Re-Introducing our FLM Artist - Bats is Back!
Image Description: Image is a color banner illustration by artist, Bats Langley, for Fat Liberation Month. Pictured are twelve 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.
When NAAFA launched Fat Liberation Month in 2023, we held a design contest for our first logo. We expected to make the contest an annual event, but we learned the first 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 we decided to commission a logo from a fat artist who supports fat visibility and fat community connections.
Enter popular artist and illustrator, Bats Langley.
Bats is known for illustrating acclaimed children’s books, including the Groggle series (which I can tell you kids adore because my 8-year-old niece and I love it!). He is also known for his fine art work, his work for kids’ publications like Cricket and Scholastic magazines, and his fan-favorite 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.”
We introduced Bats and Gus to the NAAFA audience in 2021 on our Instagram (click here to watch that video) and invited him to create a new logo for Fat Liberation Month in 2022. Bats set about creating the logo by reflecting 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.”
Having seen the fantastic banner images Bats had created for his own social media pages to celebrate Pride month in June, we also invited Bats to create a banner image for us. Bats told us last year that his own inspiration from experiencing Pride events helped inspire the 2022 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 weekend. 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.”
The colors in the FLM logo represent diversity in an abstract way, but the characters Bats has created for the FLM celebration artwork last year and this year 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. He also wanted the FLM characters to be 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?’”
Image Description: An illustration of a bearded, fat, white man with dark blonde hair, wearing a blue shirt and red bandana, standing in front of an easel holding a paintbrush and paint palette.
We got so much positive feedback from our community last year about Bats FLM people, we asked him to create another set of fat folx for 2023. Bats brought bright colors and bold patterns to this year’s FLM artwork, too, this time in a totally different setting–the beach! No image can capture the entirety of the diversity of our community, but we love how much variety Bats brought to this year’s scene. Look closely, and you’ll see that even Bats himself showed up on the beach this year.
Our biggest, fattest thanks to Bats for putting so much love and care into creating this art for Fat Liberation Month for two years in a row! Happy Fat Liberation Month, everyone!
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 @studiobatslangley on Instagram.