One of the most important and exciting parts of any political campaign is creating the push-card. This single piece of cardboard will be with the candidate from the day it comes off the printer to the day of the election. However, when designing this important piece, most campaigns approach the process backwards often having disastrous results.
When designing a push-card, what do you believe is more important: Design or Content? If you answered Content, you would have sided with the majority of candidates, and ultimately wrong.
Politicians convince themselves that every voter wants to eat their message up with a spoon, when in fact most people don't want anything to do with politics. If the design is visually unappealing, it will scare people away from the card eliminating all hope that the reader will even remember the candidate's name.
The best way to start the design process is to embrace Lorem ipsum, better known as Dummy Text. Before inserting the message of the candidate, determine the card's layout using Lorem ipsum in the places where the text will be added later. Working with this unintelligible text will allow you to see what is appealing to the eye without being hindered by what the candidate wants to say. Font size, line spacing, and other important layout concerns can all be determined in this phase of the project.
Once the design is created, use the Lorem ipsum to determine what the total character count is. This process is essential to set editing goals - the bane of most candidates. If these limits are set before hand, the card will not get too wordy overloading the reader with an overwhelming message.
The adjacent photo showcases the first ideation of a push-cards I created. When this project started, the designer asked me to give him the content I wanted to include. He was taken aback when I told him that the content did not matter since I would create it once the final design was approved. Most of his customers did not respect the design process to this extent, which he appreciated.
It is difficult for candidates to conform their message to the design, but if they do, they will produce a powerful push-card that the voter will not only read - but also absorb.
When designing a push-card, what do you believe is more important: Design or Content? If you answered Content, you would have sided with the majority of candidates, and ultimately wrong.
Politicians convince themselves that every voter wants to eat their message up with a spoon, when in fact most people don't want anything to do with politics. If the design is visually unappealing, it will scare people away from the card eliminating all hope that the reader will even remember the candidate's name.
The best way to start the design process is to embrace Lorem ipsum, better known as Dummy Text. Before inserting the message of the candidate, determine the card's layout using Lorem ipsum in the places where the text will be added later. Working with this unintelligible text will allow you to see what is appealing to the eye without being hindered by what the candidate wants to say. Font size, line spacing, and other important layout concerns can all be determined in this phase of the project.
Once the design is created, use the Lorem ipsum to determine what the total character count is. This process is essential to set editing goals - the bane of most candidates. If these limits are set before hand, the card will not get too wordy overloading the reader with an overwhelming message.
The adjacent photo showcases the first ideation of a push-cards I created. When this project started, the designer asked me to give him the content I wanted to include. He was taken aback when I told him that the content did not matter since I would create it once the final design was approved. Most of his customers did not respect the design process to this extent, which he appreciated.
It is difficult for candidates to conform their message to the design, but if they do, they will produce a powerful push-card that the voter will not only read - but also absorb.
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