$100K+
Donated since 2016
Adam's Nest is a queer-owned activist apparel brand founded by Adam Singer in Provincetown, Massachusetts. We carry t-shirts, posters, pins, and prints rooted in queer civil-rights history, HIV/AIDS advocacy, sex positivity, and real community giving. About 70% of what we sell sends money back to the LGBTQ+ organizations that built this community. Since 2016 we've moved more than $100,000.
we exist at the intersection of queer activism, protest fashion, hiv/aids memory, sex positivity, and lgbtq+ cultural preservation. not a mainstream pride brand — a continuation of a queer life.
The brand was not designed in a marketing meeting. It came from a queer life. Two Junes set every choice in motion — one in Adam's twenties, one the week the store opened.
Adam Singer comes out as gay in 1985, in the middle of the AIDS crisis, before any effective treatment exists, when gay men are dying in catastrophic numbers and the government is silent. Coming out into that moment of grief, stigma, and resistance is why Adam's Nest carries Silence=Death shirts thirty years later.
One week in June 2016 — Obama's White House Pride reception, then Pulse, then the Blood Equality event in NYC where Adam's blood is already part of Jordan Eagles' civil-rights sculpture, then the doors open at 379A Commercial Street. The store opens into that grief, that rage, and that refusal to sit down.
Adam attends Obama's Pride reception at the White House, guest of HIV-prevention specialist Damon L. Jacobs.
In Provincetown with Damon, Adam wakes to the news of the Pulse nightclub massacre. 49 people killed at a gay club on Latin Night.
Blood Equality event in NYC. Jordan Eagles' Blood Mirror — Adam's blood is in it, with 58 other LGBTQ+ advocates' — is on display.
Adam's Nest opens at 379A Commercial Street, Provincetown.
we had a mission before we had a logo. six demands of ourselves, written plainly so a customer can hold us to them.
About 70% of items sold benefit a named partner organization. Over $100,000 since 2016, plus monthly giving to GLAAD. The model, not a marketing layer.
Wojnarowicz, Frank Kameny, ACT UP, Silence=Death, the AIDS Memorial. We don't decorate with history; we teach it. The store is a classroom that happens to sell t-shirts.
Pride is not a marketing campaign. We earn our place through who we hire, who we pay, and which causes we move dollars to.
Queer sex is not a problem to be managed. We carry the work, say the words, and stand with the artists who get censored for honesty.
Reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, equal pay, full inclusion of lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer women — not as a calendar moment, as a constant.
The store, the bench, the calendar of weekends, the Cape Cod neighbors we fund — Bear Week through Spooky Bear, Family Week, Women's Week, Hibernation, Carnival.
Every product, partnership, post, and decision should be traceable to at least one — ideally two or three — of these six pillars. If a piece of work doesn't ladder up, it doesn't ship.
Silence=Death. Read My Lips. Queers Read This. Don't Tread On Me. The vocabulary of queer protest is our native language. Licensed, credited, story attached.
Wojnarowicz, the AIDS Memorial since January 2018, U=U, PrEP. A year-round commitment to history and prevention — not a calendar moment.
Queer sex isn't a problem to manage. We carry the work, say the words, stand with artists who get censored for being honest.
~70% of items benefit charity. $100K+ moved since 2016, plus monthly to GLAAD. The operating model, not a marketing layer.
379A Commercial · Memorial Day to Spooky Bear · across from Womencrafts · Bear Week, Family Week, Women's Week, Hibernation, Carnival. Local Cape Cod beneficiaries are neighbors, not abstractions.
Cited by National Geographic, Ms., POZ, Out Traveler, Provincetown Magazine. Collaborator to museums, foundations, and the artists who shaped queer visual culture. Worn quietly. Said accurately.
we talk to the customer, not about the customer. direct address. plain language. eye contact. anchored in community, visibility, or impact — and never academic.
Lead with love, joy, visibility, pride. The world is hard enough; we make moments that lift.
Not naive. Not toothless. Positive and direct can live in the same sentence.
Direct address. Plain language. Short sentences when they earn it.
Not breezy lifestyle copy. Not influencer-speak.
Every letter, every shade, every body. We say we and us on purpose.
Not performative. Not "we're for everyone" used as a shrug.
Every message ladders to community, visibility, or impact. Why before what.
Not preachy. Not academic. We never lecture the customer.
Words are chosen. Slogans are sourced. History is credited.
Not careless or derivative. If we use a phrase, we know where it came from.
wear the meaning. move the money. be in good company. tagline candidates below — adam to choose during review.
Adam's Nest is a queer-owned, purpose-driven activist apparel and lifestyle brand founded by Adam Singer in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 2016. Rooted in LGBTQ+ civil rights history, HIV/AIDS advocacy, sex positivity, and genuine community giving, the brand has donated more than $100,000 to LGBTQ+ and social justice organizations through product sales, with approximately 70% of items benefitting charity. NGLCC Certified LGBT Business Enterprise.
The lockup pairs the elegant adam's italic with a high-contrast NEST Didone, beside the lavender house icon — a botanical-leaf form rooted in the Provincetown shop and the Adam-and-Nesti name origin. Lavender is sacred. It is the bench. It is the welcome.
The house with the botanical leaf is a recognizable secondary mark on its own — used as favicon, app tile, label sticker, hang-tag stamp, and anywhere the wordmark would be redundant or too small to read.
The system starts with the brand mark — lavender on cream paper, ink for weight. Pink Triangle steps in for HIV/AIDS history and activist callouts. Protest red and the Cape Cod sage step in by the moment, never by default.
Ratio: 60% cream + paper · 25% ink · 10% lavender · 5% pink, red, sage. Lavender is the bench. Pink is the triangle. Both are sacred. When everything is lavender, nothing is.
Two typefaces, used together. Newake is the high-contrast Didone serif that gives the wordmark its drama and the brand its activist authority. Dosis is the friendly humanist sans that carries every piece of body copy — accessible, warm, never academic. Two voices, one conversation.
photography is where this brand is most easily made generic. the whole direction is summarized in the line above.
Customers, staff, friends, collaborators. Mixed-age, mixed-body, mixed-skin, mixed-gender. Bears, dykes, daddies, twinks, leather folks, drag families, trans people of every age. Eye contact welcome. So is laughter.
Single product on cream, paper, or sage backdrop. Daylight or soft strobe. The graphic is legible. No props, no foam-core gloss, no e-comm sterility.
The store. The bench. The cash wrap. The wall of Silence=Death. Adam at the door. Crowds during Bear Week. Documentary. No staging.
Once a season: a single artist, a single political moment, a single charity. Provincetown light plus one set choice — gallery wall, memorial, beach, kitchen table.
These are real creative partnerships with documented institutional
significance — not sponsorships, not cause-marketing veneer. The full
active and historical roster lives in 04_Admin/collaborations.csv.
Burning House (70th birthday), Rimbaud in NY, Fuck You Faggot Fucker (Summer 2026).
Partner since January 2018. ~3,000 shirts to 19 countries with Zach Grear, Hugh Elliott. Funds to Housing Works.
Don't Tread On Me (Ms. Magazine cover, 2019), Peg the Patriarchy, Lick Pussy Not Boots (2026).
CLITERACY Eye Chart, Lesbians Don't Fake It. Censored on Facebook — called out publicly.
Love As Activism, ICE is English for Gestapo, Power to the People — all benefit Indivisible.
Divine stencil, koi fish, COVID hand-and-soap. NEA-funded. Yale exhibition history.
Founding-year collaborator. Sex-positive religious-iconography work; heavily censored on socials.
Hand-printed apparel from Jordan and Patrick. Bear World Magazine featured.
Tom of Finland-store collaborator. Provincetown E. Lesh Gallery solo show 2023.
Pink pussycat (Planned Parenthood), unicorn (Summer of Sass), love triangle (Trevor Project).
Cheers to Growing Up Gay (NYC Gay Men's Chorus tie-in). Summer 2026: Gumballs, Angry Queers, an analog cruising hat.
I Put Out, PrEP — Proactive Responsible Empowered Pleasure, U=U with Bruce Richman / Prevention Access Campaign.
Frank Kameny grave rubbing tee. 10% to One Institute.
Official Family Week Provincetown t-shirt producer four years running.
Queers Read This — 1990 manifesto on tee and tote. 10% to Leslie-Lohman Museum.
Every giving claim Adam's Nest makes is named, sourced, and provable. If you can't show the receipt, you don't make the claim.
The store, the website, paid advertising, social, press, in-store events. Voice and standards stay the same. Channel changes; brand doesn't.
Open Memorial Day Weekend through Spooky Bear. Lavender bench out every operating day. Across from Womencrafts (50th anniversary in 2026). Bear Week, Hibernation, Leather Mates, Women's Week, Family Week, Carnival programmed in advance. Women's Week receives explicit, intentional programming — not ambient inclusion.
Every product page carries artist credit, cause credit, the story behind the graphic, plus standard fit/fabric/care. About, Charity, Artist Collaborations, and Unabridged About are core navigation. llms.txt is published and kept current.
Same voice, no "ad voice." We don't pre-soften sex-positive products to fit ad policy. Charitable claims meet the same standard everywhere. Election and crisis creative is pre-built so we aren't scrambling.
Instagram primary; TikTok craft-driven; Facebook current; Bluesky, Pinterest, Tumblr maintained. Three-line post default: lead, context, action. Always credit artist, partner, photographer.
Past relationships with National Geographic, Ms., POZ, Out Traveler, Provincetown Magazine, Queerguru, Ptownie are ongoing — not transactional. Press inquiries route to Adam directly.
Anyone making an Adam's Nest decision starts here. Forward-facing planning applies — partner-dependent activations need 3–6 weeks. Multi-step projects get a ROADMAP.md.
A customer walks in on a Saturday in July, sees the bench, asks who Wojnarowicz was, gets the answer, buys the shirt, reads the manifesto on the wall, opens the email three days later, learns they paid for a refugee resettlement, wears the shirt to a protest, gets asked where it's from, says adam's nest, in provincetown.