OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - STUDY TASK 4 'VOTE'

The Brief:

Background:
A YouGov survey published in May 2014 stated that less than half of eligible young people planned to vote in the following year's general election (and we all know how that turned out).
How could graphic design be used to ensure that more than 41% of 18-22 year-olds actually participate in the election process?
To complete this task you will first have to research examples of elections that have successfully enticed voters (including Barack Obama's use of social media within his campaigns and the Scottish referendum's engagement of first-time voters) alongside the wants and needs of your target audience. Just by way of a comparison, three quarters of YouGov's surveyed over-60s planned to vote.

Workshop Task:
You will be working as a creative team for this week's task.
Consider what roles you will be allocating and also consider the time you have on this project. However, be bold in your thinking. Consider ideas beyond the obvious. Also scrutinise the various stages in the election process so that you may uncover any opportunities to effectively connect your potential users to your message.
As a group, you are expected to produce a significant body of work. If you have managed your time well, you have the option to print out what you feel is necessary. The work you produce will be compiled into a slideshow and you will present it to the group on Thursday 3rd May 2016. You will present as though you are pitching to a government organisation. You will have a maximum of five minutes per group to present: so keep it to the point and explain why you have made certain decisions and the whole rationale for your solutions.
We would like to hear your pitch as though you have a finished concept for a client, so we will not be focussing on the developmental aspects to the project. We want to know the big idea, why it's perfect for your audience and your strategy for the implementation or integration of your design solutions.
My understanding of the brief:
For this study task I understand that as a group of three, we have to make the election process more interesting for 18-22 year olds, and encourage them to vote. This will be a one week brief, and we must decide who will take on what roles within the study task. We aren't expected to produce perfect, polished outcomes, but to think more about the idea behind them. We should scrutinise the election process, and see where we can make the most impact. To present our outcomes we should present a 5 minute pitch as if it was to a government organisation. It was suggested to look at the podcast called "the incredible rarity of changing your mind" for inspiration.


The Work:
Idea Generation:

Using the post it notes technique we learnt about in a previous study task, we started off by thinking why 18-22 year olds (or us as we're within that age category) don't or wouldn't vote. Some of the reasons include no incentives, politicians can't be trusted, laziness, information is too 'wordy' and uses complicated language, they make it harder than it needs to be, they're too busy with other stuff, and simply because they just forget.

We then moved on to think about solutions to 18-22 year olds not voting. Some of these included telling us the pros and cons, advertising policies not people, advertising more in smaller communities, freebies, online voting, campaigns that aren't political, and teach us about it in education.

After thinking about the solutions to this problem, we came to the conclusion that the best outcome for this problem would be a series of leaflets, one for each party, to outline who they are, what they believe in (their manifesto), and the pros and cons of their policies. Producing a very clear summary essentially of each political party, so that people get the real information in an easy to read manner. We decided we'd each produce a leaflet, but only really roughly create it to save on time. We'd each choose a different political party to produce it for. We decided on a hot dog fold as it is simple to produce and cost effective as well. On the non information side there'd be a poster promoting the party, with the words "I'm Voting..." and then the party name, to get people to vote for that party, so the leaflet could act as a poster as well you can put on your wall or in a window. We thought this would make finding out information about each party a lot easier, presenting unbiased information together.

The Leaflet breakdown:
- Hot dog fold (cheap to reproduce)
- Each leaflet will have the parties main colour (including tones) and then black and white.
- A3 sized white stock
- Where it says 'standardised' this means that it will be the same across all three leaflets, as it will be the same information and shouldn't differ between parties.

Front cover: A Jargon Buster for INSERT PARTY NAME
1st page: who they are, the leader, key members
2nd & 3rd page: what they do/believe in (manifesto)
4th page: pro's of the policies
5th page: con's of the policies
6th page: how to vote (standardised)
Back cover: Contact details

Back fold out: advertising poster. "I'm Voting...." (standardised text)

Political Party:
Mebyon Kernow (The Party for Cornwall)

Leader: Dick Cole
Who are they? Cornish nationalist, centre-left political party in Cornwall.
Key Members:
Housing and Planning - Dick Cole,
Public Services - Stephen Richardson,
Constitutional Affairs - Phil Rendle,
Environment - Loveday Jenkin,
Economy - Andrew Long,
Social Justice - Stuart Cullimore,
Children, Education and Families - Tamsin Williams.
What do they do/believe in? (Manifesto)
- Greater self-government for Cornwall
- Fair funding for Cornwall
- An end to austerity politics
- Decent public services for all
- A strategy for a sustainable economy
- A fair tax system
- Planning in and for Cornwall
- Affordable homes for local people
- A Climate Change Act for Cornwall
- A more just and peaceful World
- A reformed Europe
- Recognition for Cornwall
Pro's of their policies:
Lorem Ipsum because.....
Con's of their policies:
Lorem Ipsum because.....
Contact Details:
For general enquiries, please contact:
Mebyon Kernow,
Lanhainsworth,
Fraddon Hill,
Fraddon,
St Columb,
TR9 6PQ
For membership enquiries, please contact:
Mebyon Kernow,
34 Coombe Road,
Callington,
PL17 7PW
07908 496477 (General enquiries)
07791 876607 (Urgent enquiries)

@MebyonKernow on Twitter

facebook.com/MebyonKernow

Logo:

Production:

Typeface experiments: I wanted something that was contemporary in style, to not make the party look too stuffy and political, but yet to also appear serious as well, so it's doesn't look 'trendy' as such, and will still be taken seriously. I decided on modern serifs, that have a bit of interest to them, and are slightly softer as well.

Leaflet layout, planning where everything will go and the orientation of each page as well according to the fold.

Front page experiments: I experimented with a simplistic layout, as the text should create impact on the page to attract attention. A serif typeface and a sans serif were used, to create an interesting contrast, and to still keep it contemporary looking.

Full leaflet layouts:
The information from my research was slotted into the leaflet layout, ensuring all information is clear and to the point, there's no waffling. The pro's and con's of the policies information was placeholder text, as I didn't want to actually analyse the policies, but still wanted to show our intentions, what would actually be there if this was to be fully produced.

Layout one:

The "contacts" information and title was moved down to that the text was in line with the bottom of the text on the front cover, and the title was in line with the top of the title on the front cover, so that it was more organised and in line.

Layout two:
This is exactly the same layout as the first, only with an added yellow line across the information, to add a bit of colour so it's not just boring text. I'm not sure if this makes it look a bit stuffy and weird, this will be proved when it is printed out, however the idea is there of adding colour.

Poster:

This is the poster for the leaflet which will be printed on the back, to act as a promotional campaign poster for the political party.

Very simple poster design, using the map of Cornwall from the logo as an abstract imagery. 

The Cornwall map was taken and made smaller and produced as a repeat pattern, adding more interest to the poster and filling the blank space.

The political party name was made larger so that it has more impact, as being a serif it does get slightly lost against the patterned background, and making it larger makes it bolder.

Printed leaflet:

It does look a little bit wrinkly but this was due to the glue being too wet that I used to stick the two sides together.

Other leaflets:
These are the other leaflets that were produced by the other two people in my group.

Collection of leaflets.

Study Task evaluation:

This study task has been fairly useful to analyse why young adults don't vote as much as the older generation, and to think more about how we could change this. It was also great to have another opportunity to experiment with the post it note idea generation method, and has reinforced how useful this actually is.