day to day mission, but more of an extension of it. Their year-round work supporting people living with HIV, championing mental wellbeing within the LGBTQ+ community and tackling stigma across the Liverpool City Region was brought into public view through Pride.
Our collaboration with Sahir focused on ensuring that Pride’s branding reflected that same ethos: being person-centred, values-driven and community-owned.
Liverpool’s Pride 2025 showed that with trust, collaboration and clear communication, something meaningful can be built quickly, and to provide a space for all perspectives of what Pride is.
Long-Standing Partnerships, Shared Values
Our work on Liverpool’s Pride 2025 was built on an existing, trusted relationship with Sahir.
Over time, we’ve worked closely with Sahir across a range of projects, developing a shared understanding of their values, their audiences and the communities they serve across the Liverpool City Region. This is important, as when Liverpool’s Pride needed to be created and introduced quickly and responsibly, it meant we could move at pace, with trust already in place and a clear sense of what needed to be accomplished.
We also worked alongside Kenyons, who supported the public relations work around Liverpool’s Pride. That partnership ensured the story of Pride, including why it mattered, how it came together, and who it was for, reached audiences clearly and responsibly during an incredibly tight timeframe.
This joint up approach to working collaboratively allowed Liverpool’s Pride 2025 to be visible without losing its core community purpose.
What This Project Reinforced
This project reminded us that branding is not just about the visual, or the decoration, but about creating the conditions for people to feel safe, feel seen and, ultimately, feel able to show up.
We’re proud to have supported Sahir in shaping a Pride that reflected the city’s LGBTQ+ community’s ability to come together in response to a common goal, creating something meaningful and impactful as a collective.
Sometimes the most important design work happens when it really matters.
Read the Liverpool’s Pride 2025 Report.
