Design ▪︎ Branding

Tech for Campaigns

The Challenge
The Committee to Elect Jim Haadsma engaged Tech for Campaigns to design a website for Representative Haadsma as part of his campaign for re-election to the Michigan House, 62nd District. Our team developed a new site for the candidate that helped him better leverage his issue platform and his personal narrative as assets for his campaign.
My Role
I served as the user experience designer on a team of volunteers contracted by Tech for Campaigns.
The Team
Our team included a product manager, copywriter, engineer and designer.
Constraints
With campaign deadlines approaching, the timeline for delivery of the site was approximately three weeks.
The site looks great! We are are excited! - Erin, Campaign Manager

Goals

  • Create a site that had a professional and inviting look
  • Present content that emphasized Jim’s strengths as a candidate
  • Provide a full set of tools to allow voters to engage with the campaign

Fresh Branding

Some of Jim's strengths as a candidate are his stability and connection with the local community. We sought to capitalize on these strengths with branding that was both professional and inviting.

I designed a new vertical logo for the campaign that evoked a feeling of professionalism

Vertical logo

On the "Meet Jim" page, the yellow highlight on the title (left) and the image of Jim with family (right) help evoke a feeling of approachability while the blue and white color combination in the title bar (top) express stability.

Top of the "Meet Jim" page

New Content Focused on Strengths

One of the candidate's strengths is his connection with people in his district. We created a legislative priorities page that featured complementary images of Jim with people in the community.

"Jim's Priorities" page with images of the candidate with people from the community

Easy Tools for Voters

We provided a variety of ways for users to engage as voters and supporters of the campaign. The site included clear calls to action,  including this form to receive updates from the campaign.

Simple and effective sign up form

Outcomes

With the project's objectives being met, the site was delivered to the campaign team prior to a website launch event. We had created a site that had met the project goals by providing fresh campaign branding, content that emphasized Jim's community focused priorities and clear calls to action that allowed voters different ways to support the campaign. Jim went on to win the race in November 2020.

Takeaways

One of the key strengths of the site was the strong narrative that the combination of images and copy provided. My objective as a designer was to maximize the focus on that narrative and to make the other features of the site feel like an extension of that narrative.

NExt project