Community Impact

In the summer of 2024, with only a week’s notice, an icon of London’s LGBTQ+ nightlife was at risk of being sold off. For over 100 years, the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC) has been a vital community space, and suddenly, it was facing closure.

“We were a group of volunteers under extraordinary pressure,” explains Nick Keegan, a key organiser of the campaign to save the beloved east London venue. The challenge was immense: to rally a community and launch a credible fundraising campaign in a matter of days.

Studio Lutalica was brought in to build the campaign’s visual identity. “The collaborative process was vital,” says Nick. “We relied heavily on the Studio Lutalica team to guide us.” The design was rooted in the energy of the initial community rally, and the result was a brand that felt both unique and familiar. “Georgey [from Lutalica] was fantastic at capturing the energy. They had a real understanding of the vibe that was appealing to our community.”

The impact was immediate.

The new branding provided “confidence to a wider community that the campaign was organised and credible…”

This was vital for building the initial trust needed for fundraising success. Online, there was a wave of excitement, with people from both London and across the UK investing their time and energy into the campaign.

This credibility translated directly into financial results with over 500 people stepping in to support the campaign which raised close to £20,000. But the impact of this project travelled much further. The campaign’s success sparked broader, crucial conversations about the preservation of queer cultural spaces, with the group being invited to speak in Parliament and at several national conferences.

For Nick, the key to the campaign’s success was authentic collaboration: “Lutalica were incredibly flexible, attentive, and supportive of us as a brand new campaign group,” he says. His advice to other organisations facing a similar crisis? “Don’t wait for someone else to do it. It will be challenging… but there will be many other people and organisations willing to help and support in the same way that Studio Lutalica did for BGWMC.”

Learn more about our collaboration with FOBGWMC.

For too long, the bi+ community has been overlooked, even within the wider LGBTQ+ movement. The mission of Bi+ Equal was to change that by creating a vital, pan-European entity dedicated to the full, diverse spectrum of the bi+ experience. For a project with such a clear community focus, finding the right creative partner was essential.

For founder Soudeh Rad, the collaborative process of building the brand and website was key. “During our collaboration, open and clear communication [and] prompt responses truly made our trajectory easier,” they explain. The resulting website is not just a reflection of the project’s current aims, but a “potential resource and website for the future.”

The decision to work with a lived-experience-led studio was a strategic one, and for Soudeh, it was the most important part of the experience. It removed the usual friction and need for translation that can come with working with a less specialised design team.

“There is an undeniable power and an inherent treasure in narratives that emerge directly from lived experience…”

Soudeh says. “The creativity is natural and does not call for extra effort… The process was remarkably fluid and intuitive, devoid of the usual complexities that often accompany the initiation of branding and websites. There was no need to delve into exhaustive details regarding the foundational choices we’d make.”

This is the power of lived-experience-led design: our work with a partner doesn’t just create a brand; it builds confidence and capacity, allowing women and LGBTQ+ organisations to thrive long after we’ve worked with them.

Learn more about our work with Bi+ Equal.

LVNDR Health built a pioneering virtual LGBTQ+ clinic, making it easier for people to access affirming, stigma-free healthcare.

When Araxie Boyadjian and the LVNDR team needed to move fast, they were looking for more than a set of deliverables. They needed a creative partner who understood their community, could handle a heavy, time-sensitive project, and help them show up with the confidence and credibility they needed to grow.

We helped LVNDR strengthen their credibility and communications at a critical moment of growth: LVNDR has raised £1.7 million in funding and built three NHS partnerships.

Since then, that momentum has supported real-world outcomes, with 200 people treated, 150 people taking part in the first remote PrEP clinical trial, and reaching 10,000+ people on their waitlist.

“Although the project was a heavy and time-sensitive one, the Lutalica team always showed up prepared, enthusiastic and motivated to work together to create something worthy of the queer community…”

For Studio Lutalica, this partnership is a clear example of what capacity-building impact looks like in practice. When a partner is given the tools, confidence, and clarity to communicate their work, it becomes easier to build trust, secure funding, and reach people.

Learn more about our collaboration with LVNDR Health.

Our Community Impact Programme (CIP) is Studio Lutalica’s way of making professional, lived-experience-led design support accessible to women and LGBTQ+ founders, and to organisations that serve those communities. Globally.

It’s funded through a mix of community and partner-backed income streams (including Partnerships/Sponsorships and Pay it Forward contributions from paying clients), which flow into one dedicated pot: the Community Impact Fund.

At its core, our CIP makes Studio Lutalica’s professional digital design services (branding, web design, strategy, etc) more accessible through reduced pricing and, when funding allows, pro-bono design work.

We’ve just launched a new Eligibility Survey (link incoming), which is for all prospective recipients. This includes questions about how their organisation is structured, how they align with our commitment to sustainability and social justice, and what their core goals or mission are.

In terms of the communities we support, those are women and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as other underrepresented groups which align with our broader mission and values (which you can read more about here).

For more on this, or how to apply, please email dan@lutalica.studio.

It funds professional, accessible, and lived experience-led design support. We build the confidence and trust that allows grassroots organisations to attract their own funding, mobilise their own communities, and create change in the long term.

An investment in our CIP isn’t a one-off donation—it’s an investment in building a more resilient, fair, and hopeful world for everyone.

Yes! If you’d like your contribution to support a specific cause or community, we can discuss ‘ring-fencing’ your support so it aligns with what matters most to you.

An example of this is when we ran our Designing for Trans+ Futures campaign between Trans Day of Remembrance 2025 and Trans Day of Visibility 2026. Though the community-backed Crowdfunder phase is over, this is a strand of support (especially for the Trans+ community) which we’re continuing into 2026.

(Keep an eye on our socials for a special event taking place in Pride Month 2026, which will further support this campaign strand.)

Depending on whether you’d like to support women and LGBTQ+ movements as a whole, or whether you’d like to support a specific segment of those communities (e.g. the Trans+ community), you can help in different ways.

Looking to make a quick one-off donation? Take a look at our Designing for Trans+ Futures campaign strand, which supports Trans+ projects and organisations, specifically.

Looking to work together in the longer term? Brilliant—we’ve been looking for you, too. Email dan@lutalica.studio and let’s book a call.