The Reflective Democracy Campaign investigates and confronts the demographics of power in the United States in order to build a democracy where everyone is represented in the halls of power.
We began working with RDC to improve their report design so that their data and findings could reach a wider audience. Since then, we’ve gone on to refresh their branding, redesign their website, and create additional collateral so they can continue sharing their findings and spearhead the movement for a reflective democracy.
Reflective Democracy Campaign
Services provided
- Brand Support
- Branding
- Content Strategy
- Illustration
- Social Media Design
- User Experience Strategy
- Web Design
- WordPress Development
Building on what came before
The Reflective Democracy Campaign had been around many years before we began working with them. Whenever an organization has pedigree, we like to build up from existing materials when we can. You don’t always need to throw everything away when working on a new brand. Their unique palette and interest in visuals paired with data gave us that starting place.
Adjusting the colors to have more vibrancy and have enough contrast to pair well together gave us a unique palette to work with across all collateral and material. And after a very long search, Fort Foundry’s Industry echoed not only the past RDC logo, but also the data visualization work of W.E.B DuBois and signage used during key protests that happened throughout the US’ history.
The megaphone icon resonated with the team, and through a collaborative sketching and revising process, we found a unique take. RDC is here to deliver information and help grassroots organizations hear the signal over the noise. Like the typography, it also had origins in the language of protest.
Summarizing findings so that readers become engaged and dive in
The website needed to summarize what RDC’s research has uncovered and provide pathways to their in-depth analysis. Our audiences of journalists, grassroots organizations, and invested members of the public all have different ways of thinking about issues, so our pathways need to engage them all.
The RDC team created outlines that summarized the intersectional aspects of their work across critical issues. From there, we designed pages in Figma that we would revise together, ensuring content and imagery worked together to keep the facts of the data prominent and succinct.
WordPress blocks paired with Highcharts allowed us to create pages that pulled readers into data and guided them to the library of reports. With our ongoing relationship, we can help the RDC team keep the website updated and tweak the presentation of information so we’re sure we’re continuing to serve our audiences as best as possible.
Designing for print is as important as designing for the web
A similar process of iteration and revision exists for our ongoing report work. We designed a base visual language to use for all reports so that we could quickly produce drafts for review by RDC. Often, their reports are related to actual world events, so getting them out efficiently is essential. The RDC team does a wonderful job pushing us to remember to create interesting ways to relay information. Combined with our experience in creating understandable data visualizations, it helps the information grab RDC’s audiences’ attention.
Illustrating the important issues
Knowing we have illustration skills available, the RDC team asked us to rely on illustrations rather than photographs as our primary method of communicating complex concepts.
The team understands the time it can take to find the right concept, so we often start this process early in the deliverable design timeline. More than once, we’ve scraped a bit close to the deadline because a better idea suddenly presented itself. However, we have created a collaborative relationship where we can budget and account for that happening, creating a stronger end product.
Working with the Reflective Democracy Campaign is an exciting part of our job. Being able to distill down complex concepts and situations so journalists and others can understand and share is an essential need in the world. Design is uniquely equipped to meet that need.
We want to use our skills and experience to help such important work, and we’re so glad that RDC trusts us as partners to help them meet their reflective democracy goal.
