Uncensored

Stand Up to Book Bans

A colorful collage celebrating Pride Month, featuring diverse LGBTQ+ individuals in joyful and affirming moments. Scenes include people hugging, kissing, reading, walking together draped in a rainbow flag, and skateboarding with a Pride cape. Various Pride flags, including the Progress Pride flag, are incorporated throughout. The background is filled with pastel gradients, doodles, hearts, and empowering handwritten text. At the bottom right, bold text reads: “PRIDE MONTH — UNCENSORED — INCLUSIVE CONTENT.” The overall tone is vibrant, inclusive, and celebratory.
About the Campaign
Uncensored is an ongoing youth-led advocacy series designed to confront censorship and spotlight banned and challenged books. Each edition encourages young people to read targeted literature and reflect on themes of identity, equity, and resistance. As school districts increasingly remove books focused on marginalized voices, Uncensored offers students an outlet to reclaim space through storytelling — especially during culturally relevant months like Pride, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Black History Month.
Creative Scope
• Create a dynamic logo format that adapted monthly to reflect heritage or theme-based campaigns (e.g., Uncensored: Pride, Uncensored: Hispanic Heritage)
• Curate and edit imagery to resonate with Gen Z audiences (ages 15–25), emphasizing authenticity, inclusion, and visual accessibility
• Balanced heritage-focused storytelling with universal entry points — ensuring that while each edition highlighted a specific community, it welcomed all young people to learn from, uplift, and take action in solidarity
• Applied the identity system to web banners, social graphics, and campaign visuals across multiple launches
The Uncensored logo system pays homage to the Parental Advisory: Explicit Content labels found on album covers — reclaiming the concept of “restricted content” to emphasize youth voice and agency.
A diverse group of seven young people stands together, smiling and laughing in a joyful, candid moment. They are framed by a soft rainbow gradient overlay, symbolizing LGBTQ+ pride. The group includes individuals of varied racial backgrounds, genders, and styles, reflecting youth self-expression and inclusivity. The accompanying text notes that the photography was chosen to highlight energy, diversity, and representation in the context of conversations around banned books.
Photography was selected to reflect the energy, diversity, and self-expression of young people today. The goal was to represent a range of identities and appearances to create space for all participants, including allies, to see themselves in the campaign and feel invited into the conversation around banned books.
A colorful Instagram post by DoSomething.org promoting their Pride Month campaign, "Uncensored." The collage features joyful, diverse LGBTQ+ youth embracing, reading, and waving Pride flags. A large Progress Pride flag is central to the layout, and a bold text block reads “PRIDE MONTH — UNCENSORED — INCLUSIVE CONTENT.” A sticker-style callout says, “Swipe to see our book list by LGBTQIA+ writers!” The caption discusses the banning of queer and trans books, emphasizing the importance of queer representation and youth empowerment through storytelling.
A social media carousel from DoSomething.org’s Pride Month “Uncensored” campaign highlights the impact of book bans. The first slide states that over 150 bills in the past year led to book bans or challenges, often targeting LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC stories. It includes six book covers, such as Gender Queer, Felix Ever After, and Lawn Boy. The second slide features a close-up on Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, detailing how the book was banned in some schools for its LGBTQIA+ themes. The background is a colorful collage with Pride imagery and diverse youth, reinforcing the campaign's celebration of identity and resistance against censorship.
Monthly carousels highlighted challenged or banned books tied to each heritage month: from Pride to Hispanic Heritage to Black History. Each post featured themed book picks, context about the bans, and a call to action encouraging young people to join the campaign and reflect on the stories.
Social strategies for Uncensored extended to meme culture. This post remixes the “Brat Summer” meme to promote Uncensored: Best of 2024. Designed to resonate with youth culture and spotlight challenged books through humor and relatability.
Over 25,000 young people signed up to read a banned or challenged book with Uncensored.
This case study reflects creative and visual direction only. All programmatic strategy, marketing implementation, partnerships, and youth engagement efforts were the result of collaboration across DoSomething’s Communications, Marketing, and Programs teams.

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