Overview
At 24, Tim is an active member of his town’s Rotary Club, Eagles Chapter, and town board. Last fall, he wanted to take his commitment one step further and run to become Weymouth’s Councilor-at-Large.
Being an enthusiast of Massachusetts politics, Tim had a binder of old campaign materials to draw inspiration from and a strong vision for what he wanted his campaign to look like. My job was to transform his vision into a clean and eye-catching collection of materials.
Objectives
Create a consistent brand identity for Tim’s campaign that makes him stand out from his competitors while remaining clean, professional, and recognizable as a Democratic candidate for local office. Local elections can be won by a handful of votes. Creating consistency across outreach materials can help residents remember candidates when faced with crowded ballots for numerous municipal races.
Process
In a heavily democratic and Irish town, a lot of campaigns choose blue and green color palettes. We wanted Tim’s materials to be recognizable as a Democratic campaign in Weymouth, but with enough of a twist to stand out.
We chose his primary colors to be seafoam and slate, a nod to the traditional colors chosen by candidates in his town, but still able to stand out with the minty seafoam hue in contrast to the forest green utilized by his competitors. His logo was also chosen to be clean and classic, with his last name serving as the focal point so people would remember it at the ballot. I went with the pairing of Mr. Eaves and Mrs. Eaves for his campaign materials, with Mr. Eaves featuring more prominently as the san serif, giving his logo a readable, clean feeling while still exuding authority and a certain gravitas.
To equip Tim for his campaign, we produced bumper stickers, lawn signs, and multiple mailers. For his lawn signs, we decided to go with a stark white background so they would stand out against green grass and be recognizably different from other candidates, who chose different shades of blue and green for their signs. In all of Tim’s printed materials, I used white space to highlight the most important information while minimizing distractions. In all, Tim’s campaign materials were both simple and eye-catching.
Impact
While Tim was narrowly defeated in his race for Councilor-at-Large, he remains active in Weymouth’s governance and community initiatives.