Meet Bats Langley, NAAFA's 2022 Fat Liberation Month Logo Designer and Artist
Image is a color banner illustration by artist, Bats Langley, for Fat Liberation Month. Pictured are nine fat characters representing different sizes, shapes, races, genders, ages and abilities all in celebration of fat liberation. In the center of the banner is the Fat Liberation Logo; a multi-colored ball, like the sun, reading, "Fat Liberation Month".
By Tigress Osborn
When NAAFA launched Fat Liberation Month last year, we held a design contest for our first logo. We expected to make the contest an annual event, but we learned last year that a contest winner who is not already connected to the fat community may not be engaged in the month-long celebration of fat people in the way existing community members are. So, for 2022 (and, we hope, beyond!) we decided to commission a logo from a fat artist who supports fat visibility and fat community connections.
Bats Langley is a popular artist and illustrator, best known for his adorable children’s books about a very friendly monster called Groggle, his fine art work, his work for kids’ publications like Cricket and Scholastic magazines, and of course, his character Gus. Gus is a whimsical guy, a character who is “an exploration in bigness,” and whose adventures “reveal a freedom of being big, without the societal constraints or expectations of being a bigger person.”
When Bats set about creating the 2022 Fat Liberation Month logo, he first reflected on how the word “fat” is empowering to so many but is also loaded and challenging for people, especially those new to fat liberation concepts. Bats admitted that, even for him as someone who embraces his own body and creates art representing bodies of all shapes and sizes, it was hard to hear “fat” without remembering all of its negative connotations. So he wanted to make sure the word “fat” looked friendly and inviting in his logo design, with the word “liberation” looking strong and supportive. Bats started with a focus on the a, which could represent both acceptance and activism. “Fat Liberation Month is about both being accepting of your body and yourself and who you are, but also about this activism, making a movement to change the world.” He made the a round and “friendly,” and thought of the f and t almost like allies, there supporting the a but “not encroaching on its space.” The colors behind are also in a round shape. “I wanted to use circles that had a watercolory, natural edge so they weren’t so hard, so they had some warmth, “Bats tells us. “Then the different colors and layers represent the diversity of the community.”
The colors in the logo represent diversity in an abstract way, but the characters Bats created for the FLM celebration artwork represent fat community diversity even more concretely, by showing us a variety of shapes, shades, ages, abilities, and gender presentations. “I think one of the great things about seeing bigger people is that they all come in different shapes and sizes in such a wonderful way,” Bats says.
Bats also wanted to make sure the FLM characters were examples of fat people being able to express themselves through their clothing. “I really love fashion, I love dressing up, so I was also thinking, ‘How can I make some of these clothes really expressive, and like what I want to see in the world of options [for bigger people]. What is out there in terms of good patterns and expressiveness?’” Bats’ vision was “a really colorful, fashionable Gap ad with big bodies.”
NAAFA was also really inspired by the images Bats created for Pride this year, and Bats tells us that his own inspiration from experiencing Pride events helped inspire the Fat Liberation Month imagery. “I brought a little bit of what I think of pride or liberation is through my own experience of LGBTQ prideness,” Bats says. “When you go to a gay Pride event, it’s everyone wearing their own unique outfit that expresses themselves, for that day or that weeknd. You’re wearing your best, depending on who you are, that expresses it through your fashion. I wanted to capture that same spirit with these characters.”
Our biggest, fattest thanks to Bats for putting so much love and care into creating this art for Fat Liberation Month 2022! For more about this year’s Fat Liberation Month events and activities, visit naafa.org/flm or follow @naafaofficial on your favorite socials. To learn more about Bats and his work, visit batslangley.com or follow him at @studiobatslangely on Instagram, or @batslangley on Twitter. You can also learn more about Bats by checking out this Instagram featurette we made last year.
For more on fat fashion as part of liberation, check out last year’s #NAAFAWebinarSeries episode on men/masc fashion, featuring Bruce Sturgell of Chubstr, or any episodes of Ahead of the Curve, hosted by NAAFA Director of Fashion Industry Relations, Marcy Cruz. These shows can be found at youtube.com/naafaofficial.
Pic is of Tigress Osborn, a young Black woman with shoulder-length curly brown hair, a multi-colored top and wearing glasses
Tigress Osborn is the Chair of NAAFA’s Board of Directors and the host of the NAAFA Webinar Series.
