Even those who don’t know Hayley Gilmore probably know her work. Saturday took care of that much.
The Columbus-based graphic designer saw signs she created for this weekend’s women’s marches reach across the world with help from social media and a website that allowed march-goers to download them for free.
The marches — the most prominent in Washington, D.C. — drew millions to demonstrate for women’s rights a day after Republican President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Starting five days before the marches, she created four sign designs that she shared on her website, LadiesWhoDesign.com, and linked to a Dropbox account that allowed free downloads.
One sign included the message “A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE RESISTANCE” over a picture of Princess Leia from the “Star Wars” movies. On Saturday, that sign was spotted everywhere from Jackson to New Zealand, and hundreds of thousands had shared it on social media.
By Monday, Gilmore was getting calls for interview requests from the AV Club and Vanity Fair.
“I posted (them) Wednesday,” Gilmore said. “By Friday, the site was down. And by Saturday, it was everywhere.”
On Twitter, nearly 128,000 people saw her designs.
“People have been sending me links where it’s been on NPR, The Washington Post, People.com, Entertainment Weekly,” she added. “I haven’t had time to look at all the messages.”
Help from a friend
Gilmore’s friend Sarah Deitrich, who attended a march in Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the first to get the links.
“I promoted it on social media a little bit, and the next thing I knew, about a day before the march, friends of friends were sharing it,” Deitrich said. “…It was on Pantsuit Nation (the Facebook page that helped promote the march), and it just went from there.”
Leigh Topp, a friend of Gilmore’s, rode a bus from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., for the march. Sitting on the bus she told a friend to help her look for Gilmore’s designs.
“(Then) I looked over and the woman next to us was saving Hayley’s Princess Leia sign as her wallpaper for her phone,” Topp said.
Then again at the D.C.-based march, which drew approximately 500,000 people, she saw it another 10 to 20 times, she said.
“It was wonderful and weird,” she said.
Not the first time
Growing up in Columbus, Gilmore always wanted to be an artist and would draw designs based on her favorite things from pop culture.
“I’ve been so obsessed with that stuff ever since I was a kid,” she said. “…When I was in middle school, that’s all I would do was go onto fan sites — things about Sailor Moon and really nerdy, geeky things.”
She’s been a professional graphic designer since graduating from Mississippi University for Women in 2008. She earned a master’s degree in the craft five years later from the University of Memphis.
A quick glance at her portfolio and another of her websites at hayleygilmore.com shows she’s designed everything from brochures and websites to book covers.
This isn’t her first brush with fame either — her past work has also shown up on Buzzfeed and CBS This Morning. While many of her designs are for clients, she also designs a lot of fan-based work for herself or to sell on Etsy and other websites.
“I think my favorite would have to be more the personal stuff that I do,” she said. “I have my day job, and then on the side I do all the crazy fan culture, obsessive stuff.”
That love of fan culture translated into the Princess Leia design for the march.
Picking Princess Leia
“To me, Carrie Fisher’s portrayal of Princess Leia is one that really resonates with, not only me, but a lot of women,” Gilmore said. “Because she’s strong, intelligent, sassy. She doesn’t wait to be rescued. She goes in head first.”
Gilmore wasn’t the only person who thought Leia would be a good face for the march. Other designs with her face appeared at marches all over the world, and on Monday The Washington Post ran the headline “How Princess Leia became the unofficial symbol of the Women’s March.”
Gilmore scoured the internet for a picture and found one on the Princess Leia Wikipedia page. The photo, a 1977 promotional shot for one of the original “Star Wars” films, showed Fisher as Leia, in the classic white dress and “cinnamon bun” hairstyle, holding a gun.
“I was trying to find an image that was large enough because I was trying to do these really huge posters,” Gilmore said. “But I also wanted it to be that classic imagery that you find with recruitment posters. Like Rosie the Riveter — (that) strong, empowered women stance. And that one I thought was perfect as soon as I saw it.”
She never expected the Princess Leia poster, or her other designs, to take off. On Saturday, she was so busy sending links to people who requested the designs, she couldn’t make it to Jackson for the march herself.
“I’m still trying to grasp it and hold onto it,” Gilmore said. “Because it’s so special, and it means a lot to me.”
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