Posts tagged design
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One thing I like to do when national politics have me spiraling into a panic (or, shockingly, when they have me feeling optimistic) is volunteer with Tech for Campaigns. If you have experience in engineering/product/design/etc. and want to help build websites or run email marketing for smaller campaigns, it's a great way to connect with talented, like-minded people and feel like you're actually helping.

As part of that, I've seen a lot of campaign websites this cycle. Sometimes the candidates recommend designs they like. Sometimes I'm out looking for inspiration. Since the content on these sites is generally very similar, it's interesting to see the different design approaches.

So, in no particular order, here's my partisan, totally subjective, and very non-exhaustive list of the best political website designs from 2024.

Elissa Slotkin for Michigan

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This one is my favorite. Love the color palette, the background textures, and (most of all) the triangular decorative elements.

Lisa Blunt Rochester for U.S. Senate

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Nice use of background photos. The transitions in the issues and latest updates sections are worth visiting the site to check out.

Bryon Best For Congress

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A different approach to background photos that creates a very cool overflow effect.

Haley Stevens for Congress

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The colors here pop and they've managed to create a really eye-catching layout just using overlapping rectangles.

Madeleine Dean for Congress

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A little more muted but everything about this site is so clean. The opaque design flourishes are subtle but keep things from feeling boring.

Josh Harder for Congress

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Mostly included for the timeline on the Josh's Story page but the homepage layout is good too.

Tanya for Congress TX 27

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A lot to like here! The Texas flag as a book logo for a teacher, the ribbon/bookmark motif, and the angled backgrounds complementing both. It all flows together really nicely.

Sydney Kamlager – For Congress District 37

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Another example of an angled background pairing well with a logo.

A few months ago, I started trying to do a little design cleanup on this site and it prompted me to finally do something I probably should’ve done way back at the beginning: create a brand board. Even though it’s a little late in the game, it still turned out to be a pretty useful task. It helped weed out some patterns and colors that didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the site. It inspired some new approaches. I’ve also started doing a stripped down version for creating promo assets for my fonts.

I started out with the free template from Nesha Woolery’s great post How to create a brand board but made some changes based on my own quirks and preferences. I found it easier to use Smart Objects for patterns, wanted a more widely available font for labels, didn’t need an extra section for alternative logos, etc. Since that original template was so useful as a starting point for me, I thought I should pay it forward and offer up my version for download.

The file is available as a PSD created with Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 and you can take a look at the layout below.

Download it here.