Brand Development

A collage of all the collateral created for the campaign of Amáda Márquez Simula, including branding, apparel, flyers, lawn signs, video advertisements, newspaper articles, websites, door hangers, newsletters, and more.

Content Strategy

This project is part of a larger political campaign design epic.

(3 weeks)

Situation

A first-time candidate needed branding for an upcoming political campaign.

Task

Create a brand that can be used across all types of media:

  • Printed literature
  • Video
  • Social media
  • Merchandise
  • Lawn signs

Action

Working directly with the candidate, I helped establish a color palette that reflected her personality, Latina heritage, and her position on the political spectrum. She began by picking out palettes she found on Pinterest and Canva. Later, I refined these into a simpler selection. I also ensured that these colors were balanced for accessibility, and would work well both on screen and in print.

Drawing inspiration from other Latina candidates, several branding concepts were put together using the selected colors and a variety of typefaces. These were quickly mocked-up using Google Drawings.

Three similar color palettes from Pinterest, Canva, and Google.
A comparison of the color palettes the candidate found online.
Campaign branding color palette with 4 colors, including teal, gold, navy blue, and orange.
Brand color palette, checked for balance and legibility using the Material Color Tool.
Political campaign branding concepts for Amáda Márquez Simula, using a variety of typefaces.
Early branding concepts using the campaign color palette.

Because the candidate was known for her creative leadership, and because she would be known as the first non-white city official, I decided to add two symbolic styles to her brand:

  1. An arc represents “out-of-the-box” thinking.
  2. The candidate’s photo always crosses the arc. This represents breaking through barriers or glass ceilings.

I also designed a circular emblem of the candidate’s Á which worked well as an icon. It was used for election pins and online account badges. Later, I used After Effects to animate the circular emblem unfolding into the full branding for video media.

Outline illustration of a person standing beneath an arc, where the figure's head overlaps the arc.
Symbolism in the treatment of graphics and photos.
Circular Á icon animates into the full Amáda Márquez Simula branding.
I created this animation in After Effects.

When the candidate ordered apparel, she chose two stock colors that the vendor carried. It wasn’t until the items arrived that she realized that they didn’t match her campaign branding.

Luckily, they were complimentary colors! Thinking fast, I incorporated the two new colors into the brand palette in a balanced, pleasing way.

A sky blue T-shirt and a maroon hoodie were ordered from a vendor who did not carry the campaign colors.
Apparel ordered outside of the brand colors.
Updated branding palette, now with 6 colors including maroon and a vivid sky blue.
Updated brand color palette, now including maroon and sky blue.

Result

I created several variants of this branding for various applications. When paired with high-quality photography, the brand has excellent impact and instant recognition.

No matter the medium, it has worked well for multiple campaigns since 2020.

Political campaign website screenshot of voteamada.com
View the current site at voteamada.com