AIGA GET OUT THE VOTE 2020

AIGA GET OUT THE VOTE + AIGA EMPOWER THE WOMEN’S VOTE CAMPAIGNS

As chair of the Design for Democracy initiative, I’m proud to have been able to lead two of AIGA’s major community-outreach campaigns in such a monumental year. Every four years since 2000, AIGA has activated its community of designers across the U.S. and beyond to Get Out the Vote. The Design for Democracy initiative aims to increase civic participation through design. This civic engagement initiative wields the power of design to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote in the 2020 general election, as well as local elections to come. The core of the Get Out the Vote campaigns are online galleries of original, nonpartisan posters generated by AIGA members for printing and public distribution.

the 2020 general Get Out the Vote campaign

For the 2020 general Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaign, AIGA partnered with Nonprofit VOTE and expanded its traditional call for posters to include additional sizes / communication vehicles so nonprofit organizations and election officials would have a more versatile pool of resources at the sizes they need: poster, postcard, billboard, social posts. We provided our members with a creative brief and templates, and let the Nonprofit VOTE weekly challenges serve as a guide for important messaging and deadlines.

the 2020 empowering the women’s Vote campaign

In 2020, AIGA also recognized the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920 with a special edition of Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote. The centennial campaign commemorates the first legislation for women’s voting rights (not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were voting rights of all women protected and enforced).

For the centennial activation, I played advisory support, oversight and advocacy to Kelly Salchow MacArthur and Nancy Skolos — who initiated and led the Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote project. The Get Out the Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster campaign, in partnership with the League of Women Voters, invited AIGA members to design nonpartisan posters to commemorate the beginning of 100 years of women’s voting rights. A core group of invited women of design submitted the first 63 posters, to launch the initiative with inspirational work. This campaign aspires to not only support voter participation, but to also serve as a backdrop for dialogue and examination of the history of voting rights and women’s fight for equality. For this campaign, Kelly and Nancy also helped organize physical exhibits at various museums and gallery spaces.

The AIGA national staff also supported both campaigns and the overarching Design for Democracy initiative with a free webinar series leading up to the election. This along with chapter-led activations showed the impact design can have on community and the impact community can have to support design and civic engagement.

Stats for engagement / reach to come. Visit TALKS+ to for related speaking / panel / moderator events.

A LIST of 2020 CAMPAIGN activations can be found at AIGA.org/vote