Daniel Quasar is a non-binary American artist and designer (pronouns: xe/xyr) based in Portland, Oregon. Xe studied graphic design at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland and hold a BFA in Communication Design. Xe also have a background in motion graphics and multimedia and often contributed to projects promoting or celebrating the endeavours of fellow LGBTQI+ community members. Quasar produced videos and animations for the 2016 RuPaul’s ‘Drag Race Battle of the Seasons’ and ‘Christmas Queens World Tours’ and developed stage animations for the 2017 ‘Ginger Snapped’ tour organised by Jinkx Monsoon, RuPaul’s Drag Race fifth season winner. Quasar’s most popular design to date is the design of the Progress pride flag.

The flag was designed in June 2018 to highlight and honour the presence of trans and BIPOC members of the LGBTQI+ community, and as a call for more diversity and inclusivity inside and outside of the community. The design is a reinterpretation of multiple iterations of the pride flag representing many identities that fall under the umbrella of the LGBTQI+ community.

The background features the 1979 rainbow flag by Gilbert Baker. It is composed of six horizontal stripes representing life (red), healing (orange), sunlight (yellow), nature (green), serenity (indigo) and spirit (violet). Superimposed on the background, an arrow composed of five coloured stripes points to the right to show forward movement and illustrates that progress in terms of inclusivity still needs to be made. The light blue, white and pink stripes refer to the 1999 transgender flag designed by Monica Helms, while the brown and black stripes represent marginalised POC communities in a similar fashion to the 2017 Philadelphia City Hall Pride flag and the 2018 Seattle Pride flag. In Quasar’s design, the black stripe has a double meaning as it is also intended for ‘those living with AIDS and the stigma and prejudice surrounding them, and those who have been lost to the disease’.

Widely adopted by the LGBTQI+ community, the flag was carried at numerous Pride events and raised to the top of the Seattle Space Needle for Pride 2020. It also appeared in drag TV contest RuPaul’s Drag Race in January 2021. Released under a Creative Commons licence, the Progress pride flag has become a blueprint design used by minorities feeling underrepresented within the LGBTQI+ community.

This flag was commissioned from the designer in 2020 and is a custom appliqué version of the flag xe first designed in 2018.