Strategy, BRANDING & SOCIAL

Elections Branding for Human Rights Campaign Endorsed Candidates

See the inspiration and process behind the look and feel, utilizing authentic storytelling and
hand-drawn elements to energize a more diverse voter and donor audience.

The endorsement graphics I initially produced for the midterms election cycle in 2022 incorporated a collage style coupled with personalized elements (text & visuals) telling a candidate’s story. I utilized a more approachable, hand drawn feel, appealing to a more diverse and younger audience. Where possible, I incorporated candidate photos that felt more genuine than the previously used, sometimes stiff, official headshots, pulling photos from candidates’ events where they were meaningfully engaging with others.

DESIGN OBJECTIVES

  1. Focus on key audiences, including:

    • Donors & voters

    • Young people & first time voters

    • Communities of color

  2. Get endorsed candidates elected through:

  • Candidate awareness

  • Voter mobilization & turnout

  • In 6 key states


The tagline “Together we win” evokes a sense of unity, and we adapted it in materials closer to midterms to '“Together we vote.”

DONOR AUDIENCE MATERIALS

I incorporated slightly more pared down and clean versions of the endorsements look & feel into materials for donors such as prospectuses or slide decks (below).

 

The public launch in early 2022

It’s always satisfying to see one’s work out in the real world, but I’m happy to report when we first launched the endorsements look and feel publicly with the Warnock endorsement, it quickly became one of HRC’s top performing posts, generating 719 engagements.

 


After the initial launch with the Warnock endorsement, we had a few learnings and tweaked the designs going forward. We realized full-color images of candidates (rather than black & white) could be a more inclusive approach. Also through an inclusive lens, we added in blue, white and pink trans colors as they weren’t initially represented in the rainbow in Warnock’s graphic. We didn’t want members of the community to feel left out in any way.

This work was created during my time at the Human Rights Campaign. Many folks were involved, but the core project team included:

Kelli Stam, VP of Marketing

Bob Villaflor, Design Director

Carly Fox, Senior Designer

Geoff Wetrosky, Campaign Director

Jonathan Shields, Deputy Campaign Director

GO TEAM!

 

2023–2024

The endorsements look and feel evolved in 2023 when HRC endorsed Biden and Harris for 2024 in early October. The midterm elections in November 2023 brought about a number of wins for our equality candidates as well, and HRC is continuing to endorse candidates for upcoming elections in 2024.