Let's Talk About Sex, Baby - 3 Versions of 1 Flyer

The organization I work for, Our Family Coalition, recently had a workshop on keeping the spark alive after having kids (or while in the intense process of family building, or anything else!).

I was excited about using this flyer to try something a little different, but also keeping it family-appropriate. These flyers have to hang in family resource centers, rec centers, preschools, cafes, and so on. I knew it would be a tricky balance and I was wary of spending too much of my time on it, so each of these drafts was created pretty quickly.

The above is my favorite version of the flyer I made. It was drawn on the Wacom Bamboo tablet at my office. I think the people under the covers look more like they're cuddling than anything else, but I also wasn't too surprised when it was vetoed.

Especially after you see the version below, which was approved - much more conceptual!

I was worried that this one wasn't queer enough, but those are clearly both male birds (always the more colorful of the bird genders) so at least it's a gay bird couple. It was at this point though that some colleagues even thought of about taming down the title of the workshop, but it stuck. 

After seeing my first two versions, we moved to my default - make it an animal! I draw birds quickly and have a lot of fun with them, plus I wanted exciting colors, so birds it was. 

My first draft, below, I put together in just a few minutes, after giving it some thought on my off time. I had no idea at this point whether it would be approved. I was going for an ambiguous image, and I've found that different people definitely interpret it differently! The downside was that it seemed like each person could only see one interpretation of it, rather than being able to switch like I'd hoped. 

For example, I think it could be someone putting their hand on someone's knees! But. No one else saw it that way. For most of my colleagues, it was a question of, "Well, I thought it was a butt, and I don't think it really looks like a crotch but I can see why you think so," vs. "Well, I thought it was a crotch, and I don't think it really looks like a butt but I can see why you think so."