The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, founded in 2016, seeks to build a democracy where all voices are heard, and college students are consistently engaged, not just during elections. It’s a nonpartisan, national initiative under the nonprofit Civic Nation.
Design Challenge
This challenge is to create social media content that inspires young adults to vote, and content that is accessible on platforms that they use in their daily lives. The message should show how easy it can be to vote and how voting is something to be celebrated.
For this design challenge I need to keep in mind the audience are first time voters, and between the age of 18-25 years old.
Research
Change Begins here….
When starting this project, I asked myself and several other people if they voted. Some said yes, no and even not interested. However, the ones that said no all had the same thoughts in common, “They didn’t believe that what they did made any difference, and that voting was time consuming and difficult.”
So how do we change their perception?
While doing research online, reading blogs and articles on why young people don’t vote, I noticed 2 common themes of feeling disconnected and that voting was time consuming and difficult. As I was doing research, I was asking questions like, “how do we change the disconnect and show people that it does make a difference and voting is easy?”
I decided to focus on how Voting is easy and not time consuming and looked at all the options for how people vote so I could find the easiest way to vote to share with young adults. Young adults all use social media, all live on computers and are very comfortable with completing forms and processes from their dorms, and homes.
Design Idea 1-Polling Booth
Concept: The animation starts with a simple polling booth popping out of thin air. A voter’s hand comes from the side of the frame, a ballot appears in their hand, and they insert it into a ballot box. The process repeats with different colored hands to represent diversity.
Audio: Several Popping Sfx and whoosh sounds, as well as some sliding paper sounds.
Concept: The isometric room shows the young adult at their desk. It shows a Ballot completed and they this ballot flies from the person around and opens before entering the ballot box. The animation shows how easy voting from home is for voters.
Audio: Primarily music, chill lo-fi music to help emphasize the comfortable relaxed feeling that is trying to be made.
Reference
Concept: The animation begins with holding a smartphone, showing various app icons on the screen. The user taps the “Vote” icon, and the phone screen transforms into a voting booth. Voting amendments for review display. Once completed the screen returns to the home screen, ready for another swipe and tap in the loop.
Audio: Several tapping and phone SFX, as well as some transition and whoosh SFX
Reference
Reference for design
Reference
Design Idea 2-Make Voting Easy
Design Idea 3-One Tap
Font
Design 1 -Polling Booth
Minimalist & Clean
Characteristics: Simple shapes, clean lines, ample white space, and a focus on typography.
Why it Works: This style feels modern, fresh, and professional, which aligns with the emerging adult identity of this age group.
Vector
Characteristics: Complex shapes, and strong perspective use to draw the watcher to the center of the screen
Why it Works: Vector 2D art is lightweight and easily shareable, which is important for a generation that frequently shares content online. It’s also accessible across different devices and platforms, ensuring a consistent experience for everyone.
Design Elements
Color
The Color for this project is to be simple and clean, with high contrast and white space to add more emphasis to the key parts of each animation. Goal is to keep the message very focused for impact and to minimize distraction
Design 2 -Make Voting Easy
Minimalist & Clean
Characteristics: Simple shapes, clean lines, ample white space, and a focus on typography.
Why it Works: This style feels modern, fresh, and professional, which aligns with the emerging adult identity of this age group.
Bebas Neue is a clean, bold sans serif typeface, This font was selected due to it’s minimalist design, and this aligns with the bold 3D design for the animation. The font is modern and represents a smart consumer of content. Clean and clear for messaging & modern appeal.
Design 3 -One Tap
Selected Design- Make Voting Easy
3D & Isometric Design Style
Originally the ballot would rotate and fly into a ballot box for “Mail in ballots” however this Idea was rejected in pursuit of a more symbolic approach that more people would recognize. Here is an old storyboard of the old idea.
Characteristics: Use of 3D elements, isometric perspectives, and realistic or stylized environments.
Why it Works: 3D design is engaging and immersive, adding depth and sophistication that can appeal to younger viewers looking for visually rich content. 3D is modern and invites the viewer into the content. This will be successful in helping the voter feel like “they can vote easily”
Explorations
1st Pass
2nd Pass
There was no official second pass for this project, we moved straight into a final pass however this version was rendered to show the client the progression and different font options.
Initial storyboard to pitch how the animation was originally intended to play, The ending was scrapped in favor of having the box itself turn into the ballot box.
Motion test
An initial motion test to see how the animation and story was coming across, also feedback and direction on 3D lighting gave some ideas which would be used for the next pass.
Technical Execution
3d Design Techniques
The building of the 3D animation was complex because I had to do a 3D character animation in 2 weeks, I had to think of an efficient way to have the character move while still having enough movement to tell a story.
Complex Character Rigging
Character rigging is a complex process and can be extremely time consuming. During this process I discovered ways to be more efficient using Mixamo. Then I added a motion path between several different animations to create a transition between all the movements.
Learnings
During this project I learned more about the voting process. I learned that the voter is complex in their issues and concerns and that while a clear message is critical, it can’t be over simplified and childish in the approach to the audience. I learned that creating impactful content on social media must have dynamic images, easy messages and be short in timing to keep viewers. (Fun Fact this project was uploaded to Ringling Votes’s Instagram page October 23rd 2024.)
