Our first campaign: The creative process

How does one execute a Sapphic campaign with a vision and $500?

Allow us some transparency while we take you behind the scenes.

With no formal background in creative direction or scene setting, we had many questions. We weren’t sure how to accomplish this but knew we wanted to share a message; one about who we are. Then came the question… “ Who are we?”

Honestly, we didn’t know yet. But we did know we had three pillars, so why not start there?

When starting a creative project, it’s important that we have a north star or we quickly lose sight of the vision. That north star keeps us grounded with every decision, every plan, and every action step. It only took about five minutes to decide on what that north star would be.

After uttering the words Authentic connection, wellness, and sex education, followed by a corny little smirk on my end, we knew.

Those three words became Pink Sappho’s pillars, later evolving into education instead of just sex education to give us more flexibility. Each event touches at least one of the three.

With these pillars and a desire to share a message, we finally had some ammo for this shoot. Since most people still didn’t know who we were, a campaign centered on our three pillars felt like the right starting point. We weren’t sure exactly how the message would translate visually, but one thing at a time.

I knew it wasn’t going to be a cinematography masterpiece because, ahem… have you seen our budget? So, photoshoot it is.

Oh, I also made the most insane decision to move to London, and that deadline was quickly approaching. With the time we had left, a photoshoot became the best option.

Commence: The Three Pillar Campaign.

The campaign came together on a hot summer Saturday afternoon with a low tank of fuel and not enough AC.

South of Chicago, by Cermak road, we secured the studio space. A few hours later, we were down $175 for this studio space and had 4 days to find our muses. 

1. Studio? Secured. $175 down. ✅

2. Photographer? $200 down. ✅

3. Muses? Friends of ours, Thank God. A flurry of phone call and Eight gorgeous, smoldering, queer faces later. ✅

4. Moodboard? Thanks to Pinterest and a sprinkle of prayer.✅

We had the checklist lined up… but no actual vision for how to pose anyone. Like, yeah, we had muses, but how exactly do you stage connection? Or wellness? Or education? Especially when you’ve never exactly done “intimacy coordination” before.

Suddenly it was 24 hours till shoot time and we still didn’t have a staged direction for the intimate moments or a concrete way to portray our three pillars. We ignored this elephant in the room, the concequesce of procarstination looming over us like a dark cloud. We would leave this as a game time decision.

Then it was game time. 

Game Day Flow

The best part of a personal creative project is that you make the rules. 

So, come shoot day, we leaned on our north star and the close friendships we had with our muses made it easier to direct poses. The nerves turned into flow and poses started happening. We directed them to act out connection, to embody wellness, to show small moments of learning and care. In those moments we realized our pillars were intertwined. Connection keeps you well. Wellness sustains connection. Education flows through both. Suddenly, it all made sense.

We were so back, and everything worked in tandem. Scene after scene was a smooth sail between the photographer, director, muses, and the Sappho set team. Our only interruption was a lunch break.

Leave it to me to be extremely decisive about executing a campaign, yet indecisive about what I want for lunch.

Down $100 on sandwiches, salads, and juices, we fueled up, got back to work with our remaining studio time, and wrapped the day with a corny group hug, plus another $40 gone on gas.

Editing: A Horror Story

The next part, though, was a horror movie: Editing.

We weren’t sure if the photographer fee included editing (spoiler: it didn’t). The stalled files left us stranded, and soon we realized that if we wanted the work done, it was up to us. Which made sense, the vision was ours anyway.

With worse-than-informal editing skills, we dove in.

An iPhone 14 and a $10 Lightroom subscription later, we were getting nowhere. Lightroom wasn’t exactly beginner friendly… thanks but no thanks to the op who recommended that app.

We moved back to our familiar apps: Picsart and Canva.

But then came the bigger dilemma; finding clarity on why we were even doing this campaign in the first place. The three pillars, sure. But how on earth were we supposed to show our community of muses that this was the message we wanted to get across?

I wasn’t exactly an Oscar-winning director, and our muses weren’t exactly Oscar-winning actors. They could only portray so much of the core essence of our three pillars.

Still, we were determined not to freak out about this giant hoop we had to jump through. So we started small, by Googling “how to move text behind someone’s head” while trying to layer our logo onto the page. And when it worked, it. felt. revolutionary. We lit up like cavewomen discovering fire for the first time.

That one little text trick changed everything. We looked at it and thought, “You know what this looks like, lowkey…?”

In unison, wide-eyed: “The cover of Vogue.”

And just like that, we went all in.

More Than a Club

If we’re going to imitate the cover of a magazine, we’re standing 10 toes down. 

We dove into more magazine cover research and soon birthed the format of our three-pillar campaign. This small but mighty format shifted the vision of the club entirely. Suddenly, we weren’t just a place to socialize; we were a collective that could make people like us feel important. Seen. Represented.

Of course, we’re still a long way from accomplishing that in full. We can’t possibly make everyone feel seen or represented, but the process gave us something new: a feeling, a meaning.

What started as a small spark became an arsenal of ideas. Pink Sappho has become a magazine cover to make people feel seen. Important. Half the time, I don’t even know who I’m looking at on the cover of Vogue anyway.

So why not scramble a few words around on a “magazine cover” with faces of people like us, from every corner of the world, as a reminder that we have always existed?

– Pink Sappho