Key West Pride 2026 logo unveiled, celebrates identity through color

A bold new logo became the first major sign that Key West Pride 2026 is moving from planning into promotion, with the Key West Business Guild unveiling a design by local artist Jessica Tookey to sell the island’s biggest LGBTQ+ event to visitors, sponsors and residents alike.

The artwork was built around the theme Color the Island: A Celebration of Identity through Color and Creativity, and the Guild said it will appear on official Pride materials, merchandise and promotional campaigns leading into the June 3-7 celebration. In Key West, where tourism and cultural branding overlap, the logo is more than decoration. It is the image the island wants to project: colorful, individual, creative and unmistakably local.

The Business Guild, formed in 1978, describes itself as the nation’s first LGBTQ+ destination marketing organization and says its work helps attract about 250,000 LGBTQ+ travelers to Key West each year. That makes Pride branding part of a larger economic engine, one that helps fill hotels, restaurants, bars and shops during a five-day stretch that tourism and chamber listings already describe as a marquee event for the Florida Keys. Official listings also place a kickoff at about 5:30 p.m. on June 3, with Bertha: Grateful Drag among the featured performances.

Tookey is a fitting choice for that assignment. Her TooKEY’s Gallery in Key West identifies her as a local artist working in expressive fine art, mixed media, photography, commissions and lessons. Her gallery bio says she moved into a Key West home in 2023, and a 2024 podcast profile said she taught art for 18 years before leaving teaching in 2014 to work as an artist full time. That background gives the Pride logo a community-made feel that matches the Guild’s emphasis on visibility and self-expression.

The symbolism carries added weight in Key West, where Pride history is already tied to one of the island’s signature public moments. The Sea-to-Sea Rainbow Flag was first unfurled in 2003 along the 1.25-mile length of Duval Street, with 2,000 volunteers helping stage a 6,000-pound display that remains a defining image of the city’s LGBTQ+ identity. With this year’s logo, the island is again using art to market not just an event, but the brand of Key West itself.