2020 Politically Transparent Starter Kit a Graphic Design Studies Project

POLITICALLY TRANSPARENT STARTER KIT

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A Graphic Design Studies Final Project

By Remel Hoskins

CCTP-659: Graphic Design Studies

Professor J.R. Osborn

2020 Election Starter Kit PROJECT ABSTRACT The 2020 Starter Kit project interrogates the forthcoming U.S. Presidential Election through a series of information cards. This project includes information of the candidates, policy issues and a 2020 timeline for the debates and conventions taking place next year. The purpose of this project is to help voters make an informed decision in the 2020 presidential election.

This project analyzes the election in the form of information cards with varying variables per each card. The information cards include research on individual candidates, policy issues, timelines of presidential events and debates (not included in this project) and cards for note taking during debates. The goal of this project is to provide information for the 2020 election giving voters everywhere a chance to engage with the election, one candidate and one issue at a time.

TABLE OF CONTENTS DES IGN RES EARCH

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DES IGN JUSTIFICATIONS

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FONT DES C RIPTION

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D ESIGN REPORTS

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Photo: Danny Thomas/Getty Images

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INTRODUCTION As an up and coming college grad school student in the year 2016, it was exciting to see the world turn upside down during election season. What we never thought would’ve happened in a million years happened that fateful night that Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States. I remember everyone thinking it was a joke or a nightmare that we needed to wake up from. But here we are three years later, Trump is still in office, and the world is still on fire.

The most important thing that the 2016 election did for me and millions across the world, is causing me to wake up. I had been sleeping on the stuff of politics, policy issues, legislation and all of the other things politics related that I didn’t necessarily feel had anything to do with me. I had been ignoring the news; I never had a desire to sit in front of a tv screen and watch hours upon hours of information and tragedy daily. If I ever needed to know anything important, social media was my news. I’d learn it from there. But boy was I wrong. After this election, I knew that I wanted to know more, care more and dive deeper into the political rabbit hole of the 2020 election.

Since this project began two months ago, several people have joined the presidential race for the 2020 election.

What an exciting time to be alive; everyone is not only waking up, but they want to make a change. We are taking our countries situation and circumstances, and we’re not leaving it up to the next person to care about, but we’re interrogating these big questions for ourselves. The drive and the will to figure out what America’s future will become was the main driving force for this project. I read article upon article, looking at information on the candidates. Many were seasoned; some were new to the political atmosphere. We have senators, mayors, military men and authors and educations joining in this political race. I wanted to find a way to take all the information about them, all the experience they had and all of their plans for policy action once they reach the white, and provide some notes for myself on which candidates I would vote for.

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CONCEPT What does the project ask or interrogate? Why is this an important topic of exploration? How and what does the project teach us about design?

When I first started this project, it was initially just for me. I wanted to create something I was proud of, something I could showcase in a portfolio to potential employers. But I also wanted it to be meaningful. I realize that my favorite kind of design projects are the ones that require me to think beyond making flyers and logos to make them. My favorite type of projects are the ones that come with many components—ones that might seem challenging to understand mere “brand guidelines.” I knew that a final project for this class wouldn’t be as meaningful or as enjoyable unless it encapsulated all the deep thought that comes with creating a design for social impact or global change.

Once I decided to take a look at the 2020 election and all of the individuals who are in the running so far, I realized that I had found such a project.

This is an exciting time in America, where people from all walks of life are becoming more involved in political conversations than they ever have before. I am hoping that these social cards could aid in further dialogue about the election to come.

DELIVERABLES

Precise project deliverables are as follows:

This project analyzes the election in the form of information cards. The information cards include research on individual candidates, policy issues, timelines of presidential events and debates (not included in this project) and cards for note taking during debates. The full project is not complete, but for the sake of my graphic design due date, I complete 10 project deliverables.

• 3 Candidate Information Cards: O’Rourke, Harris, Warren • 4 Candidate Quote Cards • 2 Policy Issue Cards: Education, Climate Change • 1 Card for Debates Notes/Personal Stances

RESEARCH What did you discover? How does your research extend knowledge of the topic?

The meat of this project is research. Because there are so many people running (as of today 24 Dems, 2 Reps), websites and magazines have been extremely helpful in providing ‘election trackers’ and ‘2020 guides’ to help audiences to see who each candidate is and what they stand for in the simplest form possible. But even with all the social media analysis and logo breakdown’s, there are still too many metrics out there by which to judge candidates. I decided to make tangible cards, kind of like presidential playing cards, that could provide a simplistic and aesthetically pleasing way to analyze each presidential candidate and the policy’s they’re standing for/against. My most helpful and most used 2020 analysis article platforms include Wikipedia and Vox. The articles, charts, and graphs helped me to see each candidate on one screen with all their information presented in a concise grid and easy to access format. I also used candidates websites for further research into their campaign and policy discussions.

For the sake of time and this project, I analyzed candidates based on the following metrics:

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THEMES THAT AROSE DURING RESEARCH

• Background info including name, date of birth, city of origin within the U.S. • Campaign information including announcement date, political affiliation, campaign slogans and logos, past positions, highest offices held • Timeline of each candidates academic, professional, and political career • Bills voted on, voting patterns and key votes • Signature issues of each candidate • Quotes from interviews or announcement speeches

During my researching, the election several themes emerged in my research for what’s to come in 2020. The first one is the theme of logo analysis; many of the logos don’t use the colors of the U.S. flag, red, white and blue. This is because the colors have become more polarizing than unifying under the current administration.

Another topic that arose is the reason why so many people are running for the office of President, specifically in the Democratic party. The main reason being, there is no obvious front-runner for the democrats, and the current President is unpopular among many audiences. Many feel that he is unlikely to win a second term unless it is rigged.

DESIGN What did you produce? How did you design and present your findings?

Finding the inspiration for this project probably took the most extended amount of time and effort. In searching for a way to make the complex information in a more simplified format, I came across a publication for Weitzer Hotels in Austria. This document was produced under the creative direction of Mike Fuisz and the Moodley strategic design agency, to advertise four of Austria’s most premier hotels and advertise to travelers around the world. All of the information is broken down through multiple contrasting, but well-blended fonts, icons, and images are well organized and placed within a collage-style parallelogram format—where all the information could be read in a form that makes things easy to read and digest.

This format is the one I chose to follow for my information card designs. I decided to research all the metrics I wanted to include, and once that was done, I began to create a grid system similar to one I found on the pages in the Weitzer Hotel’s publication (Design Report #2). The grids are comprised of thin and thick lines that separate the sections on the cards. I used multiple fonts that establish a hierarchy within their quadrants (i.e., each section of the information card has its own hierarchy). This is to make the document more exciting to experience. I also used very minimal colors, giving the cards a New York Times magazine vibe. I wanted to change the grid for my original audience of millennials, but I was so proud and pleased with the setup, I kept it as it, and used the campaign cards as a basis by which the rest of the cards were designed.

See more about the design in Justifications.

sources • https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_ candidates,_2020 • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_ States_presidential_election • https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/ politics/policy-2020/priorities-issues/?utm_ term=.09d9a10dfae4#tag-climate-change • https://www.vox.com/

polyarchy/2019/5/1/18525526/democraticcandidates-president-why-so-many • https://www.vox.com/policy-andpolitics/2019/3/1/18246059/2020-candidateslist-who-is-running-for-president-beto-orourke Campaign websites from Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rourke

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Design Justifications GRIDS AND DESIGN BREAKDOWN Abril Display is the font used for all header text. The secondary header text is AWConque Std Inli Regular.

The body paragraph text are a mixture of Adobe Caslon, Junicode, and Futura PT fonts.

The candidate information cards, policy issue cards and my stance card utilize a grid system consisting of bold lines, thin likes and dotted lines. All information is seperate on the card within the grid system of lines.

The quote cards are a front and back card and has the least complex amount of information. The front contains the quote along with the symbol of the United States flag in a circle, and the background image is a White House front view picture from Getty Images.

The colors are black, white, gray and a light blue (hexidecimals found below).

All images provided by Google.

Abril Display

AWConque Std Inli Regular

Adobe Caslon

BLACK #000000

LIGHT BLUE #29a8df

WHITE #ffffff

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GRAY #e3e3e3

FONTS & DESIGNERS

Courier New

Abril Display

Designed by Howard “Bud” Kettler, 1956

Designed by José Scaglione and Veronika Burian from TypeTogether, 2011

Futura PT / Futura PT Cond

Acme Gothic Condensed

Redesigned by Isabella Chaeva, Paul Renner, Vladimir Andrich, and Vladimir Yefimov. From ParaType in 2007. Based on the original by Paul Renner in 1927

Designed by Mark Simonson, 2018

ADOBE

Ganton

CASLON

Ganton by Typesgal of DaFont, 2013

Designed by Carol Twombly based on pages printed

by William Caslon between 1734 and 1770.

Junicode

AWConque Regular

Designed by Peter S Baker, 2015

Designed by Jean François Porchez, 2010

MB Picture House One

Blenny Black

Designed by Ben Mecke-Burford, 2015

Designed by Spike Spondike from Dalton Maag, 2014

Mongoose Regular

Canter

Designed by Nikola Kostić of Kostic Type Foundry

Designed by Christopher J. Lee, 2013

Playfair Display Designed by Claus Eggers Sørensen, 2016

Clarissa

Proxima Nova Extra Condensed

Clarissa by Bangkit Tri Setiadi of DaFont, 2018

Designed by Mark Simonson, 2005

Cooper Hewitt

Reman

Cooper Hewitt: The Typeface By Chester Jenkins, 2014

Designed by Khurasan on Dafont in 2018.

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DESIGN REPORTS

Name: Beto O’Rourke Campaign Card Date: 2019 Designer: Remel Hoskins Source: Great Design History (1990) Analysis by Remel Hoskins

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Points of Interest

Context and History

1. First things first, our title in Abril Display, the premier font for this project for all headings

These cards are loosely based on the magazine design from the design report below. The cards contain information on each presidential candidate including - Background info including name, date of birth, city of origin within the US, Campaign information including announcement date, political affiliation, campaign slogans and logos, past positions, highest offices held, an abbreviated outline of each candidates’ academic, professional, and political career, the bills they’ve voted on, voting patterns and key votes, issues they will interrogate in the election and quotes.

2. Next I see the image as well as the quadrant that contains information on the candidates background and political information 3. Next I notice that the career section is the next order of business, following from the highest position head to the timeline.

4. I then see the key vote mentioned and the number of bills they’ve sponsored , co-sponsered or amended.

5. Lastly my eye looks at whatever I may have missed towards the bottom of the page including the quotes and signature.

These cards are original in design and vary between each candidate, as there are some candidates with more information available than others.

Design Analysis The overall design is simple and despite the multidunous fonts, not overwhelming. I tried to use enough white space to not overwhelm the viewers of these cards.

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Name: The Quadriga. Weitzer Hotels Date: 2015 Credits: Client: Weitzer Hotels Betriebsges.m.b.H. Creative Direction: Mike Fuisz

Art Direction: Sabine Kernbichler

Graphic Design: Sabine Kernbichler, Katia Tsikrikonaki

Photography: Marion Luttenberger, Michael Kรถnigshofer, Tina Herzl, Tina Reiter, LupiSpuma Text: Matthias Alber

Project Management: Jasmin Gottfried Source: Behance, moodley design agency website Analysis by: Remel Hoskins

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Points of Interest 1

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1. I think the most prominent and most attentiongetting portion of this graphic is the very top. The fact that it’s the most significant item on the page and it’s underlined tells the audience “Read THIS First!”

focal point.

4. I then pay attention to this 4 Hotels segment, which explains the purpose of the whole page, four hotels coming together in one travel document. Because the entire page only has one color, symbols and icons like this one stand out from words.

2. I notice that the overall look is pleasingly simple and even though there are different variations of fonts, mixtures of serifs and sans serifs, capital and sentence case letters, it still works for the graphic as a whole.

5. I notice now that the items that stand out to me are the ones that are in bold of scaled more significant than the other items on the page. There’s a reason why the most noticeable things are at the very being on the left-hand side and the end on the right.

3. The next item I notice is the words written in the same font as the “That’s Us” letters. Though at a much smaller size, being in the center of the page makes these words a

Context and History

Design Analysis

This publication for Weitzer Hotels in Austria serves as a guide through which all of Austria’s most prominent hotels can advertise themselves to travelers around the world. Under the creative direction of Mike Fuisz and the Moodley strategic design agency, four Weitzer Hotels Betriebsges.m.b.H. have publicized their image and their offerings through this unique publication.

At first I thought the design was highlighting certain aspects that each hotel has in a visually pleasing way. But now I see that it the design is highlighting features from all four in one compounded graphic. By using this simplistic design, the creative team was able to showcase details to the audience in an organized grid structure. The use of symbols and icons also bring vibrance to a two tone design.

All of the information is broken down through multiple contrasting, but well-blended fonts, icons, and images are well organized and placed within a collage-style parallelogram format— where all the information in about each hotel can be aesthetically pleasing and held in a format that makes things easy to read and digest.

The design feels clean and easy to digest which is the main reason why I based my quote cards and the rest of the 2020 Starter Kit on these pages from Weitzer Hotels.

The publication is also in multiple languages, as the audience of the magazine is people from all around the world. See full branding here at Behance: https://bit.ly/2V8gpXK

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By Remel Hoskins

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