Queering by Design
This project seeks to highlight themes of sexuality, queer intersectional identity, and remixes of culture. We have an over-archiving goal to give back to the community and create quality design that makes folks feel seen.
Community Focus
The 2020 pandemic brought many issues into hyperfocus. Staggering racial inequality, housing, mental health, and loss of queer spaces. It threatened the most vulnerable in our community and will continue to make recovery difficult for those already struggling to live free in safety.
For these reasons, we hope An Ethical Male Studio can make the slightest difference in a queer person’s life with 50% of profits from each sale going to the Rainbow Railroad organization.
Graphic art is a powerful vehicle for communication & visibility on the street (aka our runway) showcasing deliberately queer graphics that express our lives and personal style—so in addition to our original designs, we plan to collaborate with local artists and designers to amplify marginalized queer perspectives beyond our own.
Learn more about how you can donate directly to Rainbow Railroad at www.rainbowrailroad.org/donate.
“An Ethical Male” I discovered in my early 20s is an anagram of my given name”
What’s in a name?
The journey to self-acceptance is never easy or linear, and the concept of masculinity has been particularly challenging. This lead to an exploration of sexuality and gender identity that has been the subject of personal art + design for years.
”An Ethical Male”, I discovered in my early 20s, is an anagram of my given name while my full initials are “M.A.N”. Undoubtedly, these were unconscious naming decisions on my parents’ part, and yet, they have been a constant reminder of the struggle to accept queer identity while grappling with toxic notions of what it means to “be a man,” and general norms of masculinity. Oscillating between feeling both masculine & feminine—the concept of “gender” became an idea to deconstruct.
The questions became: In a patriarchal, white supremacist-based society where conventions of gender and sexuality were instituted as a means of oppression… what does it mean to identify as “masculine” or “feminine”? to identify as “male” or “female”? to identify as a “man” or a “woman”? to identify as queer? to identify as none OR some OR all of the above—and still be considered ethical ? Freedom to explore and remix these concepts will be the basis of An Ethical Male Studio’s work.
- Michael Natale, Designer & Owner
Our Values
+ Norm Disrupting + Sex Positive + Queer Positive + Awareness of Othering + Anti-Racist + Intersectional + Accessible + Pro-Demilitarization + Pro-Immigration
+ Uplifting the Community + Charitable + Quality Design + Mental Health Advocacy + Gender Fuck + A Fucking Party
+ other shit
Visual Inspiration
There are many subjects we’re interested in exploring in our designs and hope to work with local queer artists as the studio expands... buuuut until then—our initial inspiration draws from band merch; ‘70s aesthetics; the male physique (among other sexes and genders); queer history; pop-media (music, film, magazines, photography, etc), and home town of Toronto, Canada.