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Teach A Kid To Vote

April 2024
This t-shirt and sticker design was made for the Center of 21st Studies in partnership with the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee to help encourage voting in adults and kids alike.

Every year, the Center of 21st Studies develops programming and content around a new theme. 2024’s theme, Trust and The Vote, intended to engage the public on their understanding of the democratic process in the United States and evoke the desire to learn more about the duty of voting. The project brief indicated that the campaign’s design be targeted to both adults and children and be limited to three colours in the t-shirt design. 

In an effort to be accessible, I explored a variety of sans-serif typefaces that would be legible and approachable. Ultimately, I chose Domus as my supporting typeface for its round and friendly appearance.

I felt that the most important information to portray was the word “vote”- something that would stand out from a distance and communicate the campaign’s primary goal immediately. I created custom typography to emphasize this word with blocky letters reminiscent of elementary school building blocks. The type playfully overlaps each other and sits askewed to generate energy and childish whimsy. By referencing childhood buidling blocks, I hoped to evoke a sense of nostalgia in adults and draw them into the campaign as well.
The Teach A Kid To Vote design went through a great number of iterations before reaching the final product. After conducting brief research, I hand drew a collection of concepts on Procreate. Hand sketching allowed these early sketches to be loose and experimental. The digital component of doing it on an iPad let me warp, erase and layer elements freely.

Once a few directions were pulled to move forward with, I moved on to playing with colour and composition. The winning design was originally laid out vertically as seen in the mock ups. Upon receiving feedback from my classmates, I altered it to be horizontal- a change that vastly improved the design as a whole. The horizontal layout filled the space better and was more accessible from a legibility standpoint.

My original design used bold primary colours: red, blue and yellow. They were meant to harkon back to nostalgic children’s cartoons like the Magic School Bus and the interior of an elementary school. When the design was chosen by the Center of 21st Studies, we decided to change these colours to better suit the program’s branding. I mocked up three versions of the design incorporating the desired purple and teal and the client chose their favourite to finalize.
 


Children at UWM’s Children’s Learning Center wearing their Teach A Kid To Vote t-shirts
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson holding his ‘I Taught A Kid To Vote’ sticker