For the 2020 Democratic primary season I teamed up with Russell Greene, Senior Strategic Adviser for Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) to create a new political awareness brand and social-media campaign highlighting the importance of climate policy in support of Bernie Sanders for the presidential nomination. From the outset we agreed to focus our strategy and messaging where it would have the most potential for efficacy: winning over moderate democratic voters in battleground states. The mission was to bring climate to the forefront of voter concern and to mitigate impressions of Senator Sanders as embracing only radical initiatives. As the primary season progressed and former Vice-President Joe Biden emerged as the frontrunner candidate, we shifted our messaging to highlight key differences between the climate policies of Sanders and Biden. Our objective from that point was to either tilt voter sentiment towards Sanders or to inspire voters to pressure Biden into a more climate-sustaining energy platform. PDA had come to me with a nascent effort called ClimateEmergency. Perceiving this name as too reactionary for moderate voters, I first rebranded the campaign with a more inspiring and patriotic call to action: ClimateCharge 2020.
Brand Development
We were reaching to the moderate, as yet undecided voters; we needed to convey our messaging with an engaging, mainstream voice. We intentionally departed from the grass-roots aesthetic ubiquitous in left-leaning environmental campaigns, adopting a refined and consistent design sophistication to complement our core message that climate policy is a sensible rather than radical concern. Still, the branding had to reside in electoral politics. This mandates a bit of the cliché. It had to feel patriotic and energized.
Identity Symbol
Symbol / Logotype Lockups
Custom Logotype Script
Color Program
Graphics / Layout Program
Typography Program
Creative
The activation was a social media campaign leveraging Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It broke into two categories: messaging and endorsements. As the creative director for the campaign I was assigned to develop messaging strategies, generate headline and secondary copy and create artwork and layouts for each message or endorsement. I was also tasked with writing the crucial posting copy accompanying each message. Initially, text on the artwork was kept to a minimum. As the campaign progressed into specific issues, the text became somewhat expanded. We also produced square ‘meme’ versions with the headlines alone, placing all the explanatory aspects and branding in the containing post. Themes vary from national issues to targeted, state-specific concerns.
Selected Facebook Messaging
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Selected Facebook Endorsements
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Selected Twitter Versions
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evan@evanonearth.net