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Nagi Argir.iou
Projects
Role
Lead Web Designer
Year
2022
Type
Volunteer
Process
  1. Research
  2. Information Architecture
  3. Wireframes
  4. Web + Logo Design
Newly designed website for the Georgia House Democratic Caucus.
Background

In 2020, my home state of Georgia became a key swing state in the U.S. presidential election. This moment — a culmination of years of organizing work by Georgians, and specifically women of color, like Stacey Abrams — marked a critical time to keep this momentum going and move Georgia further to the left.

In 2022, I had the opportunity to redesign the Georgia House Democratic Caucus’s website through Tech For Campaigns, an organization that provides pro bono technical & design skills for progressive political campaigns.

Team

After a brief interview process, Tech For Campaigns organized our team, which comprised of:

  • A project manager
  • A lead copywriter
  • A lead engineer
  • A lead designer (me)
Goals

During our kickoff with the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, we learned that their goals were:

  • A fresh, more contemporary look & feel for their website
  • A website that helps to accommodate their primary goal of increasing voter turnout
  • Increase email captures & make it easier for people to donate (to help aid the goal of increasing voter turnout)
  • A new logo that could better work across a variety of digital & physical assets
  • Adding ActBlue integration to collect donations
Constraints

We had 4 weeks to come up with a new website design, copy, Wordpress theme, and logo. 2 weeks were allotted for dev work, so we had a 2-week turnaround time for research and design, with 1 check-in per week with the Caucus to make sure we were going in the right direction.

Because of the time constraints, we had no time for user interviews, but we did collect some information from the Caucus on what their constituents would like to see and what tools are helpful for them.

Research & Information Architecture

Since designing for a political group was new to me, I wanted to make sure that I understood how other Democratic caucuses and politicians used typefaces, colors, and logos to convey their messaging. We conducted a quick landscape audit of websites & logos, looking to progressive Georgia politicians like Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

Logo, typography, and color audit for Arizona House Democrats, Reverend Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, and the Democratic Party.

I also worked with the lead copywriter to reorganize the information architecture. We consolidated similar information to create a more streamlined and user-friendly experience for website visitors.

Website Design
Different screenshots of the newly-designed website, including Caucus leadership, a contact form, agenda section, and more.

Tools that were important for getting the vote out did not have a strong information scent in the existing website. For example, the “Find your legislator” tool was on the “About” section, after scrolling past all of the Caucus members.

To solve for this, we combined all of the voter resources into a single “Vote” page, with clear, actionable next steps for whatever you might be looking for as a voter.

Mobile and desktop screenshot of the Vote page, which has tools for voting, like registering to vote, checking your voter registration, and finding your polling location.

We also wanted to give opportunities for interested folks to stay informed by signing up for the Caucus newsletter. To do this, we inserted email capture banners into key parts of the website, like the homepage and agenda page.

Desktop screenshot of the Agenda page, which has an email capture banner in between sections describing the Caucus' values and issues.

We also added an email sign-up section into the footer, so that if someone is finished reading a particular page, they can decide to contribute or sign up for the newsletter.

Mobile and desktop screenshot of the website footer, which has sections to donate and sign up for the Caucus newsletter.

Here’s a summary of the goals we considered as we made design decisions:

🌟 Goal 🎨 Design Choice
Make it easier to find tools for voting Add a “Vote” section
Make it easier to understand Caucus agenda & values Consolidate issues and values into a single “Agenda” section
Highlight recent press about the Caucus Add a section on the homepage for “news and press releases”
Increase donations Highlight “Donate” button and add donation widget to footer
Increase email captures Add a sign-up banner to the footer and to high-traffic areas of the website

Other considerations include:

  • Responsive design for desktop, mobile web and tablet visitors
  • Web accessibility, ensuring that contrast and other design elements pass AA compliance
  • Dev handoff and documentation, to make sure that the engineer on the team has enough context and details for implementing the design
Logo Design

The existing House Democratic Caucus logo was the Democratic Party logo on an outline of the state of Georgia. There were a few variations: a text lockup, an icon, and the icon with a star border.

Prior logo variations that are used across the Georgia House Democratic Caucus’ digital presence.
Existing social media assets & flyers with the text lockup logo.

A few logo pain points:

  • The outline and type colors made it tricky to use on many background colors, which limited options for flyers and social media
  • For contexts in which the logo must be small in size, the text lockup was often not legible
  • The typeface and icon did not fit cohesively with their more modern materials
  • The logo could be more visually distinct from the Democratic Party logo

To solve for these pain points, we came up with two options. Both options have a clean and modern feel by using a san serif typeface and updated color pallette.

Logo DesignOption 1Highlighted Text Lockup

Option 1 features a highlight text treatment overlaid on a blue Georgia. We have two variations of the logo for light- and dark-colored backgrounds.

Two different color variations to contrast both light and dark backgrounds.
Option 1 logo used across the website, social media assets, and flyers. In the middle example, we have a highlight-only variation of the logo to maximize legibility in vertically-challenged placements.
Logo DesignOption 2Side-By-Side Lockup

With Option 2, the vertical space and text size is maximized by having the Georgia icon sit directly next to the text. We also played with text colors, ensuring that all colors were AA compliant on light background colors.

Two different color variations to contrast both light and dark backgrounds.
Examples of Option 2 logo usage across the website, social media assets, and flyers.

After presenting to the Caucus, they decided to go with Option 2.

Takeaways

Although we had a very short turnaround time for design and had no time to update the look & feel after dev implementation, we finished the site in the timeline allotted.

Having a new logo and colors felt like a good first step given the time constraints. If I had more time, I would have created a brand kit or guidelines to help with social media and other assets.

Overall, the team gave the Democratic Caucus a fresh look, but more importantly, gave Georgians visiting this page actionable ways to learn about the Caucus, vote, and stay informed.

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