Rhode Island Gay Men's Chorus

Rhode Island Gay Men's Chorus, a non-auditioned, all-volunteer LGBTQ+ chorus, singing across RI since 1995

Gay men's choruses (GMC) formed beginning in the United States tied to to gay rights activism in the 1970s and 80s. Today there are nearly 200 LGBTQ+ choruses across North America, in cities and towns of every size. But if you’d asked residents of the smallest state, Rhode Island, you’d have thought you’d have to travel to Connecticut or even New York or Boston to participate. But the Rhode Island Gay Men's chorus has been performing since 1995. RIGMC approached me in fall 2025 to help them design a website that would help them sing out across the ocean state and beyond.

  • Summary

    Sole Graphic Designer and Squarespace Website Developer

  • Studio

    Joelle Riffle

  • Collaborators

    RIGMC board members

  • Deliverables

    Website design + build (Squarespace), visual system (color, type, wave motif), reusable page and section templates

  • Client

    RIGMC is a gathering of individuals who, united through diversity, fellowship, and song, strives to make a difference in the lives of our singers and our audience.
  • View the Project

Take a look at the range of GMC around the country and you’ll find nearly interchangeable imagery - the same group shots, music note and rainbow motifs, no sense of place or regionality. The goal of this websites look and feel was to create something that could only belong to this chorus in this state. To accomplish this, we employ a wave motif as the structure for the website. The ways serve double duty as ocean waves as well as harmonics - a nod to singing. The wave motif is subtle so as to avoid nautical cliches like anchors, boats, lighthouses, and the color blue. Similarly, we reached for a non-rainbow spectrum of soft colors - orange, pink, pale yellow, and baby blue anchored by a warm black color. 

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Take a look at the range of GMC around the country and you’ll find nearly interchangeable imagery - the same group shots, music note and rainbow motifs, no sense of place or regionality. The goal of this websites look and feel was to create something that could only belong to this chorus in this state. To accomplish this, we employ a wave motif as the structure for the website. The ways serve double duty as ocean waves as well as harmonics - a nod to singing. The wave motif is subtle so as to avoid nautical cliches like anchors, boats, lighthouses, and the color blue. Similarly, we reached for a non-rainbow spectrum of soft colors - orange, pink, pale yellow, and baby blue anchored by a warm black color. 

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The RIGMC board and volunteers felt locked out and disempowered by their existing website, an old drupal build. The new site built on Squarespace allows visitors to do what they actually came to the website to do: 1. finding out what is RIGMC and 2. figuring out how to get involved, either as an audience member, singer, donor, or volunteer.

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